Learning Environments Research

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-019-09278-x

ORIGINAL PAPER

Parental involvement and adolescent school achievement:

the mediational role of self‑regulated learning

Valérie Thomas1   · Free De Backer1 · Jeltsen Peeters1 · Koen Lombaerts1

Received: 30 January 2018 / Accepted: 8 January 2019

© Springer Nature B.V. 2019

Abstract
Both parental involvement and self-regulated learning are important predictors of stu-
dents’ study success. However, previous research on self-regulated learning has focused
instead on the school environment and has not focused on the home situation. In particular,
investigations into the role of parents in self-regulated learning when children enter mid-
dle school have been limited. The present study examined the relationship among students’
perceptions of parental involvement, their self-regulated learning and school achievement
in the first year of middle school. Survey data from 5939 Flemish students were processed
using mediation analyses and revealed that students’ perceptions of parental involvement
in school work was associated with students’ self-regulated learning and their school
achievement. Moreover, how students perceived parental involvement was associated with
students’ achievement through the self-regulated learning factors. These results underpin
the importance of parents in education at the middle-school age. Schools should be aware
of this and enhance parents’ educational involvement and the stimulation of self-regulated
learning in the home environment.

Keywords  Middle school · Parental involvement · School achievement · Self-regulated

learning

Introduction

It is widely recognised that parents have a substantial impact on students’ learning and
overall development (e.g. Cheung and Pomerantz 2012; Froiland and Davison 2014; Hill
and Tyson 2009; Luo et  al. 2013; Pino-Pasternak and Whitebread 2010; Steinberg et  al.
1992; Strage 1998; You and Nguyen 2011). The positive impact of parental involvement on
students’ academic success has not only been noted by researchers but has also been incor-
porated into policy formation and public debate. Several governments, educators, schools
and parents’ organisations have integrated parental involvement into policy initiatives (e.g.
North America: No Child Left Behind Act; Europe: Parental Involvement Act 2006 of

* Valérie Thomas
valerie.thomas@vub.be
1
Department of Educational Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels,
Belgium

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Scotland). While parental involvement has been found to be related to improved academic
outcomes in the long term, the specific mechanisms through which parental involvement
exerts its influence on students’ academic achievement results have never yet been fully
investigated (Hill and Craft 2003).
Recently, research in the area of parental involvement has expanded to include the rela-
tion between parental involvement and self-regulated learning (SRL). For several decades,
SRL has proved beneficial for students’ academic functioning and school success (Boe-
kaerts 1997; Cleary and Zimmerman 2002; Perry and Vandekamp 2000; Winne 1997;
Zimmerman 2002). Furthermore, a great deal of evidence underpins the central role of
parents and parental involvement in students’ school work, their attitudes about school
and, subsequently, their school achievement (e.g. Cheung and Pomerantz 2012; Dauber
and Epstein 1989; Grolnick and Slowiaczek 1994; Hill and Tyson 2009; McNeal 2014).
As Pajares (2002) stated, parents play a vital role as educational agents by assisting ado-
lescents in setting goals and offering feedback. In addition, according to McNeal (2014),
indirect mechanisms play a part in the relationship between parental involvement and stu-
dents’ school achievement. However, the role of parents in students’ self-regulated learn-
ing, especially in middle-school education, has only been investigated in a very limited
manner. Therefore, the present study involved students’ perceptions of parental involve-
ment in early middle-school education and more specifically explore the indirect effects
of parental involvement in learning on students’ school achievement through their use of
self-regulatory strategies.

Parental involvement

Given the importance of the family and the amount of time a child spends at home, the
home as a learning environment has been documented as “the most salient out-of-school
context for student learning, amplifying or diminishing the school’s effect on learning”
(Wang et  al. 1993, p. 278). The home learning environment covers all learning-related
things and activities at home. Home learning activities are regularly found to be associ-
ated with young children’s development (e.g. Niklas and Schneider 2017). Nonetheless,
the home environment remains crucial at a later age, but only a limited amount of studies
addressed the home learning environment at the middle and high-school age (e.g. Spell-
man et al. 2002). Specifically, parental involvement is part of the home learning environ-
ment, covering the activities that parents undertake to be involved in the education of their
children. Through parental involvement, the home learning environment and educational
environment converge.
Parental involvement in education is a concept used to describe a wide range of prac-
tices. Involvement of parents can be as subtle as parental educational beliefs and school
achievement expectations or multiple types of behaviours, which parents apply to promote
their children’s achievement at home and in school (Hill et al. 2004; Seginer 2006).
According to Epstein, parental involvement consists of two main categories: (1)
school-based educational involvement, consisting of participation in voluntary or non-
voluntary activities at school, parent–teacher interactions and engagement in school
governance and (2) home-based educational involvement, consisting of all educational
activities in which parents engage at home (Conners and Epstein 1995; Epstein and Sand-
ers 2002). Borgonovi and Montt (2012) further distinguished the latter category by the

