Students’ academic motivation: relations with parental warmth, autonomy granting, and supervision

In this investigation we assessed the relationships between perceptions of parenting and student’s academic motivation and success. College students completed a series of questionnaires assessing perceptions of parental warmth, autonomy granting, and supervision, and perceptions of academic control. Findings revealed different models for males and females. For females, perception of control was predicted by parental warmth and supervision. For males, only parental warmth was a significant predictor of perceptions of control. Perception of control predicted grade point average for both males and females. Parenting probably influences the development of motivational beliefs during childhood and adolescence and these beliefs continue to be important into the college years. Additionally, our findings of gender differences suggest that the effects of parenting may be moderated by the child’s gender.