Puklek Levpuscek M. and Zupancic M. 2009

The Journal of Early
Adolescence
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Math Achievement in Early Adolescence: The Role of Parental

Involvement, Teachers' Behavior, and Students' Motivational
Beliefs About Math
Melita Puklek Levpuscek and Maja Zupancic
The Journal of Early Adolescence 2009; 29; 541 originally published online
Nov 5, 2008;
DOI: 10.1177/0272431608324189
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Journal of Early Adolescence
Volume 29 Number 4
August 2009 541-570
© 2009 SAGE Publications
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The Role of Parental Involvement,

Teachers’ Behavior, and Students’
Motivational Beliefs About Math
Melita Puklek Levpušček
Maja Zupančič
University of Ljubljana
Contributions of parental involvement in educational pursuits as well as math

teachers’ classroom behavior to students’ motivation and performance in
math were investigated. By the end of the first school term, 365 Slovene
eighth graders reported on their parents’ academic involvement (pressure,
support, and help) and their math teachers’ behavior in the classroom (sup-
port, academic press, and mastery goal). During the second term, the students
filled-in the questionnaires on their motivational beliefs about math, and at
the end of the school year, their final math grade was obtained from school
records. Both of the social contexts significantly predicted students’ out-
comes. Students’ perceptions of math teachers’ behavior were predictive of
both motivational beliefs and achievement in math, over and above the
account of students’ evaluations of their parents’ involvement. Furthermore,
parental academic pressure and support were directly (negatively) related to
students’ math grades. The contributions of parental pressure, math teachers’
academic press, and teachers’ mastery goal on math achievement were medi-
ated through the students’ self-efficacy in this school course.
Keywords: early adolescence; parents; teachers; motivational beliefs;

math achievement
A cademic achievement indicates student’s attainment of knowledge and

skills formulated by learning goals in school curricula. It may serve as
an important predictor of adolescents’ further education, their future pro-
fessional career opportunities, attainment of social status, and personal
well-being (Campbell & Mandel, 1990; Haveman & Wolfe, 1984; Oswald,
1997). Educational professionals thus continuously seek ways to enhance
541

542 Journal of Early Adolescence
students’ academic achievement. Considerable effort is devoted to strength-

ening students’ social contexts related to education, especially in identify-
ing effective strategies, which could be employed by parents and teachers
to bolster students’ appreciation of academic endeavors (Marchant,
Paulson, & Rothlisberg, 2001). Recent studies also focus on dimensions of
parental and teacher behavior that regulate students’ motivational beliefs in
education, and may contribute to academic achievement directly as well as
indirectly, through students’ “inner resources” (e.g., de Bruyn, Dekovic′, &
Meijnen, 2003; Gottfried, Fleming, & Gottfried, 1994; Marchant et al.,
2001; Patrick, Ryan, & Kaplan, 2007).
The purpose of the present study was to explore these relations in the math
domain and with a sample of Slovene eighth grade students. Precisely, our
inquiry was focused on the eighth graders’ final math grades and on students’
perceptions of their: (a) parents’ involvement in educational pursuits, (b)
math teachers’ classroom behavior, and (c) motivational beliefs about math
(mastery goal orientation and self-efficacy). Students namely respond to what
they perceived in their learning environments (Middleton & Midgley, 2002)
rather than to parents’ and teachers’ evaluations of these settings and/or to
actual educational contexts (Marchant et al., 2001). Thus, we relied on ado-
lescents’ ratings of both family and math classroom contexts. Students also
provided self-report on their motivational beliefs about math. Although self-
reports are subject to different kinds of errors (likewise reports by others),
they provide a valuable source of information about individuals who actually
have most accurate access to their inner states (Barbaranelli, Caprara,
Rabasca, & Pastorelli, 2003). Taking into consideration adolescents’ self-
reports and their reports on others, we compromised for the same-rater bias in
relation to motivational beliefs but not to math achievement as students were
graded by their math teachers. The shared-method variance problem was
partly solved by collecting the data at different time points of the school year.
Educational Context of the Study

Most studies of related topics available in literature were conducted in
English speaking (especially in the United States) or other Western European
Authors’ Note: This study was funded by grants from the Slovene Research Agency and the
Slovene Ministry for Education and Sports. We would also like to thank Gregor Sočan for pro-
viding statistical assistance and the four anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions.
Address correspondence to Melita Puklek Levpušček, Department of Psychology, University
of Ljubljana, Aškerceva 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia; e-mail: melita.puklek@ff.uni-lj.si.

Levpušček, Zupančič / Math Achievement in Early Adolescence 543
countries. Educational theories and models that have been developed in the
same cultural/educational contexts were examined. Data from broader range
of environmental settings are needed to test the extant models and theories as
education spreads across the globe in contexts of different types of curricula,
instructional practices, and school settings (e.g., de Bruyn et al., 2003;
Koutsoulis & Campbell, 2001; Mullis, Martin, Gonzales, & Chrostowski,
2004). Slovenia (a small Central European country) provides such a different
cultural and educational setting. Its school system consists of a 9-year basic
education (elementary school with entry age at 6) that is divided into triads.
A transition from the first into the second triad is characterized by an intro-
duction of quantitative school grading as opposed to descriptive reports on
students’ performance. Other types of changes (e.g., introduction of new
school courses, increasing levels of course difficulty, and criteria of grading)
take place gradually during the next triads. In grade eight, each of the school
courses is taught by a course-specific teacher. Students experience ability-
grouping and attend math lessons 4 hours per week. Thus, the students’ per-
ception of their math teachers was already well established at the end of the
first school term on conducting our first recording.
Slovene parents are strongly involved in their children’s education, that is,
they show a high level of interest in students’ schooling, they provide exten-
sive academic help, and instruction and support for students’ academic work
(particularly math) at home (Japelj Pavešic′, 2004). However, these parental
practices are performed in a somewhat specific cultural/educational context.
The international study Trends in International Mathematics and Science
Study (TIMSS)1 showed that students’ home educational resources are esti-
mated to be considerably scarcer than in the United States (mostly due to
lower parental education and fewer literary resources), although these esti-
mates are still above the international average (IA). The Slovene eighth
graders’ expectations to finish university are lower compared with the U.S.
data and even to IA. Similarly, Slovene eighth graders view their mothers as
placing less importance on students’ doing well academically compared with
the eighth graders’ perception of their mothers established in the majority of
other countries (Mullis et al., 2000, 2004; Zupančič, Gril, Štraus, & Brečko,
2002). Slovene early adolescents perceive their mothers as putting more
emphasis on students’ school grades than on academic knowledge acquisition
(Japelj Pavešic′, 2004). An unusually high proportion of Slovene eighth
graders (two thirds) report they need to do well in math (get good grades) to
please their parents while their attitudes toward school courses (math in par-
ticular) are substantially less positive in comparison to both the IA and the
U.S. data (e.g., Mullis et al., 2000). It seems that Slovene adolescents and