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following: (1) academically-oriented home-based involvement, which is directly associ-

ated with students’ academic lives (e.g. talking about academic issues and assisting with
schoolwork) and (2) non-academic home-based involvement, which refers to being more
generally involved in children’s lives (e.g. showing interest in children’s lives and taking
part in intellectual activities, such as reading books). The frameworks of Epstein and Bor-
gonovi and Montt (2012) show the importance of parents in fostering positive attitudes
towards school and academic activities, not only through active parental involvement but
also by parents’ actions and values (Borgonovi and Montt 2012). Several studies high-
lighted the beneficial impact of parental involvement (e.g. discussing children’s school-
work and attending parent–teacher conferences) for students’ learning and achievement
(e.g. Cheung and Pomerantz 2012; Froiland and Davison 2014; Hill and Tyson 2009; Luo
et al. 2013; Pino-Pasternak and Whitebread 2010; Steinberg et al. 1992; Strage 1998; You
and Nguyen 2011). For example, Froiland and Davison (2014) found that parental expec-
tations and parent–school relationships were positively related to 12th grade students’
school outcomes. Additionally, Hill and Tyson’s (2009) meta-study of parental involve-
ment in middle school revealed that parental involvement was positively associated with
students’ school achievement.
Furthermore, the literature suggests that the amount and type of effective home-based
involvement reduces during the adolescent years (Eccles and Harold 1993; Seginer
2006). As children become older, they develop the skills required for doing their school-
work independently and, starting in middle school, many parents feel less able to assist
with schoolwork (Dauber and Epstein 1993). However, parental expectations and positive
parent–school relationships have been shown to be beneficial for students throughout the
schooling years (Jeynes 2010).
In this study, we made use of students’ perceptions of parental involvement, rather than
their perceptions of the parents. Some theorists (e.g. Bronfenbrenner 1977) already under-
pinned the importance of the child’s view of their environment. It has been argued that
students’ learning behaviour is guided by their perceptions of the (learning) environment.
In other words, how students process the environment impacts their achievement results
(Assor and Connell 1992). Furthermore, Barge and Loges (2003) found that parents and
students hold similar beliefs of parental involvement.

Self‑regulated learning (SRL)

Self-regulated learning is a multidimensional concept and refers to “learners who are

autonomous, reflective and efficient and have the (meta)-cognitive abilities, as well as the
motivational beliefs and attitudes, to understand, monitor and direct their own learning”
(Wolters 2003, p. 189). This active engagement in the learning process has positive effects
for students (e.g. high levels of intrinsic motivation and task interest) and increases school
achievement and outcomes (Boekaerts 1997; Cleary and Zimmerman 2002; Perry and
Vandekamp 2000; Winne 1997; Zimmerman 2002). For example, Vrugt and Oort (2008),
who developed and tested a model of effective SRL, found that first-year college students’
use of metacognitive and resource management strategies had a positive effect on their
examination scores, indicating that the use of SRL-skills has a positive effect on students’
academic achievement.
Martinez-Pons (2002) adopted a social-cognitive perspective of SRL, assuming that
parents, next to teachers, are essential role models and sources of inspiration for their

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children’s use of self-regulatory skills. Similarly, Bandura (1997) acknowledged the social
environment in which the development of SRL occurs and where meaningful interactions
occur with more-experienced partners (Bandura 1997). Several other studies (Desforges
and Abouchaar 2003; Pino-Pasternak and Whitebread 2010; Zimmerman 2002; Zuffianò
et  al. 2013) stressed parents’ positive influence upon the development of their children’s
SRL. The authors claim that self-regulatory beliefs and processes could be learned through
instruction and modelling by children’s own parents. In line with SRL, Pomerantz et  al.
(2007) proposed two models consisting of sets of mechanisms of how parental involvement
influences children’s learning: (1) a skill development model and (2) a motivational devel-
opment model. In the skill development model, parents’ involvement in children’s aca-
demic lives improves their achievement because of the skill-related resources parents offer
(e.g. (meta)-cognitive skills, helping their children plan their school work, and questioning
them). Parents are capable of helping adolescents in setting their goals and providing feed-
back when necessary (Pajares 2002) and modelling how to build strong self-efficacy beliefs
for students, which are important aspects of SRL (Pajares 2002; Zuffianò et  al. 2013).
Likewise, the PISA study of 2009 shows that active parental involvement could lead to
the development of effective learning strategies (e.g. remembering and summarising strate-
gies) (Borgonovi and Montt 2012). In the motivational development model (2), parental
involvement in children’s schooling seems to be valuable for children’s motivation to learn.
Involved parents highlight the value of school and familiarise their children with school
tasks, thereby enhancing their children’s feelings of academic efficacy. Several research-
ers (e.g. Cheung and Pomerantz 2012; Fan and Williams 2010; Gonida and Cortina 2014;
Gonzalez-DeHass et  al. 2005; Hill and Tyson 2009) indicated that parental involvement
has a positive impact on children’s motivation. For example, Fan and Williams (2010)
found that parental educational aspirations and advice had strong positive effects on moti-
vational outcomes (e.g. self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation). Pino-Pasternak and White-
bread (2010), who conducted a systematic review of relationships between parental behav-
iour and elementary school children’s SRL, reported that parents’ encouragement of active
participation in learning, their emotional responsiveness and metacognitive modelling are
related to the development of children’s feelings of self-competence and intrinsic motiva-
tion (Pino-Pasternak and Whitebread 2010).
Despite the positive effects of parental involvement on students’ use of SRL, to date,
only a limited amount of research has been conducted to support these statements with
regards to adolescents (e.g. Martinez-Pons 2002; Pino-Pasternak and Whitebread 2010).

