The effects of parental involvement on students’ academic self-efficacy, engagement and intrinsic motivation

This research examined whether various dimensions of parental involvement predicted 10th-grade students’ motivation (engagement, self-efficacy towards maths and English, intrinsic motivation towards maths and English) using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS 2002). Results showed that both parents’ educational aspiration for their children and school-initiated contact with parents on benign school issues had strong positive effects on all five motivational outcomes. On the contrary, parent–school contact concerning students’ school problems was negatively related to all five motivational outcomes investigated in the study. Additionally, parental advising positively predicted students’ academic self-efficacy in English as well as intrinsic motivation towards English, and family rules for watching television were positively linked to students’ engagement and intrinsic motivation towards both English and maths.