their parents place much more emphasis on grades than they value high-
academic aspirations and attainment of knowledge itself (Japelj Pavešic′,
2004). Nevertheless, the Slovene students perform academically well (more
than IA in math and science), hold a moderate academic self-concept (around
IA), and set moderate long-term academic goals (Mullis et al., 2000; Mullis
et al., 2004).
Slovene students and their parents start coping with the fact that high-
academic achievement at the end of elementary school is an important
requirement to enter an academically demanding secondary school (e.g.,
gymnasium). This is especially true of the eighth and ninth graders. As
most of them strive for postsecondary education in the long run (Mullis
et al., 2000; Mullis et al., 2004), a high proportion of them aims at enrolling
into the gymnasium. Therefore, we considered it of special relevance to
start our study in grade eight.2 Math was of particular interest to us because
(a) it is one of the three core courses, (b) the students perceive it to be a dif-
ficult course in absolute as well as relative terms in comparison with other
courses and with reports of their peers from other countries about math
(Japelj Pavešic′, 2004; Mullis et al., 2000; Zupančič et al., 2002), (c) the
students’ enrollment into a desired secondary school depends on their com-
posite academic accomplishment score that also contains grades in the core
courses, (d) international indicators of math achievement developed by
TIMSS show that math performance in Slovene eighth graders has been
slightly decreasing during the past decade (Mullis et al., 2000; Mullis et al.,
2004), and (e) math is a core school course that is probably the most
domain-compatible across countries.
Furthermore, previous studies in Slovenia and other Western countries
(most studies originated from the United States) showed that students’
value perception and self-efficacy within the math domain decline during
early adolescent years (e.g., Gottfried, Fleming, & Gottfried, 2001; for a
review, see Meece, Bower Glienke, & Burg, 2006; Peklaj, Žagar, Pečjak, &
Puklek Levpušček, 2006). Changes such as puberty, striving for affirmation
in peer groups, growing needs for self-delineation, and engagement in
extracurricular activities, on one hand, and on the other hand, increased dif-
ficulty of the math syllabus may present some of the factors contributing to
a decreased interest in math. Nevertheless, significant adult figures retain
an important role in enhancing academic motivation and achievement in
early adolescents. Internalization of academic values through personal mes-
sages that students receive in their learning contexts (family, school) is a
continuous process that proceeds into students’ late compulsory school
years (Marchant et al., 2001).

Parental Involvement, Teacher Classroom Behavior,

and Students’ Academic Achievement
The individual role of family and school social contexts in adolescents’
academic achievement has been well documented (e.g., de Bruyn et al., 2003;
Fan & Chen, 2001; Goodnow, 1993; Koutsoulis & Campbell, 2001; Patrick
et al., 2007; Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch, & Darling, 1992). In general,
parental involvement in adolescents’ schooling and supportive teaching style
was found to be positively linked to students’ achievement. In line with
Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) ecological perspective on human development and
suggestions by authors of recent studies (e.g., Marchant et al., 2001; Paulson,
Marchant, & Rothlisberg, 1998), we examined a mesosystem model, taking
into account adolescents’ perceptions of their family and classroom settings.
As the individuals develop within multiple environments that can contradict
or complement each other in terms of their relations with developmental out-
comes, we were looking for combined effects of the two social contexts on
students’ math achievements. To be able to consider both of them as well as
adolescents’ motivational beliefs, and to prevent attrition of the sample, we
selected a few contextual variables that appear directly relevant for the pur-
poses of the study and the students’ perceptions of both parental involvement
in adolescents’ educational pursuits and math teachers’ classroom behavior.
Parental involvement in students’ education is a multidimensional con-
struct defined by parents’ behavior related to children’s education, for
example, participation in school activities and parent-teacher interactions,
helping the child with homework and other school-related activities, con-
trol and support of the child’s academic progress, imparting of own educa-
tional values to the child, and responding to his or her school grades
(Gonzalez-DeHass, Willems, & Doan Holbein, 2005). The results of a
meta-analysis (Fan & Chen, 2001) suggested small to moderate and practi-
cally meaningful positive relations of parental involvement in school activ-
ities with students’ academic performance. However, the size of the
associations was dependent on a domain of parental involvement. Parents’
supervision of children at home (rules for watching TV, doing schoolwork)
had the weakest relationships with students’ academic achievement, pre-
sumably because a closer parental supervision may be the result of poor
academic performance of their children. On the other hand, parents’ aspira-
tion and expectation of children’s academic accomplishments had the
strongest relationship with academic achievement.
The current study considered three dimensions of adolescents’ percep-
tions of parental involvement in their education that were previously

demonstrated to be linked to adolescents’ math achievement (Campbell &

Mandel, 1990; Koutsoulis & Campbell, 2001). They were the following: (a)
parental academic pressure, referring to demands and expectations exerted
on children by parent to maintain a high level of performance; (b) parental
academic support, suggesting a supportive domestic atmosphere related to
adolescent’s education, that is, interest in adolescents’ learning and encour-
agement of effort, enthusiasm about adolescents’ school activities, pride,
and expectations concerning adolescents’ future education; and (c) parental
academic help, referring to parents’ assistance with students’ schoolwork
(homework, studying for tests). Parental academic pressure was found to
have detrimental effects on math achievement in Cypriot high school
students, while parental academic support suggested a beneficial effect
(Koutsoulis & Campbell, 2001). Similarly, with fifth- and sixth-grade U.S.
children, low levels of parental academic pressure and academic help along
with high levels of parental academic support contributed to high levels of
math achievement (Campbell & Mandel, 1990). Accordingly, we proposed
that the students’ perceptions of parental academic pressure and help would
be negatively associated with math achievement, but that parental guiding
and stimulating of adolescents’ academic engagement (academic support)
would be positively linked to their achievement.
Significant relations between teaching dimensions and early adoles-
cents’ academic performance were also established (e.g., Brekelmans,
Wubbels, & Levy, 1993; Marchant et al., 2001; Wentzel, 1997, 2002). In
accordance with Wentzel’s (1997) finding that effective socialization
dimensions generalize to dimensions of effective teaching, we expected
that students’ perceptions of their math teacher’s classroom practices would
predict their achievement in the course. We focused on students’ percep-
tions of three teaching dimensions: math teachers’ academic support, acad-
emic press, and mastery goal. Perceptions of teacher’s academic support
include students’ observations that the teacher cares about their learning,
tries to help them learn, and wants them to do their best (Patrick et al.,
2007). When students experience support by their teacher, they are more
likely to engage in their academic work and are likely to have high achieve-
ment (Goodnow, 1993; Wentzel, 1994, 1997). Teacher’s mastery goal refers
to perceptions of teachers’ messages reflecting concern with students’
developing competence and skills, and emphasizes learning and under-
standing (Midgley et al., 2000; Urdan & Schoenfelder, 2006). Evidence
suggests that students’ perceptions of an emphasis on mastery goal in the
classroom are positively associated with coping with academic difficulty
and achievement (Kaplan & Midgley, 1999; Urdan & Midgley, 2003).