School achievement

Students’ achievement is a commonly-used indicator in research in education. It refers to

students’ performance in school and is often seen as the best predictor of student drop-out
rates (Lyche 2010; OECD 2012).
A great deal of evidence supports that parental involvement in students’ school work is
beneficial for their learning and, more specifically, facilitates their school achievement (e.g.
Cheung and Pomerantz 2012; Froiland and Davison 2014; Hill and Tyson 2009; Steinberg
et al. 1992; You and Nguyen 2011). Hill and Tyson (2009), who conducted a meta-study on
parental involvement strategies that promote achievement in middle school, found parental
involvement to be positively associated with achievement.

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School achievement is also regularly studied in relation to SRL (e.g. Boekaerts 1997;
Perry and Vandekamp 2000; Vrugt and Oort 2008; Zimmerman 2002; Zuffianò et  al.
2013). For example, Zuffianò et  al. (2013) found a unique contribution of self-efficacy
beliefs in SRL to predicting school achievement in the eighth grade. Bandura (1997) noted
that self-efficacy, which is part of SRL, is related to students’ choice of activities, persis-
tence, effort and school achievement.

Current study

Only a limited number of studies so far (e.g. Martinez-Pons 2002; Pino-Pasternak and
Whitebread 2010; Pino-Pasternak et al. 2010) have linked parental educational involve-
ment with SRL, but few have focused on adolescents (Hill and Tyson 2009). Addition-
ally, only a few studies focused on how the home environment and specifically parents
impact on students’ learning strategies (Spellman et al. 2002) (i.e. SRL is found to be
meaningful for students’ achievement). However, according to previous research, par-
ents continue to be a major source of support for their children at that age (Collins
and Laursen 2004). Generally, parents being involved in their adolescents’ schooling
appears to be important for adolescents’ academic functioning (Hill and Tyson 2009;
Pino-Pasternak and Whitebread 2010; Steinberg et al. 1992). As Pomerantz et al. (2007)
indicated, the way in which parents are involved is much more important than how much
they are involved. Additionally, most of the studies focused on one single SRL dimen-
sion (e.g. Luo et al. 2013; Gonzalez-DeHass et al. 2005; Purdie et al. 2004) instead of
adopting a multidimensional approach that considers the contribution of various meta-
cognitive and motivational dimensions of SRL. Therefore, this study’s main aim was to
explore the relationship among parental involvement in the first year of middle school,
students’ school achievement and several dimensions of students’ SRL.
Our research hypothesis involved the existence and occurrence of a mediational
effect of students’ self-regulated learning skills in the association between students’ per-
ceptions of parental involvement and their school achievement. Previous research sup-
ports this hypothesis (e.g. Borgonovi and Montt 2012; Pajares 2002; Pino-Pasternak and
Whitebread 2010; Zuffianò et al. 2013). Parents were found to have a strong impact on
children’s motivation (Hill and Tyson 2009; Pomerantz et al. 2007), which is linked to
children’s self-efficacy beliefs (Pajares 2002; Zuffianò et al. 2013). Additionally, Pomer-
antz et  al. (2007) and Borgonovi and Montt (2012) found that parents influence stu-
dents’ use of learning strategies and skills to regulate their learning process. In addition,
Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994) and Hughes et al. (2013) found that elementary-school
students’ self-regulation, motivation and perceived efficacy were mediators between
parental involvement and children’s school performance. Furthermore, McNeal (2014)
emphasised the importance of indirect mechanisms that play a part in the relationship
between parental involvement and students’ school achievement. Therefore, the present
study focused on how parental involvement increases students’ achievement by testing
four SRL dimensions that could mediate or explain how middle-school students’ per-
ceptions of parental involvement are related to achievement results.

