The relationship of parental involvement and expectations to students' goal orientations, engagement and mathematics achievement : a comparison between Chinese Miao and Han

Abstract

This study explores the relationship of Chinese Miao and Han parental involvement and expectations to children’s mathematics motivation, engagement and performance, through three inter-related sub-studies. Study One validated a parental involvement instrument in the Chinese context and checked the measurement invariance between Miao and Han groups. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmation factors analysis were used to validate the five-dimension structure, including academic discussion, achievement-oriented control, homework involvement, school contact, and academic-family connection. Measurement invariance testing indicated that the parental involvement scale has strong invariance between Miao and Han. Study Two compared parental involvement and expectations between Miao and Han. The results showed that both Miao and Han parents had high educational expectations and frequent academic discussions. However, Han parents had more homework involvement and school contact than Miao parents, while the Miao group more endorsed academic-family connection. The study also compared Miao and Han students’ mathematics learning and found that Han students had slightly higher mathematics performance, while Miao students had more adoption of family-support goal orientation in their mathematics learning. Study Two also explored the relationship of Miao and Han parental involvement and expectations to students’ mathematics learning. Similar relationship patterns were found in the Miao and Han samples. For both groups, parental expectations and academic discussion had a positive role in children’s mathematics learning, while achievement-oriented control was linked to maladaptive learning outcomes. The academic-family connection played a double-edged role in Miao and Han students’ learning. Some ethnic differences were also found. Parental expectations were positively related to family-support orientation in the Miao group only, while school contact positively predicted student engagement for the Han group only. Additionally, family-support goal orientation was negatively related to students’ mathematics disaffection for the Miao group only. Also, compared with Han, the Miao students’ family-support orientation had a stronger positive relationship with their engagement in mathematics learning. Study Three was a qualitative study that aimed to elucidate and supplement the quantitative results and explore the potential factors affecting parental involvement and expectations in the two groups. A series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with local teachers, cultural experts, Miao and Han students, and their parents. The results indicated that Miao and Han parental involvement and expectations were affected by both micro-level factors (e.g., family factors, child factors, and school factors) and macro-level factors (e.g., general social policies, ethnic minority policies, mainstream cultural values, and ethnic tradition). Taken together, these studies reveal the potential similarities and differences between Miao and Han in terms of parental involvement/expectations and students’ mathematics learning. These findings are discussed and explained from a socio-cultural perspective. There are some theoretical and practical implications of this study, however, it also has some limitations. The directions for future studies are also discussed at the end of this thesis.