Finally, the teacher’s academic press for understanding involves students’

perceptions of teachers’ demands for cognitive engagement in the class-
room. It includes both expectations and techniques that teachers use to
probe, to check for, and ensure understanding by students in the classroom.
Perceptions of teacher press for understanding were shown to be related to
adolescents’ adaptive patterns of learning, including their learning in the
math domain (Middleton & Midgley, 2002).
Moreover, several studies showed that students’ representations of
teachers’ responsiveness and pedagogical caring (teacher support) accounted
for additional variance in school performance measures even after controlling
for parental dimensions (Marchant et al., 2001; Puklek Levpušček, 2004;
Ryan, Stiller, & Lynch, 1994). The authors also propose that academic behav-
iors of students may be specifically shaped by classroom demands where
teachers place high-academic demands and offer students support during
instruction, as appears to be the case in math classrooms (Middleton &
Midgley, 2002; Turner et al., 2002). Accordingly, we hypothesized that per-
ceptions of math teachers’ practices (support, mastery goal, and academic
press) in the classroom could explain a significant amount of variance in math
achievement, over and above the perceptions of parental involvement in
students’ academics.
Learning Environment, Motivational Beliefs,

and Academic Success
A motivational model relying on the premise that the source of motiva-
tion is internal to the child (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 1985; Skinner & Belmont,
1993) suggests the potential influence of social contexts on academic
engagement to be realized when significant figures provide for students’
basic psychological needs. If these needs are met, students will develop
positive beliefs about the self, which in turn favorably contribute to their
motivation for learning. Students who perceived their parents as placing
much emphasis on effort and academic achievement, for example, reported
on higher academic self-efficacy than their peers who experienced the
parents to put less value on academic effort and achievement (Marchant
et al., 2001). In turn, academic self-efficacy, defined as student’s beliefs
about their ability to learn or perform specific tasks (Bandura, 1986, 1997),
has been positively correlated with academic achievement across studies of
different grade levels (Schunk & Pajares, 2002). Furthermore, self-efficacy
contributed to achievement directly and indirectly through students’ goals
for course achievement (Zimmerman & Bandura, 1994).

Similarly, parental school involvement is directly linked to students’

mastery goal orientation (Gonzalez, Doan Holbein, & Quilter, 2002).
Mastery goal orientation is a motivational belief related to reasons of
engagement in schoolwork such as developing one’s competence or mas-
tering learning content (Ames & Archer, 1988). Although mastery goal ori-
entation is positively related to students’ use of adaptive learning strategies
(Ames & Archer, 1988), academic self-efficacy (Middleton & Midgley,
2002), interest in schoolwork and task involvement (Harackiewicz, Barron,
Tauer, Carter, & Elliot, 2000), its association with early adolescents’ acad-
emic achievement has been found either nonsignificant or positive, yet nev-
ertheless weak (e.g., Wentzel, 1998, 2002).
Teachers’ pedagogical care is also important in enhancing students’ acade-
mic efforts (Wentzel, 1997). When early adolescents perceived support from
teachers, this uniquely contributed to their classroom functioning, motivation,
and positive attitudes toward school (Ryan et al., 1994; Wentzel, 1997, 1998).
Accordingly, fifth-grade students’ perceptions of the math teacher as respect-
ful and supportive promoted their mastery goal orientation and self-efficacy in
the math domain (Patrick et al., 2007). In addition, Wentzel (2002) demon-
strated a beneficial role of teachers’ maturity demands in students’ academic
behavior. Teachers’ high expectations about students’ cognitive engagement
predicted students’ mastery goal orientation. Similarly, Middleton and
Midgley (2002) found that teachers pressing the students to engage thought-
fully in their work (academic press for understanding) would likely have
students who engage in learning for mastery and improvement.
Consistent with the previous findings, we expected that (a) the students’
perceptions of parental involvement and math teachers’ classroom behavior
would both predict the eighth graders’ motivational beliefs about math, and
that (b) the students’ assessments of math teachers’ classroom practices would
predict the students’ motivational beliefs over and beyond the prediction based
on parental involvement. As adolescents may view high parental academic
pressure and help as overcontrolling, such perceptions may undermine the
students’ sense of competence and autonomy and promote dependency on
external sources for academic guidance and evaluation (Gonzalez-DeHass
et al., 2005). Thus, we assumed that the students’ perceptions of these two
types of parental academic involvement would be negatively associated with
mastery goal orientation and self-efficacy, whereas the remaining contextual
variables under consideration were hypothesized to be positively linked to
students’ motivational beliefs. We also predicted that both students’ academic
self-efficacy and mastery goal orientation in the math domain would positively
contribute to their math achievement.

Figure 1
Hypothesized Model of Relations Between Parental
and Teaching Dimensions, Motivational Beliefs About
Math, and Math Achievement
Parental Involvement
Academic Pressure
Academic Support
Academic Help
Motivational Beliefs
about Math Math
Achievement
Academic Self-Efficacy Final Grade
Mastery Goal Orientation
Math Teachers'
Classroom Behavior
Academic Support
Academic Press
Mastery Goal
Finally, direct and indirect effects of the eighth graders’ perceptions of

both parental and math teachers’ classroom behavior on math achievement
were investigated. The extant research findings suggest that motivational
beliefs mediate the links between students’ perceptions of learning envi-
ronment and their academic achievement (e.g., de Bruyn et al., 2003;
Koutsoulis & Campbell, 2001; Marchant et al., 2001; Patrick et al., 2007).
Thus, we predicted that part of the social context effects on the final math
grade would be indirect, mediated by students’ self-efficacy and mastery
goal orientation in the math domain. Consistently with literature reviews,
including the reports in the math domain (Middleton & Midgley, 2002), we
also proposed that students’ self-efficacy and mastery goal orientation
would be positively related. The hypothesized model is shown in Figure 1.
Method
Participants
The sample consisted of 365 eighth grade students who were recruited
in 13 schools from different regions of Slovenia. Eight urban (from five
cities) and five rural schools were selected randomly from a list provided

by the Slovene Bureau of Education and Development. Students, for whom

written parental consent was obtained, took part in the study (about 90% of
all of the eighth graders attending these schools). Mean age of the partici-
pants at the beginning of the study was 13.47 years (SD = .33); 52.3% of
them were girls (n = 191); 32.8% of the students’ mothers and 44.9% of the
fathers completed elementary or vocational school, 37.4% and 31.3% of the
mothers and the fathers, respectively, were high school graduates; and
29.8% of the mothers and 23.8% of the fathers completed additional 2 or 3
years of higher education or held a university degree.
Measures
Two measures developed for use with English speaking populations in
the United States were employed, that is, the Inventory of Parental
Influence (IPI-child version; Campbell, 1994) and the Patterns of Adaptive
Learning Scales (PALS; Midgley et al., 2000). The instruments were trans-
lated to Slovene language by two Slovene psychologists and back translated
by a bilingual (American English—Slovene) psychologist. The final ver-
sions of the questionnaires are based on the translators’ agreement that the
translation reflects the original meaning of items. However, slight wording
modifications were also made in some parts of the questionnaires in order
to better capture Slovene family, cultural, and classroom contexts (e.g., the
elementary school students usually do not do their homework at night;
parents like them to read, but almost never right before they go to sleep).
Parental Involvement
The IPI-child version (Campbell, 1994) is a Likert-type questionnaire
capturing students’ perceptions of parental involvement in their intellectual
and academic development. In the present study, the students were asked to
assess the parent who they perceive as more involved in their academic
activities (instead of addressing both parents).
Part I of the IPI includes parental academic pressure and parental academic
support items. Students report on their relative agreement along a 5-point rat-
ing scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). Part II consists of
parental academic help, parental press for intellectual development, and
parental monitoring/time management items. It uses frequency rating scales (a
5-point scale ranging from 1 = never to 5 = always). Separate principal com-
ponent analyses (PCA) for the two sections of the IPI were performed and
consistent structures emerged with students’ reports from different countries
and ethnic groups (Campbell, 1994, 1996; Koutsoulis & Campbell, 2001).