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Method

This study is part of a larger investigation of the processes and factors related to dropout
rates in the seventh grade in order to develop effective strategies to prevent students
from leaving education early.

Participants and procedure

All data were gathered from students using self-reported paper-based questionnaires.
The participants were questioned at the beginning and end of the first year of middle
school (age: 12–13 years). To reach the participants, three random samples of all mid-
dle schools (ISCED 2, seventh grade) in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region (the
Dutch speaking part of Belgium) were drawn to recruit these participants. The samples
were stratified according to governance (private/public) and region (urban/suburban).
The target figure was 60 schools. To reach this number, 124 schools were contacted to
participate. If a school was willing to participate, further procedural information was
shared. When a school did not want to participate, a similar school from the next sample
was selected. Ultimately, 59 schools participated in the study (a response rate of 47.6%).
Schools were asked for the cooperation of all seventh-grade students in their middle
school. At the end of the seventh grade, the researchers visited the schools again and the
same students who completed the first questionnaire filled out a second questionnaire.
In total, 5939 students (53% boys) completed both questionnaires (a response rate of
90%). All respondents were asked to fill out during school hours a self-report paper-
based questionnaire which took 50  min to complete. Two researchers were present to
both explain the procedure and to answer questions, as well as to guarantee the anon-
ymous processing of the responses. The questionnaires were authorised by the ethics
committees of the cooperating. The demographic information of the study’s participants
is presented in Table 1.

Measures

Both questionnaires consisted of questions related to general demographic information,

study motivation, wellbeing, engagement in learning, etc. More specifically, the first ques-
tionnaire (administered at the beginning of the school year) questioned students’ percep-
tions of parental involvement. The second questionnaire focused on students’ self-regulated
learning.

Parental involvement

This was measured using students’ perceptions because student perceptions of parental
involvement are important for their learning (Assor and Connell 1992; Keith 1991) and
more valid for the examination of students’ academic behaviour (Muller 1998). The ques-
tions were based on the eight items of Muller’s research (1995, 1998), using the National
Educational Longitudinal Study [NELS: 88]. The items consider different aspects of paren-
tal involvement (Table 2).

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Table 1  Sample demographic Variable N %

variables (N = 5939)
Student gender
 Boy 3147 53
 Girl 2792 47
Student migration background
 Western European 4600 76.8
 Non-Western European 1054 17.6
Parents’ occupational status
 Unskilled manual workers 153 2.6
 Semi-skilled/specialised manual workers 527 8.8
 Skilled manual workers 498 8.3
 Lower-grade technicians, manual supervisors 943 15.7
 Small proprietors, self-employed 593 9.9
 Lower-grade management 1678 28
 Higher-grade management 799 13.3
 Higher-grade professionals or administrators, self- 485 8.1
employed, managers in large firms

From 274 students, it was not possible to extract their migration back-
ground and parents’ occupational status from the questionnaires

Table 2  Aspects of students’ perceptions of parental involvement

Item M SD

Parents’ participation on school activities 2.14 1.12

Parents’ attendance to parent-teacher meetings 3.44 0.74
Watching the youngster make homework 3.37 0.87
Watching the youngster study 3.46 0.80
Parents’ know what grades youngsters have on assignments, tests and exams. 3.73 0.54
Parents have clear expectations on the grades youngster should achieve 2.72 1.02
Parents’ interest in what happens at school 3.18 0.86
Parents’ interest in what youngster learns at school. 2.94 0.94

M  mean, SD  standard deviation

Self‑regulated learning

Students’ SRL was measured at various levels using different validated instruments
(Table 3). SRL consists of four scales: (1) the use of cognitive learning strategies, (2) meta-
cognitive self-regulation, (3) intrinsic study motivation and (4) students’ perceived efficacy.
Two subscales of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire [MSLQ] by Pin-
trich and De Groot (1990) were used to measure students’ cognitive strategy use and meta-
cognitive self-regulation. The scale regarding cognitive strategies maps students’ use of
rehearsal and organisational strategies. The second subscale, metacognitive self-regulation,
tries to grasp the extent to which students employ strategies to process new information
and to connect this information with already gathered knowledge. Because of a low Cron-
bach’s alpha for two specific items, these items were excluded from the scales. Specifically,

