Construction of a measure of Chinese parenting strategies and its ability to predict children's academic achievement

Abstract

There has been substantive interest in studying parental influenee on children's academic achievement. While Western measures have been developed in assessing parenting style and parenting strategics, reliable and valid measures developed specifically for Chinese parenting are lacking. Thus, this report describes efforts to construct a new measure of Chinese parenting strategies, named the Chinese Parenting Strategies Scale (CPSS). There are a Parent Form and a Child Form. Participants were recruited from seven primary schools in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), and the resulting samples were comprised of 1,188 children, 1,025 parents/caregivers, and 30 homeroom teachers. Confirmatory factor analysis suggests the Parent and the Child Forms share a five-factor structure: 1) expectations, 2) family teaching, 3) attitude towards schooling and learning, 4) active involvement, and 5) attention to schoolwork completion. The internal consistency of these five strategies was examined using Cronbach's alpha and they were found to be internally reliable. The children completed several additional Western measures: SRQ-A, GOALS-S, Self-concept of Ability Scale, and Academic Standards. Parents and homeroom additional data, path analyses were performed to test the hypothesised process model on parents self-reported parenting strategies, children's perception of their parent's strategies, orientation towards learning, and academic outcomes. The results supported the model, and identified specific paths within the model. It is concluded that the CPSS has the ability to predict children's academic outcomes. In addition, the path model explained how these five parenting strategies impact on academic achievement through the mediational variables of: 1) standards set by child, 2) desire for teacher approval, 3) learning strategies, and 4) internal motivation. The results indicated that parenting strategies reported by parents predicted their child's perceptions of them, which then predict the child's perspective on learning. The next group of variables in turn predicted academic achievement. In the future, it is important to establish reliability and validity of the CPSS, as well as to confirm the findings of this preliminary study with an independent Chinese sample.