Conducting the same procedure, the PCA with the current Slovene data like-
wise suggested a two-component structure of the first part of the IPI (account-
ing for 37% of the variance) and a three-component structure of its second part
(explaining 40% of the variance). Followed by a varimax rotation, the com-
ponent loadings of the items were analyzed. All items that make up the final
scale scores loaded primarily on one component only and exceeded the .32
loadings on this component.3 Following this procedure, two scales (Press for
Intellectual Development, Monitoring/Time Management) were composed
only of a few original items. The scales denoted parental pressure for reading
and parental rules for watching TV. However, our further analyses focused on
the scale scores that describe direct parental involvement in adolescent’s
schoolwork only. Composition of the three scales (the original labeling was
retained) with the existing Slovene sample is described below.
Parental Pressure contains 13 items (all of these being the original ones).
They suggest an academically demanding atmosphere at home wherein
students experience lots of pressure to retain high levels of school performance,
for example, “My parent does not feel I’m doing my best in school.” The scale
with the data on the existing sample showed a high internal reliability (α = .87).
Parental Support includes seven items of the original scale, while the
remaining six items (parental enthusiasm about adolescent education,
pride, and expectations concerning adolescent’s future education) did not
have satisfactory loadings on this component. Thus, the reduced scale
includes items of parents’ interest in adolescent school learning and their
encouragement of academic effort, for example, “My parents are satisfied
if I do my best.” Using the current data, its internal reliability (α = .75)
appeared satisfactory.
Parental Help captures 9 out of 10 original items. These relate to
parental help with homework, revision of mistakes from tests, and help with
studying for tests, for example, “When I bring home a test paper, my parent
goes over my mistakes with me.” Using the current data, the scale demon-
strated a high internal reliability (α = .81).
Teachers’ Classroom Behavior

Math Teacher’s Academic Support Scale is a five-item measure
redesigned from an earlier version of the Teacher’s Support Scale (Puklek,
2001). The original scale was previously applied with 13- to 18-year-olds
and demonstrated considerable internal consistency (α = .74) as well as
external validity with students’ intrinsic motivation and academic self-
efficacy as criterion variables (Puklek, 2001). For present purposes, the

items were rephrased in order to describe classroom behavior of math

teachers. Thus, they refer to the math teachers’ emotional support, respon-
siveness, help, and verbal praising of student’s good work in math. The
scale begins with an introductory sentence: “To what extent does your math
teacher,” for example, “offer you help when you face difficulties with your
schoolwork in math.” The responding format for the items is 1 (not at all),
2 (a little), 3 (to some extent), and 4 (a lot). With the current data, the inter-
nal reliability of the scale was estimated to α = .80.
Academic Press and Teacher Mastery Goal are the two scales of the
PALS (Midgley et al., 2000). These describe students’ perceptions of
teachers’ pressure for understanding and mastery goal orientation in a given
classroom. When administered to both middle school and high school
students, both scales were reported to be internally reliable by Midgley
et al. (2000), with αs of .79 and .83 for Academic Press and Teacher
Mastery Goal, respectively. The items employed in our study were
rephrased to describe students’ perception of their math teachers’ behavior.
The informants responded along a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 (not at all
true) through 5 (very true).
Academic Press (five items) refers to students’ perceptions of math
teachers’ pressure for understanding, thorough thinking and placing full effort
into learning, for example, “When I’ve figured out how to do a problem, my
math teacher gives me more challenging problems to think about.” The inter-
nal consistency estimate of the scale using the current data was high (α = .80).
Teacher Mastery Goal (seven items) covers students’ perceptions of the
math teachers’ support of their effort to develop competence, for example,
“My math teacher wants us to understand our work, not just memorize it.”
With the current data of Slovene eighth graders, this scale also demon-
strated considerable internal coherence (α = .78).
Students’ Motivational Beliefs About Math

Two scales of the PALS (Midgley et al., 2000), Mastery Goal
Orientation (Revised) and Academic Efficacy, were considered. The items
in the English version of the PALS are phrased in terms of the class work.
As we were interested in math only, the items were rephrased to measure
domain-specific (i.e., math) goals and perceptions for the purpose of this
study. Students responded on a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = not at all true
to 5 = very true).
Mastery Goal Orientation (five items) refers to students’ mastery goal
orientation in an achievement setting. The scale is characterized by

students’ striving to develop competence, seeking to extend mastery and

understanding, and focusing on tasks, for example, “It’s important to me
that I improve my skills in math this year.” Midgley et al. (2000) reported
on high internal consistency of the scale (α = .85), a result replicated by
Ross, Shannon, Salisbury-Glennon, and Guarino (2002) with samples of
elementary school and college students. Similarly, the internal coherence
of the scale applied to the current sample of Slovene eighth graders was
also high (α = .89).
Academic Self-Efficacy (five items) concerns students’ perceptions
of their capability to do class work, for example, “I can do almost all
the work in math if I don’t give up.” The authors of the original scale
(Midgley et al., 2000) reported on its good internal reliability (α =
.78). The items were strongly internally coherent using the current
data (α = .87).
Math Achievement
A final school grade in math at the end of the eighth grade was
defined as an indicator of students’ academic achievement in this school
course. The final grade represents an average of students’ math grades
over the three school terms (marking periods). In each term, the
students are usually assigned two math grades by their teacher. The
grades range from 1 (minimum standards not attained) to 5 (excellent)
and can be considered as standard criterion-referenced indicators of
performance.
Procedure
Graduate psychology students and school psychologists administered
all measures during regular class sessions. The adolescents who agreed to
report and whose parents provided written consent were given the ques-
tionnaires. Both, students and their parents, were fully informed of the
purposes and methods of the study before being asked to participate.
Three months after the beginning of the academic year, the participants
filled-in questionnaires on parental involvement and math teaching
dimensions. During the second school term, they reported on their moti-
vational beliefs regarding math. At each of the measurement occasions,
the procedure took about 30 minutes. The students’ math records were
reported by math teachers or school administrators at the end of the third
school term.