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Table 3  Description of scales
Scale
Cognitive strategy ­usea
a
Metacognitive self-regulation
Autonomous ­motivationb
Academic self-efficacyc
a
 Pintrich and De Groot (1990), bVansteenkiste et al. (2009), cPastorelli et al. (2001). All scales are based on the average of the items
# of items Item example Likert scale Mean (SD) Cronbach’s α
12 When I study, I try to say everything in my own words. 5-point: totally disagree—totally agree 2.72 (0.53) 0.83
8 Even though the subject matter is boring and uninterest- 5-point: totally disagree—totally agree 2.75 (0.61) 0.75
ing, I study until the work is done.
8 I’m motivated to study because I want to learn new things. 5-point: absolutely not applicable to 1.97 (0.75) 0.89
me—absolutely applicable to me
8 I’m good at planning my schoolwork. 5-point: totally not good—very good 2.45 (0.72) 0.86
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one reversed item of the scale Cognitive Strategy Use (“It is hard for me to decide what
the main ideas are in what I read”) and one reversed item of the scale Self-Regulation (“I
often find that I have been reading for class but do not know what it is all about”) were
removed. No other MSLQ-scales were used because of the use of more context-appropriate
validated scales. To measure students’ motivation, the 16-item scale called the Academic
Self-Regulation Questionnaire [SRQ-A] by Vansteenkiste et al. (2009) was used. The scale
covers four items for each type of regulation (intrinsic, identified, introjected and external).
Students’ use of SRL is highly dependent on several underlying beliefs, including intrin-
sic interest (Zimmerman 2002). Therefore, we only used the eight items regarding autono-
mous motivation in this study. These items measured students’ intrinsic motivation and
identified motivation regulation. The items regarding academic self-efficacy were based on
the Perceived Efficacy for Regulating One’s Own Motivation and Learning Activities scale
(Pastorelli et al. 2001). The items measure children’s self-efficacy to plan and organise their
academic activities (e.g. “How well can you organise your school work?”), to structure
learning environments (e.g. “How well can you arrange a place to study without distrac-
tions?”) and to motivate themselves to do their school work (e.g. “How well can you study
when there are other interesting things to do?”).

School achievement

At the end of the school year, schools were asked to provide students’ results for mathemat-
ics and the Dutch language. Scores were out of a total of 100 (M = 70.00, SD = 10.90).

Socio‑demographic information

Students’ information was combined with data obtained from parents. Parents’ occupation
was used as a first socio-demographic factor and can be considered one component of stu-
dents’ socio-economic status [SES] (Vereecken et al. 2004). The parent who completed the
questionnaire filled in the occupation of both parents. Subsequently, the researcher ascribed
both parents a score according to the classification of Erikson and Goldthorpe (2002),
ranging from 1 (unskilled manual workers) to 8 (higher grade professionals, administrators
and managers). The higher score of both parents was used. The migration background of
the students was identified with the country of origin on the mother’s side. If the country
of origin was outside western Europe, the student was considered to have a migration back-
ground (Glorieux et al. 2009).

Pre‑analysis

Tests were conducted for investigating the assumptions of outliers, normality, normally dis-
tributed errors, homogeneity of variance, linearity and multicollinearity. First, a boxplot
was inspected to identify outliers. Although the boxplot showed a few outliers in the data,
these cases were not removed because of the large sample size (Pallant 2013). Second, the
normal Q–Q plot for investigating the normality of the data showed some points slightly
off the line but the distribution still was bell shaped. Third, histograms of the standardised
residuals indicated that the data contained approximately normally distributed errors and,
similarly, the normal P–P plot of standardised residuals showed points that were slightly
off the line. Fourth, scatterplots of standardised residuals showed that the data met the
assumptions of homogeneity of variance and linearity (Field 2009). Fifth, the data met the

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Table 4  Correlation matrix
Variable Correlations
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1. Parental involvement –
2. Academic self-efficacy 0.258** –
3. Cognitive strategy use 0.237** 0.520** –
4. Metacognitive self-regulation 0.267** 0.634** 0.584** –
5. Autonomous motivation 0.221** 0.575** 0.431** 0.469** –
6. School achievement 0.082** 0.207** 0.038** 0.243** 0.053** –
7. Student gender 0.045*** 0.111** 0.114** 0.144** 0.103** 0.138** –
8. Student migration background − 0.057** 0.056** 0.049** − 0.032* 0.204** − 0.286** 0.003 –
9. Parents’ occupational status 0.071** 0.045** − 0.008 0.129** − 0.062** 0.300** 0.039** − 0.350** –

*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01
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assumption of collinearity, which indicates that multicollinearity did not occur (see Table 4
for the correlation matrix). The effect size of the correlations was small to medium (Sul-
livan and Feinn 2012). Regarding missing values, a listwise deletion was used. Specifically,
regarding the mediation analysis, the assumption of temporal precedence was met (Laursen
et al. 2012). We used data from self-reported questionnaires at two time points, namely, the
beginning and end of the school year. Third, when the school year ended, the school was
asked for the students’ achievement results.

