Parental Awareness of Their Children's Homework Motivation and Preference and Its Relationship to Achievement

ABSTRACT

The degree of parental awareness of their children's homework motivation and preference and its relationship to homework achievement and homework attitude were investigated in 329 Chinese fifth graders (172 boys and 157 girls) and 244 seventh graders (130 boys and 114 girls) and their parents. The level of match between children's homework preferences and parents' perception of their child's homework preferences indicates that there exists a fairly high level of awareness of child's preferred way of doing homework in Chinese parents. In general, a high level of parental awareness of child's homework preferences was associated with high achievement and positive attitude toward homework in the child. While gender differences became more pronounced in the upper grade, parental awareness became less influential in achievement of teacher-rated lomework assignments. In the lower grade, gender was not a major factor contributing to achievement differences, but parental awareness was a more important factor influencing children's homework achievement and attitude toward homework. Parents are often unaware of their children's preferred way of learning and studying. Without parental knowledge of individual differences in learning preferences, potentially positive parental influence could be compromised.