College Mothers in the Dual Roles of Student and Parent: Implications for Their Children’s Attitudes toward School

This study sought to establish the relevance of college mothers’ motivational orientation and other student-role attitudes to the parenting of their school-age children and to their children’s attitudes toward school. College mothers (N = 89) with a child between the ages of 7 and 14 years completed measures of their academic achievement motivation, self-regulation as students, and academic self-efficacy along with measures of their approach to parenting a school-age child. Children (N = 61) completed a separate parallel set of largely motivational measures. Mothers’ reasons for going to college and extrinsic motivation as a student contributed to the prediction of their children’s mastery orientation and academic self-efficacy above and beyond the contributions made by mothers’ parenting attitudes. Results also provided modest support for a partial mediation model in which college mothers’ attitudes in providing homework assistance and their promotion of mastery goals for their child mediate the effects of mothers’ reasons for attending college and degree of self-regulation as a student on children’s academic achievement motivation