Results

To test our hypothesis, descriptive statistical techniques and a mediation analysis with
PROCESS macro for IBM SPSS Statistics (Hayes 2012) were carried out. Regarding the
latter, students’ school achievement was the outcome variable and the factors of SRL were
added as mediation variables, resulting in a mediation model with four mediators (see
Fig. 1). The effects were controlled for students’ sex, migration background and socio-eco-
nomic status.
Students’ perception of parental involvement was found to have a significant effect on
all the measured dimensions of SRL. Parental involvement appeared to have the strongest

Fig. 1  A multiple mediation model of the relationship between students’ perceptions of parent involvement,
self-regulated learning and school achievement, controlled for students’ sex, migration background and par-
ents’ occupational status

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effect on students’ metacognitive self-regulation (b = 0.33, t(5767) = 20.99, p < 0.001, 99%

CI [0.29, 0.37]), followed by their perceived academic efficacy (b = 0.14, t(5766) = 8.89,
p < 0.001, 99% CI [0.10, 0.18]), autonomous motivation (b = 0.09, t(5764) = 5.15,
p < 0.001, 99% CI [0.04, 0.13]) and cognitive strategy use (b = 0.08, t(5765) = 6.72,
p < 0.001, 99% CI [0.05, 0.11]).
In addition, all the SRL dimensions, metacognitive self-regulation (b = 4.10,
t(5763) = 13.22, p < 0.001, 99% CI [3.30, 4.89]), perceived academic efficacy (b = 2.73,
t(5763) = 10.40, p < 0.001, 99% CI [2.05, 3.40]), cognitive strategy use (b = − 3.20,
t(5763) = − 9.63, p <  0.001, 99% CI [−  4.05, −  2.34]) and autonomous motivation
(b = − 0.90, t(5763) = − 4.00, p < 0.001, 99% CI [− 1.49, − 0.32]), had a significant effect
on students’ school achievement.
Furthermore, significant effects were found among the dimensions of SRL. Students’
metacognitive self-regulation had a significant effect on their perceived academic efficacy
(b = 0.72, t(5766) = 57.54, p < 0.001, 99% CI [0.69, 0.76]), cognitive strategy use (b = 0.35,
t(5765) = 30.61, p < .001, 99% CI [0.32, 0.38]) and autonomous motivation (b = 0.16,
t(5764) = 8.76, p < 0.001, 99% CI [0.11, 0.20]). Students’ academic efficacy also had a sig-
nificant effect on students’ autonomous motivation (b = 0.42, t(5764) = 29.62, p < 0.001,
99% CI [0.39, 0.46]) and cognitive strategy use (b = 0.16, t(5765) = 17.12, p < 0.001, 99%
CI [0.14, 0.19]). Finally, students’ use of cognitive strategies had a significant effect on
their autonomous motivation, b = 0.19, t(5764) = 10.04, p < 0.001, 99% CI [0.14, 0.24]. The
direct effect of parental involvement on students’ achievement changed when the SRL fac-
tors were added to the model (see Fig. 1). The direct effect of parental involvement on stu-
dents’ achievement, before adding SRL, was significant (b = 1.34, t(5767) = 4.87, p < 0.001,
99% CI [0.60, 2.07], R2 = .08, F(4,5767) = 125.43, p < 0.001); after adding the SRL fac-
tors, the effect decreased and was nonsignificant (b = 0.07, t(5763) = 0.24, p = 0.81, 99%
CI [− 0.67, 0.81], R2 = .15, F(8,5763) = 130.39, p < 0.001). In summation, parental involve-
ment had a positive effect on the SRL factors and, in turn, the SRL factors had a positive
effect on students’ achievement results. Our results revealed that parental involvement had
an impact on students’ school achievement through the effects of the SRL-factors, metacog-
nitive self-regulation (ab (effect size) = 0.06, 99% CI [0.05, 0.08]), perceived academic effi-
cacy (ab = 0.02, 99% CI [0.01, 0.02]), cognitive strategy use (ab = − 0.01, 99% CI [− 0.02,
− 0.01]) and autonomous motivation (ab = − 0.004, 99% CI [− 0.01, − 0.001]). Further-
more, regarding the control variables, students without a migration background (b = − 6.30,
t(5763) = − 18.57, p < 0.001, 99% CI [− 7.17, − 5.42]) and girls (b = 1.96, t(5763) = 7.31,
p < 0.001, 99% CI [1.27, 2.65) score significantly higher for school achievement. Paren-
tal occupational status had a nonsignificant effect in the model (b = 0.24, t(5763) = 1.19,
p = 0.23, 99% CI [− 0.28, 0.75]).