Results
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations

Means and standard deviations for each variable are presented in Table
1. They are shown for the total sample because only a few very small
gender differences were found in these variables. Boys reported on slightly
higher parental academic pressure than girls, F(1, 364) = 7.56, p < .01,
η2 = .02, and the girls perceived a somewhat higher math teachers’ acade-
mic support than the boys, F(1, 369) = 17.60, p < .001, η2 = .05. Finally, the
girls also received slightly higher math grades than did the boys, F(1, 361)
= 5.34, p < .05, η2 = .01.
Table 1 also displays intercorrelations among all of the variables. Given
that the patterns of associations were consistent within samples of boys and
girls, the Pearson correlations coefficients are shown for the total sample.
The majority of the correlations appear in the expected directions.
Students’ perceived parental academic pressure was negatively related to
their motivational beliefs about math (relatively modestly) and math
achievement (moderately). Students’ perceptions of parental academic sup-
port (interest in schoolwork and support of strenuous learning) were posi-
tively and modestly related to their mastery goal orientation toward math
but (in contrast to our prediction) negatively to the final math grade. Note
that the students’ assessments of parental academic support and parental
academic help showed a relatively strong association. The students’ reports
on math teaching were positively linked to their self-efficacy, mastery goal
orientation, and achievement in the math domain. At best, the correlations
were moderate (between teachers’ academic press and students’ motiva-
tional beliefs). Both the students’ self-efficacy and mastery goal orientation
in math were positively related to their math grade, with the correlations of
moderate and relatively modest size, respectively.
Parental and Teaching Dimensions as Predictors of Students’

Motivational Beliefs and Math Achievement
Multiple regression analyses were conducted to assess the contribution of
students’ perceptions of parental involvement and math teachers’ classroom
behavior to the students’ math-related motivational beliefs and achieve-
ment.4 Given the interest in independent accounts of students’ perceptions of
the family and the math classroom context to their motivational beliefs and
achievement in math, the analyses were first run separately within each social
context. As presented in Table 2, both student-perceived social contexts

Table 1
Means, Standard Deviations, and Inter-Correlations Across Variables
–
X SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Parental dimensions
1. Academic pressure 2.52 .80 —
2. Academic support 3.88 .59 –.05 —
3. Academic help 2.87 .76 –.11 .62*** —
Math teaching dimensions
4. Academic support 3.14 .61 –.19** .14* .10 —
5. Academic press 3.71 .69 –.12 .14* .09 .39*** —
6. Mastery goal 4.00 .76 –.09 .09 .07 .55*** .50*** —
Students’ motivational beliefs
7. Self-efficacy in math 3.94 .71 –.30*** .10 .09 .32*** .51*** .47*** —
8. Mastery goal 4.17 .78 –.20** .18** .05 .23*** .30*** .30*** .48*** —
orientation
Math achievement
9. Math grade 3.68 1.05 –.38*** –.20** –.11 .25*** .25*** .25*** .39*** .23***
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

555
Table 2
Parental and Math Teaching Dimensions as Predictors
of Motivational Beliefs and Math Achievement: Results of
Multiple Regressions
Self-Efficacy Mastery Goal Math Grade
B SE B β B SE B β B SE B β
Parental dimensions
Academic pressure –.26 .05 –.29*** –.23 .05 –.23*** –.50 .07 –.39***
Academic support .08 .08 .06 .25 .09 .18** –.28 .11 –.16*
Academic help .01 .07 .01 –.05 .07 –.05 –.06 .09 –.04
R2 .09*** .08*** .18***
Math teaching dimensions
Academic support .05 .07 .04 .21 .08 .16* .24 .12 .14*
Academic press .40 .06 .38*** .18 .07 .15* .27 .10 .18**
Mastery goal .20 .06 .21*** .19 .07 .18** .10 .10 .08
R2 .29*** .15*** .10***
Note: B = Unstandardized beta coefficient; SE B = Standard error of the B estimate; β =

Standardized beta coefficient.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
significantly predicted the three criteria variables. The three combined mea-
sures of parental involvement dimensions were the most efficient predictors
of students’ math grades, whereas the three combined math teaching mea-
sures were the most powerful predictors of students’ self-efficacy in math.
The students’ evaluations of parental academic pressure negatively predicted
their self-efficacy, mastery goal orientation, and achievement in the math
domain. The perceived parental academic support was a predictor of
students’ mastery goal orientation toward math, but it was negatively linked
to their math grade. The students’ ratings of math teacher’s academic sup-
port contributed positively to their mastery goal orientation and math
achievement, whereas the perceptions of teachers’ academic press predicted
students’ self-efficacy and mastery goal in math as well as their math grade.
Furthermore, math teachers’ mastery goal contributed positively to both
aspects of students’ motivational beliefs about the course.
Subsequently, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was employed
to determine the incremental predictive power of students’ assessments of
math teaching dimensions in explaining motivational beliefs and achieve-
ment in math, beyond the contribution of parental involvement. The
students’ reports on the three parental dimensions were first entered into the

equations, on which the three teaching dimensions were added. The

students’ perceptions of math teaching predicted a significant portion of
unique variance in both their motivational beliefs about math and math
achievement, over and above the account of parental involvement. The
increment of R2 was substantial in predicting students’ self-efficacy in math
(ΔR² = .29, p < .001), whereas the additive contribution of math teaching
dimensions to students’ mastery goal orientation toward math and their
math grade was lower (ΔR² = .10, p < .001 and ΔR² = .08, p < .001, respec-
tively). The combined measures of students’ ratings of both social contexts
explained 38% of the variance in students’ self-efficacy (p < .001), 17% of
the variance in their mastery goal orientation (p < .001), and 29% of the
variance in their math achievement (p < .001).
Path Model of Relations Between Parental and

Teaching Dimensions, Motivational Beliefs about
Math, and Math Achievement
A path analysis using structural equation modeling techniques (LISREL
8.71, Jöreskog & Sörbom, 2004) was applied to determine the proposed (a)
direct effects of students’ perceptions of parental and math teaching behav-
ior on their math achievement and (b) indirect effects of both social con-
texts on math achievement mediated by students’ motivational beliefs about
the course. The path between students’ self-efficacy and mastery goals was
fixed to zero, whereas the covariance between residuals of the two motiva-
tional variables was set free.
The model showed a good fit to the data, χ2(3) = 3.27 (p = .35); Root
mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .02, nonnormed fit index
(NNFI) = 1.00, and adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI) = 0.95. The path
diagram presented in Figure 2 includes statistically significant standardized
path coefficients.5 An exception is a direct effect of math teachers’ support
on students’ math grade that is also displayed (dashed line) whereby the
standardized path coefficient approaches the statistical significance (β =
.11, t = 1.64). Among adolescents’ perceptions of the social context vari-
ables, parental academic pressure and support were the only exogenous
variables exhibiting a significant direct (negative) effect on students’ math
achievement (β = –.29, t = –4.95 and β = –.26, t = –3.74, respectively).
Parental academic pressure also displayed a significant indirect effect on
math achievement (β = –.06, t = –2.83) by negatively affecting students’
self-efficacy in math (β = –.23, t = –4.38). Self-efficacy, in turn, predicted
students’ math grades (β = .22, t = 2.98). Two math teaching dimensions,
academic press and mastery goal, had a significant indirect effect on math

