The Influence of Parental Autonomy-Support on Cognitive

The study investigated the parental autonomy-support given to senior secondary school students in Ekiti State, Nigeria. It examined the level of parental autonomy-support to senior secondary school students; it found the influence of parental autonomy-support on students ’ cognitive self-reliance. It also investigated the difference between fathers ’ and mothers ’ levels of autonomy-support given to the students; and examined if the fathers ’ and mothers ’ autonomy-support would determine students ’ level of cognitive self-reliance. Four hundred and fifty (450) students and their parents were purposively selected from four public secondary schools in two Local Government Areas of Ekiti State. Two LGAs were selected, using simple random sampling technique, while two schools from each LGA were selected purposively because only co-educational public secondary schools with no boarding facilities were used for the study. The results of the data analyses showed that 35.3 % of the parents of senior secondary school students demonstrated high level of parental autonomy-support to their children. Parental autonomy-support had no significant influence on cognitive self-reliance of the students (χ2 = 5.89, p> 0.05); there was no significant difference between fathers ’ and mothers ’ levels of parental autonomy-support to the students (t = 0.299, p> 0.05); mothers ’ autonomy-support had a stronger influence on adolescents ’ level of cognitive self-reliance when compared with the fathers ’ autonomy-support (ȕ = 0.824; t = 17.610, p <.05 and ȕ = 0.149; t = 3.188, p < 0.05). The study concluded tha