Discussion

With this study, we wanted to gain more insight into the indirect associations of parental
involvement with students’ school achievement through different dimensions of SRL. Fur-
thermore, we wanted to contribute to the research domain of the home learning environ-
ment because this environment has an extensive impact on students’ learning, their achieve-
ment and overall development (e.g. Pino-Pasternak and Whitebread 2010; Steinberg et al.
1992); however, only a few studies considered students’ SRL (Hill and Tyson 2009). In line
with Pomerantz et al. (2007), who already suggested that parents affect students’ learning

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through both students’ skills and motivational aspects, referring to the skill and motiva-
tional development model, the results of the current study showed that parental involve-
ment as viewed by the students supported students’ use of self-regulated learning strategies
and, in turn, SRL was found to be a significant predictor of students’ school achievement
(Martinez-Pons 2002). Both the use of cognitive learning strategies and metacognitive
self-regulation can be seen as part of skill development (Pomerantz et al. 2007). Students’
autonomous motivation and perceived academic efficacy can be seen as part of the moti-
vational development model in which parents enhance students’ learning by offering these
motivational resources.
However, the SRL dimensions appeared to mediate the relationships between the
aspects of parental involvement and students’ achievement only to a small extent (Cohen
1988; Preacher and Kelley 2011). First, positive significant associations of students’ per-
ceptions of parental involvement for the various SRL dimensions were found, which under-
pins parents’ importance in the development of learning strategies and skills to regulate the
learning process even in middle school (Martinez-Pons 2002; Pino-Pasternak and White-
bread 2010; Pomerantz et al. 2007). Reflecting on past research, parents were found to have
an impact on students’ metacognitive self-regulation (Pomerantz et  al. 2007), perceived
efficacy (Pajares 2002; Zuffianò et al. 2013), autonomous motivation (Grolnick et al. 2009;
Grolnick and Slowiaczek 1994; Hill and Tyson 2009) and use of cognitive learning strate-
gies (Borgonovi and Montt 2012). The limited association with students’ use of cognitive
strategies might be explained by the notion that parents are less capable of modelling the
use of learning strategies for students, in comparison with, for example, influencing stu-
dents’ feelings about what they are capable of (perceived academic efficacy). As Pomer-
antz et al. (2007) indicated, with age, students develop several SRL skills, such as planning
and monitoring. Students do not need their parents to sit down with them and do their
homework together (i.e. the skill development model becomes less important); however,
students need their parents to be involved at a more motivating level, showing interest, talk-
ing about school and their future academic lives (i.e. an increase in the importance of the
motivational development model).
Second, all SRL dimensions had a significant association with students’ achievement
results, which is in line with previous research (e.g. Boekaerts 1997; Perry and Van-
dekamp 2000; Vrugt and Oort 2008; Zimmerman 2002; Zuffianò et  al. 2013). Students’
perceived that parental involvement had the largest association with students’ metacog-
nitive self-regulation and perceived efficacy and, in turn, these two SRL factors had the
largest association with students’ achievement results (Grolnick et al. 2009; Hughes et al.
2013). The mediation effects of students’ use of cognitive learning strategies and autono-
mous motivation appeared limited in our study. As indicated above, with age, parents have
a greater impact on the motivational aspects of students’ learning rather than on the learn-
ing itself (Pomerantz et al. 2007). However, this does not explain the low association with
autonomous motivation. Students’ perceptions of parental involvement appeared to have
a small, positive association with students’ autonomous motivation but, in turn, students’
autonomous motivation appeared to have a negative association with students’ achievement
results. A possible explanation for the low association between students’ perceptions of
parental involvement and their autonomous motivation could be that students perceive the
involvement of their parents as not very motivating, which could have an influence on their
motivation and learning in general. As Assor and Connell (1992) indicated, students’ per-
ceptions of their environment can be more important than the actual events in their envi-
ronment. However, this is not in line with previous research, which indicates that there
are positive associations of parental involvement for students’ motivation (e.g. Cheung and