Figure 2
Path Diagram of Relations Between Parental and
Teaching Dimensions, Motivational Beliefs About
Math, and Achievement in Math
–.29
Parental Pressure
–.26
Parental Support
–.23
Self-Efficacy
Parental Help .13 R2 = .38 .22
–.15
Math Grade
R2 = .32
.24
Mastery Goal
Teacher Support .36 Orientation R2 = .16
.11
.17
.28
Teacher Academic .18
Press
Teacher Mastery
Goal
achievement (β = .09, t = 3.03 and β = .07, t = 2.77, respectively) that was

mediated through the students’ self-efficacy in math (β = .36, t = 5.84 and
β = .28, t = 4.19, respectively). Students’ perceptions of parental academic
pressure and support and math teachers’ academic press and mastery goal
also contributed to the students’ mastery goal orientation toward math
(β = .15, t = –2.46; β = .13, t = 2.21; β = .17, t = 2.36; and β = .18, t = 2.35,
respectively) that, however, showed no significant effect on their math
achievement (β = .06, t = 0.96).
In addition, the proposed model was also tested for invariance of parame-
ters across gender using the multiple group analysis. As Standage, Duda, and
Ntoumanis (2005) note, “the establishment of measurement equivalence (i.e.
invariance) across gender groups is a requirement if we are to make mean-
ingful comparisons for male and female students, collectively” (p. 416). In
the initial step of the analysis, we tested the model where parameters were
estimated separately for boys and girls with no constraints (i.e., baseline

model estimation). The fit indices for the model were χ2(6) = 9.76, p = .14;
RMSEA = .07, NNFI = .93, GFI = 1.00. At the subsequent step, the regres-
sion paths predicting motivational beliefs and achievement in math from
parental and math teaching measures were constrained to be equal across
gender. This step did not result in a significant increase in chi-square value:
Δχ2 (15) = 19.95, p = .17. The last step involved constraining the regression
paths from motivational beliefs to achievement in math to be equal in both
gender groups. Once again, the indices of fit showed regression paths to be
invariant across male and female students, Δχ2 (2) = 5.34, p = .07.
Discussion
The results of our study suggest that Slovene eighth graders’ representa-
tions of their parents’ and math teachers’ behavior uniquely contribute to
explaining students’ mastery goal orientation, self-efficacy, and final grade
in the math domain. Students’ perceived math teacher’s classroom behavior
also explains a significant amount of variance in students’ motivational
beliefs and math achievement, over and above students’ perceptions of
parental involvement in their schoolwork. Furthermore, self-efficacy in
math, but not goals to develop knowledge and mastery in math, mediates
the relation between students’ evaluations of the two social contexts and
math achievement. These findings provide additional support to the impor-
tant role of students’ perceptions of parents and teachers in adolescents’
academic goal orientations, sense of academic competence, and their actual
academic performance (e.g., Gonzalez et al., 2002; Koutsoulis & Campbell,
2001; Marchant et al., 2001; Paulson, 1994; Ryan et al., 1994; Wentzel,
1997, 2002).
The Role of Parental Involvement in Adolescent’s

Motivational Beliefs and Math Achievement
Accounting for the selected aspects of students’ perceptions of parental
involvement in their educational activities, parental academic pressure
appeared to be the strongest predictor of the Slovene eighth graders’ mas-
tery goal orientation, academic self-efficacy, and achievement in math. The
results complement the findings of other authors who employed the same
assessment tool, the IPI (Campbell, 1996; Campbell & Mandel, 1990;
Koutsoulis & Campbell, 2001). Adverse effects of this type of student-
reported parental involvement on adolescents’ math performance are thus

suggested for in different cultural settings (Cyprus, Slovenia, and United

States). The perceived parents’ exertion of strong academic pressure on
their adolescent, accompanied by their dissatisfaction about adolescent’s
academic outcomes and distrust in his or her efficient schoolwork, may
undermine the development of students’ mastery goal orientation, sense of
academic self-efficacy, and successful school performance. Consistently,
the counterproductive effect of student-rated parental academic pressure on
eighth graders’ math achievement was demonstrated both directly and indi-
rectly through the negative effect on students’ self-efficacy in math.
Nonetheless, the possibility of bidirectional effects between parental and
adolescent variables is by no means excluded. Low achievers and/or
students who do not believe they are competent of successfully mastering
schoolwork probably evoke or at least perceive in their parents more pres-
sure to perform better academically than high achievers do.
As predicted from the extant research on students’ perceptions of
parental involvement in their school engagement (e.g., de Bruyn et al.,
2003; Koutsoulis & Campbell, 2001; Marchant et al., 2001), parental aca-
demic support was positively related to the students’ mastery goal orienta-
tion toward math. However, the predictive power of this type of parental
involvement was weak, and students’ mastery goal orientation did not sig-
nificantly contribute to their final grade in math. Parental academic help
was even nonsignificant in explaining the students’ motivational beliefs in
the math domain. The results may reflect a diminishing role of parental
involvement in adolescents’ education. As students advance in school,
parents retain an important role in school-related problem solving, but their
control on adolescents’ behavior decreases substantially (Barber & Olsen,
1997; Puklek Levpušček, 2004; Ryan et al., 1994). Instead, the educational
goals, values, and strategies conveyed to students by their parents become
internalized (Marchant et al., 2001) as do those imposed by teachers, class-
mates, and other peer groups (Harris, 1998; Midgley et al., 2000; Urdan &
Schoenfelder, 2006).
Students also gain academic skills at different rates that contribute to the
development of individual differences in academic self-efficacy. The beliefs
about own academic efficiency thus become an inner resource of adoles-
cents’ academic goal orientations, aspirations, and engagement (e.g.,
Gonzalez-DeHass et al., 2005; Marchant et al., 2001). In support to this
interpretation, the results of our study reveal that students’ self-efficacy in
math significantly contributes to their final math grade. The role of self-
efficacy as a mediator between students’ evaluations of parental academic
pressure and their math achievement indicates that perceptions of parental

distrust, dissatisfaction, criticism, and unrealistic expectations of students’

educational outcomes may generate negative beliefs about own ability to
learn or perform specific tasks in students. In turn, negative academic self-
efficacy adversely affects academic achievement. This finding certainly
does not preclude an effect in the opposite direction. Low achievement in
math (or in any other course) may contribute to low self-efficacy in the
respective course that may in turn lead to an increased parental pressure on
students’ academic achievement.
The negative and direct link between eighth graders’ perceptions of
parental academic support and math achievement was an unexpected result.
In contrast to our finding, Campbell and Mandel (1990) demonstrated a
direct positive relation between the U.S. students’ assessment of parental
academic support and their math achievement. Also, Koutsoulis and
Campbell (2001) established a positive effect of the perceived parental sup-
port on Cypriot students’ academic motivation, which in turn contributed to
their math achievement. When explaining these contradictory findings, we
must first consider the differences in the construct of students’ perceptions
of parental academic support measured across the studies. First, we used 7
of the 13 original items from the IPI Parental Support scale as 6 of them did
not have satisfactory loadings on this component with the Slovene eighth
graders. The reduced Parental Support scale thus reflects students’ percep-
tions of parental interest in their schoolwork and parental support of
student’s effort placed in learning. However, it does not involve perceptions
of parents’ values that education and academic achievement are important,
the construct that was demonstrated to have the strongest relationship with
students’ academic achievement (Fan & Chen, 2001). Our findings suggest
that student-perceived parental interest in adolescent’s academic progress,
encouragement of strenuous learning, and parental modeling of educational
values (as captured by the IPI items) may not fall uniformly into the same
dimension in all cultures. Accordingly, different dimensions of parental
academic support may contribute to early adolescent’s school achievement
in different ways. In the future, the assumption of multidimensionality of
parental support construct should be examined more precisely.
In general, it can be claimed that parents of our sample provided a strong
academic support to their children as far as the students perspective is con-
cerned as over 90% of students scored above the average of 3.0 on the
reduced Parental Support scale. An inspection of the mean scores in high-
versus low-achieving students also revealed that both groups exceeded the
– –
average score (low achievers X = 3.98, high achievers X = 3.81). This is
consonant with previous findings on Slovene early adolescents’ perceptions

