Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date

2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Elizabeth Meisinger

Committee Member

Emily Srisarajivakul

Committee Member

Robert Cohen

Committee Member

Ryan Farmer

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the closest and most important systems of support available to middle school students, their parents and teachers, and to better understand how specific aspects of parenting (support for autonomy and involvement) and teaching (support for autonomy, and emotional and academic support) may contribute to the student’s self-regulated learning and achievement in mathematics. Previous research has focused primarily on evaluating students as individuals or looking at only one relationship, whereas this study sought to expand on the current literature by evaluating the relationships between students and teachers as well as students and their parents. Additionally, this study chose to evaluate middle school students as middle school signifies an important transitional period that has been associated with outcomes later in life, but has not typically been studied with these specific variables. Students (N = 129) from a university-affiliated, public middle school (sixth, seventh, and eighth graders) completed an online survey measuring their perceptions of their self-regulated learning, their parent’s support for their autonomy and involvement in school activities, and their math teacher’s support for their autonomy as well as emotional and academic support. Path analysis was used to evaluate a teaching and parenting model using self-regulated learning as a mediator for achievement in math and using the gender, race, and age of the students as covariates. Results suggest that the student’s self-regulated learning was the most important variable for the student’s achievement in math, and SRL mediates the association between teacher support for autonomy and math achievement. The parent model did not reveal any significant relations between parental involvement and autonomy support and math achievement; however, these results must be interpreted with caution due to poor reliability of the measures selected. This study sheds light on the importance of evaluating the validity and reliability of measures used with middle school students, specifically addressing their perceptions of their relationships with their parents. Overall, the results of the path analysis point to the need for more direct interventions to teach children self-regulated learning skills as well as the importance of teachers that support autonomous behaviors in the classroom.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest.

Notes

Open Access

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