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Pomerantz 2012; Fan and Williams 2010; Gonida and Cortina 2014; Gonzalez-DeHass
et  al. 2005; Hill and Tyson 2009). Additionally, the negative association that we found
for students’ autonomous motivation on their achievement also was unexpected, although
previous studies have revealed that students’ motivation has an impact on achievement
(Goldberg and Cornell 1998). However, the negative association is small and additional
factors, which remain unclear in our study, probably play a part in the relation between stu-
dents’ motivation and achievement (e.g. students’ personality) (Cordova and Lepper 1996;
Komarraju et al. 2009). Furthermore, these negative associations of students’ autonomous
motivation and use of cognitive learning strategies with students’ achievement also could
point to the presence of a suppression effect. The direct and mediated associations of stu-
dents’ perceptions of parental involvement and the SRL-related variables for students’
school achievement have opposite effects (Tzelgov and Henik 1991). High correlations are
found between the SRL-related variables and students’ achievement and, at the same time,
negative paths are found for students’ motivation and use of cognitive learning strategies
towards students’ school achievement. These effects might indicate the possibility that the
associations for students’ autonomous motivation and use of cognitive learning strategies
are supposedly suppressed by the other SRL factors in our study (i.e. metacognitive self-
regulation and perceived academic efficacy). Students’ perceptions of parents’ expectations
for their learning appeared not to be associated with students’ academic efficacy and their
achievement, which is not in line with previous studies which underpin the importance of
academic socialisation and for which the expectations of parents are the main focus (Hill
2001; Puccioni 2015).
Third, regarding the socio-demographic variables, by adding the students’ sex, migra-
tion background and parent occupational status to the mediation model, we controlled for
the effects of these background variables. The effect of students’ sex, more specifically
girls scoring higher for school achievement, is in line with Van Maele et al. (2015). Regard-
ing the socio-demographic characteristics, the results are not fully in line with previous
research. Boonk et al. (2018), in their review, indicate that children from higher-SES fami-
lies tend to have higher grades than children from lower-SES families (e.g. Hemmerechts
et  al. 2017); this also is known as the SES achievement gap (Loeb 2007). Furthermore,
parents with a low socio-economic status are found to be less involved in school than to
their counterparts (e.g. Pomerantz et al. 2007; Tapia 2000). However, in our study, parents’
occupation, a component of students’ SES, was not found significant for students’ achieve-
ment. Regarding migration background, parents without migration background are likely
to be more involved in their children’s education (Park and Holloway 2013; Steinberg
et  al. 2009). In line with Klapproth and Schaltz (2015), having a migration background
was found to impact students’ achievement. Furthermore, socio-demographic characteris-
tics are also found to impact students’ SRL (Bembenutty 2007; Van Maele et  al. 2015).
Overall, the associations that we found in our analyses remained independent of the stu-
dents’ demographic features. Further discussion of the magnitude or significance of these
background variables with regard to the extent of parental involvement, students’ SRL or
achievement was beyond the scope of this study.
Overall, a substantial amount of variance remains unexplained. It is highly likely that
other factors are involved in predicting students’ achievement and preventing students from
dropping out (e.g. specific parental support and resources, school and teaching practices
and student behaviours) (OECD 2012).

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Learning Environments Research

Limitations

A few limitations of this study must be considered. The student was the reporter for all of the
measures (except for school achievement), which could have impacted the results. However,
it has been argued that students’ perceptions of their learning contexts might be more power-
ful than the actual educational settings (Assor and Connell 1992). Nevertheless, parents’ per-
ceptions of their involvement in school and its relations with students’ SRL and achievement
would be interesting to examine. Furthermore, this study made use of self-report question-
naires, a data-collection method that raises an important validity concern. Students could be
influenced by social pressure to answer questions about their own behaviour or attitude in a
socially-desirable way. In that way, bias creeps into the results. More qualitative data and tri-
angulating students’ perceptions with parental perceptions of parental involvement could be
interesting for future research. Third, our proposed mediational model is only one possible
way in which the variables of interest could be related. This raises the issue of the direction of
effects. Whereas parents could influence their children’s learning, an equally plausible model
is one in which students’ characteristics and learning impact parental involvement. Further
research is needed to investigate the possible directions of the effects. It is also likely that the
relations among involvement, SRL factors and students’ achievement indicate circular path-
ways in which SRL fuels parental involvement and involvement fuels SRL, which fuels school
achievement. Another limitation is the use of students’ marks (i.e. results for mathematics
and language) as the only indicator of school achievement. However, although this is widely
known as a valid measure for drawing conclusions about students’ learning and the broader
effectiveness of learning (Von Hippel 2009), other aspects related to achievement might be
important (e.g. students’ behaviour, wellbeing, motivation, intelligence). Further research is
needed to investigate other factors. Despite these limitations, this study brings us was one step
closer to gaining more insight into students’ perceptions of parental involvement practices in
middle school and already emphasizes the pivotal role of parents as a key resource for stu-
dents’ learning.

Conclusion and implications

In the present study, we investigated the possibility of a mediational role of students’ SRL
skills in the relationship between students’ perceptions of parental involvement and students’
achievement. We found that the students’ perceptions of their parents’ involvement are asso-
ciated with their school achievement through students’ SRL. Parental involvement was also
associated with students’ SRL factors. All of these results indicate the importance of the
involvement of parents in the education of their children at the middle-school age. However,
analyses showed that there were additional factors involved. We can conclude that parental
involvement in their children’s schooling is beneficial for students’ learning (i.e. achievement
and SRL). Parents are important factors in the development of students’ SRL, affecting not
only their children’s current school but also enhancing a positive school career, decreasing
the chances of grade retention and dropping out of the education system early. Future policy
should focus more on parents and their educational involvement. Schools should be aware of
this and enhance the educational involvement of middle-school students’ parents at home at
multiple levels (e.g. clear and consistent communication).

13
 Learning Environments Research

Acknowledgements  This work is part of the Strategic Basic research project ‘Teaching in the bed of Pro-
crustes’ (project number: 110020) financed by the Flemish Agency for Innovation in Science and Technol-
ogy (IWT).

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