of their parents (Japelj Pavešic′, 2004). Within such a supportive family con-
text, the students may perceive high levels of support as being overprotec-
tive and intruding. This does not seem to meet the adolescents’ needs for
autonomy and competence, and may lead to counterproductive academic
behavior, that is, to a decrease of academic initiative, persistence, and sat-
isfaction in performing schoolwork (Ginsburg & Bronstein, 1993).
Alternatively, the negative associations between student-perceived parental
academic support and math achievement might have occurred due to the
adolescent-to-parent-effect. Parents usually provide help and pay special
attention to students who experience problems in learning (Campbell &
Mandel, 1990). In other words, the parents become more involved as a
response to their child’s academic failure (Grolnick, Ryan, & Deci, 1991).
A considerably high positive association between parental academic sup-
port and academic help in our study presents a piece of evidence support-
ing such an inference.
Summing up, the study implies the conclusion that parents of poor math
achievers are perceived to provide more academic support and to exert
more pressure on their children than are parents of high achieving students.
This may be an important issue in educational contexts where math is con-
sidered one of the most difficult courses by the students who also show
little enthusiasm for the course matter, have only moderate academic expec-
tations, do not perceive their out-of-school environment to highly value
academic knowledge, and where math achievement serves as a selection
criterion to enter a desired secondary school. Intense involvement of
Slovene parents in adolescent education (academic help, instructions, inter-
est in adolescent’s school learning, and encouragement of academic effort)
may reflect a broader social pressure on students to achieve high grades in
order to assure good educational and employment opportunities in the
future. However, in the present study its positive effects were questioned.
Our findings thus call for future longitudinal research on the relation of dif-
ferent kinds of parental involvement in early adolescents’ schoolwork to
students’ academic outcomes in various cultural and educational contexts.
The Role of Teachers’ Classroom Behavior

Concerning math teachers’ classroom behavior, our results demonstrate
that early adolescents who perceive their teachers as taking into account the
students’ basic psychological needs of relatedness and competence, and
imposing positive demands on students’ academic work, show more posi-
tive motivational beliefs and achieve higher grades in math. The students

assessing their math teacher as responsive, helpful, and recognizant of good

work tend to perform better in math than their classmates who rated the
teacher to be less supportive. The results are consistent with the previous
findings which showed that students are more likely to engage in classroom
activities and perform better if they feel supported and valued by their
teachers (Brekelmans et al., 1993; Wentzel, 1997, 2002).
The results of our study also suggest that math teachers’ press for under-
standing and orientation to mastery in the classroom contributes to both
motivational beliefs in students, that is, students’ mastery goals as well as
self-efficacy in math. However, only self-efficacy predicted students’ math
achievement and had a mediating role between the perceived math
teachers’ behaviors and final math grades. Students’ assessments of self-
efficacy in the specific course are key beliefs that mediate the relationship
between teachers’ classroom behavior and students’ academic performance.
Moreover, the direct effect of these variables on academic achievement has
also been confirmed by longitudinal studies that investigated the relations
of self-beliefs to later academic achievement, controlling for prior achieve-
ment. Particularly, self-beliefs pertaining specifically to the academic domain
represented an important contribution to achievement (meta-analysis
by Valentine, DuBois, & Cooper, 2004). In contrast, students’ mastery goal
orientation has been linked to adaptive educational beliefs and behaviors
(e.g., Ames & Archer, 1988; Harackiewicz et al., 2000), but its association
with early adolescents’ school grades has been found nonsignificant or pos-
itive, yet weak (e.g., Wentzel, 1998, 2002). The question thus remains
whether mastery goals, which direct students to learning and mastery of
task, are the most beneficial goal orientation for all students and all acade-
mic outcomes across the domains. Pintrich (2000), for example, suggested
that students endorse both mastery and performance goals and different lev-
els of both goals at the same time. Thus, positive academic outcomes may
be enhanced if students pursue both mastery goals that lead to intrinsic
interest and performance approach goals that lead to increased efforts to do
better than others.
The important finding of our study is that a combined effect of both
student-rated family and classroom context on eighth graders’ math perfor-
mance is stronger than the effect of either context alone. Moreover,
students’ perceptions of math teachers’ academic support, press for under-
standing, and mastery goals predicted math-related variables above and
beyond the contribution of student-evaluated parental involvement in ado-
lescents’ schooling. The results complement previous findings that empha-
sized teacher’s interpersonal style as a significant and unique contributor to

early adolescents’ academic outcomes. When parents and teachers are con-
sidered jointly in predicting students’ academic motivation and perfor-
mance, perceived teacher’s involvement has been found to be unique in its
relations to most proximal outcomes of students’ academic functioning
(Marchant et al., 2001; Ryan et al., 1994; Wentzel, 1998). Our study adds
to this work by suggesting that math teachers’ academic press and mastery
goals in the classroom and behaviors that promote development, improve-
ment, and learning for understanding, uniquely and substantially contribute
to students’ self-efficacy in the course. The results also support previous
findings on the relation between Slovene early adolescents’ perceptions of
their teachers and motivational beliefs, such as academic self-efficacy and
intrinsic motivation (Puklek, 2001; Puklek Levpušček, 2004).
Another noteworthy finding is that math teachers’ classroom behaviors
predominantly contributed to students’ final grades indirectly through
enhancement of students’ self-efficacy in math. Self-efficacy beliefs are
created and developed by an individual’s interpretation of information from
different internal and external sources (Bandura, 1997; Pajares, 2002). One
of the important external sources of self-efficacy beliefs is verbal judg-
ments that others provide about an individual’s capabilities. In Slovene edu-
cational context, teachers are obliged to give constant and immediate
feedback to students about their academic work and progress. Before
applying the formal assessment of students’ knowledge, teacher must ver-
ify at first if the majority of students in the classroom achieves learning
goals that he or she intends to assess. Our study suggests that within such
classroom context, adolescents’ positive beliefs about self-efficacy in math,
promoted by mastery-oriented math teachers who at the same time enhance
students’ understanding, thorough thinking and striving to learn are posi-
tively related to students’ math achievement.
Findings about the important indirect role of early adolescent’s repre-
sentations of teachers in explaining their math achievement also lead to
implications for educational practice. In counseling teachers, educational
psychologists should pay more attention to instructional practices and
teachers’ communication skills that promote self-efficacy beliefs in
students. Urdan and Schoenfelder (2006) listed some helpful teaching
strategies that provide opportunities for students to experience academic
success in the classroom: emphasizing the importance of students’ efforts
put in learning, helping students to understand how a new task relates to the
previous successfully accomplished ones, modeling of successful learning
strategies, “scaffolded instructions” that allow students to take the acade-
mic risk necessary for deep learning to occur, and so on. Furthermore,

teachers who promote mastery goals in the classroom (engaging students in

challenging tasks with reasonable effort, doing schoolwork to improve and
develop competence), and who pressure students to think deeply will most
likely have students with positive academic self-beliefs that in turn, posi-
tively contribute to academic achievement. In the extant educational litera-
ture, there is considerable agreement about the beneficial role of teachers’
pedagogical caring (Wentzel, 1997), “scaffolded instructions” (Urdan &
Schoenfelder, 2006), and a press for cognitive engagement (Middleton &
Midgley, 2002). However, it has to be noted that the efficiency of specific
teaching styles in relation to students’ academic achievement may be, at
least to some extent, school course-dependent. In addition, the effects dis-
cussed could also run in the opposite direction. High achievers could elicit
more academic support in their teachers, and high-academic achievement
in the course could promote students’ positive beliefs about self-efficacy in
the respective domain. The latter, in turn, could lead to higher levels of
teacher’s pressure for understanding and supporting students’ effort to
develop competence.
Limitations and Future Perspectives

Along with the contribution of our results to the existing knowledge on
the role of parents and teachers in adolescents’ academic performance, sev-
eral limitations of this study call for further investigation. First, our explo-
ration was focused on students’ perceptions of specific parental and teacher
behavior, presumably reflecting the adults’ direct involvement in adolescent
academics. Simultaneously addressing other relevant factors, such as
school-level variables, peer and adolescent individual characteristics,
family educational background, and parenting style, would certainly pro-
vide a more complex and comprehensive explanation of adolescents’ acad-
emic achievement. A beneficial role of parental involvement in adolescents’
education was, for example, found to be more powerful when combined
with authoritative parenting (Steinberg et al., 1992).
Second, our analyses were confined to measures of a limited develop-
mental time frame in early adolescence and relied on a single measure of
achievement (i.e., math grade). Although grades are the primary criteria of
advancement through the educational system, other indices of achievement
(e.g., external test scores) should be considered for in future studies. Third,
the data on parental and math teacher behavior and students’ motivational
beliefs were obtained from adolescents themselves and therefore include the
same-rater bias. However, we used the same-informant reports from different

time points to strengthen inferences regarding likely causal direction and to

decrease within-occasion informant bias. As for future inquiry, different
sources of information (e.g., parent, teacher) should also be accounted for.
Finally, although this study was designed prospectively, the predictive rela-
tions revealed do not allow implications of causality. We only tested the
extent to which the observed relations among variables can be predicted from
the proposed model. Use of longitudinal data controlling for prior levels of
dependent variables would additionally strengthen the validity of the hypoth-
esized relations.
The role of different aspects of early adolescents’ evaluations of
parental academic support in their academic achievement is another
topic to be explored in future research. On the one hand, the perceived
parental enthusiasm about adolescents’ education, pride and trust in their
schoolwork, realistic expectations about their academic outcomes, and
parental aspirations and values placed on education may present the most
proximal dimensions that relate to adolescents’ positive academic beliefs
about the self, which in turn, contribute to academic achievement.
Unfortunately, this construct as captured by the items of the IPI Parental
Support scale did not turn out to be measured adequately in the present
cultural/educational setting. One way to collect items for a revised scale
including this aspect of parental support is to use a free descriptive
approach by simply asking students to describe their parents’ aspirations,
values, and so on. This approach was, for example, demonstrated as
effective in deriving items for a culture-decentered inventory of child
individual differences (Halverson et al., 2003). On the other hand, ado-
lescents’ perceptions of strong parental interest in their school learning,
excessive encouragement of academic effort, and extensive parental help
with learning might be less productive in enhancing students’ academic
achievement. Whether this finding is limited to specific cultural/educa-
tional contexts (characterized by adolescent-perceived strong parental
involvement) or not awaits future inquiry.
Reversed adolescent-to-parent/teacher effects should also be addressed.
Poor academic achievement could contribute to low academic self-efficacy
and both could increase student-perceived (and/or actual) parental pressure
to adolescents to do well academically, and parental interest and encour-
agement of adolescents’ academic activities. Consistently, low- as opposed
to high-achieving students may elicit less teacher’s pressure for under-
standing beyond the levels of basic knowledge attainment and less teacher’s
support of students’ efforts to develop advanced levels of competence.
Thus, an alternative of the direction of the effects to the model examined
in the present study is proposed. Future studies could test both alternatives

relative to one another considering longitudinal data on students’ percep-

tions of parental involvement in their schoolwork and the students’ acade-
mic outcomes, for example, using a cross-lag design.
Notes
1. Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study is a continuing cycle of inter-
national assessments (nearly 50 countries) applied to the eighth and fourth grades. It aims at
improving the teaching as well as learning methods applicable in math and science by pro-
viding data about achievement in relation to different educational contexts.
2. This study is part of a longitudinal study following the students through the last two
grades (eight and nine) of the elementary school.
3. According to the recommendation by Tabachnick and Fidell (2001), only variables with
loadings of .32 and above are interpreted (at least 10% overlapping variance).
4. Preliminary regression analyses were performed to test for gender effects on the three
outcome variables, when controlling for the parental and math teaching dimensions. None of
the gender effects appeared significant. Therefore, the results of multiple regression analyses
are displayed for the total sample.
5. We used the symbol β to denote all standardized path coefficients in the model.
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Melita Puklek Levpušček, PhD, is an assistant professor in educational psychology at the

Department of Psychology at the University of Ljubljana. Her research focus is on psychoso-
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(family, peers, school) on adolescent development.
Maja Zupančič received her PhD in psychology at the Faculty of Arts, University of
Ljubljana. She is full professor of developmental psychology at the Department of
Psychology, University of Ljubljana. Her recent research work is in the development of child
and adolescent personality traits.

Puklek Levpuscek M. and Zupancic M. 2009

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The Journal of Early

Math Achievement in Early Adolescence: The Role of Parental

The online version of this article can be found at:

Email Alerts: http://jea.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

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The Role of Parental Involvement,

Contributions of parental involvement in educational pursuits as well as math

Keywords: early adolescence; parents; teachers; motivational beliefs;

A cademic achievement indicates student’s attainment of knowledge and

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students’ academic achievement. Considerable effort is devoted to strength-

Educational Context of the Study

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Parental Involvement, Teacher Classroom Behavior,

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demonstrated to be linked to adolescents’ math achievement (Campbell &

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Finally, the teacher’s academic press for understanding involves students’

Learning Environment, Motivational Beliefs,

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Similarly, parental school involvement is directly linked to students’

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Finally, direct and indirect effects of the eighth graders’ perceptions of

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by the Slovene Bureau of Education and Development. Students, for whom

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Teachers’ Classroom Behavior

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items were rephrased in order to describe classroom behavior of math

Students’ Motivational Beliefs About Math

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students’ striving to develop competence, seeking to extend mastery and

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Descriptive Statistics and Correlations

Parental and Teaching Dimensions as Predictors of Students’

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*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

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Note: B = Unstandardized beta coefficient; SE B = Standard error of the B estimate; β =

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equations, on which the three teaching dimensions were added. The

Path Model of Relations Between Parental and

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achievement (β = .09, t = 3.03 and β = .07, t = 2.77, respectively) that was

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The Role of Parental Involvement in Adolescent’s

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suggested for in different cultural settings (Cyprus, Slovenia, and United

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distrust, dissatisfaction, criticism, and unrealistic expectations of students’

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The Role of Teachers’ Classroom Behavior

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assessing their math teacher as responsive, helpful, and recognizant of good

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teachers who promote mastery goals in the classroom (engaging students in

Limitations and Future Perspectives

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time points to strengthen inferences regarding likely causal direction and to

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relative to one another considering longitudinal data on students’ percep-

p < .05. p < .01. p < .001.