1. Parental Influence on Adolescent Academic Outcomes: Socio-Economic and Relational Aspects of Family Context
Kathy L. Bell, UNCG
Katie Jodl, University of Michigan
Deborah Land, University of Virginia
This study was supported by grants from the Spencer and William T. Grant foundations to Joseph Allen at the University of Virginia

2. Parents’ Influence
Socio-economic factors (e.g., Hauser & Featherman, 1977)
Parenting style ( Steinberg, Dornbusch, and colleages)
Moderation of peer influence (Mounts & Steinberg, 1995)
Quality of Parental Relationships
There are multiple pathways by which parents may influence the academic outcomes of their adolescent offspring. First, there is much data supporting a relationship between socio-economic factors and academic achievement on the part of the child. Second, the work of Steinberg, Dornbusch and colleagues has documented a relatively robust relationship between parenting style and concurrent GPA, and longitudinally between parenting style and aspects of academic self-concept. Mounts and Steinberg (1995) highlight the fact that parenting style also moderates peer influence. Specifically, they have shown that the positive effects of high achieving peers is most potent in the context of authoritative parenting.
Darling and Steinberg suggest that authoritative parents may be particularly influential with their children because they create a climate where offspring are willing to accept parental values. In the current study we examine features of the parent-child relationship that may specifically influence adolescents’ receptivity to parental input -- their trust of, communication with and their alienation from their parents. These constructs have been examined in relationship to college student outcomes such as personal-emotional and academic adjustment (Bell, Lanthier, & Sargent, 1999). The current study extends this research to a heterogeneous relatively high-risk high school sample. Because almost half of this sample came from single-parent mother-headed homes for this presentation we restrict our research questions to maternal influence.

3. Research Questions
Is the quality of maternal relationships related to:
adolescents’ perceptions of their academic engagement?
objective measures of adolescents’ academic performance?
Concurrently and longitudinally
Do peer relationships have the same or different influences?
Roeser and Eccles (1998) have shown that adolescents’ perceptions of their school
environment are important predictors of adolescents’ academic motivation and
achievement. Not only are adolescents’ perceptions of the school important but so
are their perceptions of their abilities (Frome & Eccles, 1998). In this study we will
be examining two aspects of students’ phenomenological experience -- their
academic self-concepts and their satisfaction with school. We expect that the current
quality of their maternal relationships will be related to their perceptions of these
aspects of academic engagement.
Past research has documented only weak relationships between the quality of maternal
relationships and academic performance per se. In my own work I found that whereas
the quality of parental relationships was related to academic adjustment in college
students, it was not related to GPA, therefore we do not expect to find this association.
In this study we will examine both GPA and a school risk factor consisting
of suspensions, expulsions, and dropping out of school. Our analyses
with respect to the risk factor are exploratory.
Longitudinally, we expect the same pattern of relationships. However, it is also possible
that there may be only an indirect relationship, that is a concurrent relationship between
perceptions and quality of relationship, but relatively stable perceptions across time.
Whereas we do not expect the quality of maternal relationships to be related to GPA,
it is expected that close friendship will be (Mounts & Steinberg).

4. Sample 69 male teens, 61 female teens Mean age 15.85 (SD = .73)
58% European American, 41% African American, 1 % other
49% living in mother-headed single-parent households
Median family income: $25,000
Median mothers’ education: some training beyond high school
Data for the analyses in this study were collected from 130 ninth and 10th graders and their peers.
Adolescents were selected based on the presence of any of four possible academic risk factors, including failing a single course for a single marking period, any lifetime history of grade retention, 10 or more absences in one marking period, or a history of school suspension in the current academic year. These broad selection criteria were established to sample a sizeable range of adolescents who could be identified from academic records as having the potential for future academic and social difficulties. The sample included both adolescents already experiencing serious difficulties and those who were performing adequately with only occasional, minor problems. As intended, these criteria identified approximately one-half of all 9th and 10th grade students as eligible for the study. These criteria also minimized gender differences on academic outcome variables.
After adolescents who met study criteria were identified, letters explaining the study were sent to each family. Interested families sent back postcards with information about how to contact them by phone. Approximately 67% of the families contacted by phone agreed to participate. Families came in for two three hour visits at time 1 and teens returned for additional visits at time 2, approximately 2 years later. Each teen also identified several peers to be contacted for the study. All participants were compensated for their participation and assured of confidentiality of their responses.

5. Relationships
Current parental relationships: Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (Armsden & Greenberg, 1989)
Close friendships: Peer reports on the close friendship scale of the Adolescent Self-Perception Profile (Harter, 1985)
Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA; Armsden & Greenberg, 1989)A slightly modified version of the original IPPA developed by Armsden & Greenberg (1987) was used in this study. This self-report measure was designed to assess adolescents’ perceptions of their mothers, fathers, and close friends as sources of psychological security. Today we are focusing on adolescents’ perceptions of their maternal relationships. Three relationship dimensions were assessed including: mutual trust (e.g., “I trust my mother ”), quality of communication (e.g., “My mother encourages me to talk about my difficulties”), and alienation in relationships (e.g., “I feel alone or apart when I am with my mother ”). An overall attachment score was also computed from these three scales.
Up to two of the target teens’ friends were contacted and brought into our offices to be interviewed. In cases in which data were gathered from two peers, their ratings of the teen in the study were averaged to create one peer variable. Peers had known the target adolescents an average of 5 years (SD = 3.6).
Peers completed a modified version of the Adolescent Self-Perception Profile (Harter, 1985). They were asked to complete the questionnaire as they thought it best described the target adolescent using an array of statements about the teen. An example item from the close friendship scale is
Some teens are able to BUT Other teens find it
make really close friends hard to make really close friends.
We have used peers’ perceptions of the target teens’ feelings about close friendships because they were close friends of the teens. Their perceptions should be fairly accurate and using multiple informants helps minimizes self-report biases.

6. Perceptions
Satisfaction with school: Quality of School Life Scale (Epstein & McPartland, 1978)
Academic self-concept: Adolescent Self-Perception Profile (Harter, 1985)
Attitudes Toward School (ATS; Epstein & McPartland, 1976; 1978)A slightly modified version of The Quality of School Life Scale (QSL) developed by Epstein & McPartland (1978) was administered to adolescents . This 26-item questionnaire was designed to tap the quality of youths’ school experiences. Three dimensions of the quality of school life were assessed including: satisfaction with school, commitment to classwork, and reactions to teachers. Today’s presentation focuses on adolescents’ satisfaction with school.
Target adolescents also completed the well-validated Adolescent Self-Perception Profile (Harter, 1985). Today, for the teen reports we focus on the academic self-concept scale. A sample item from this scale is
Some teenagers feel that they BUT Other teenagers aren't so
are just as smart as others their age sure and wonder if they are as smart.

7. Academic Performance Grades: From schools
School risk: Self-reported dropouts, expulsions, and suspensions.
Grades were available for 119 of these students at time 1 and 87 of them at time 2. The students for whom we were unable to obtain grades at time 2 had lower grades at time 1, reported more risk factors at time 1 and were less satisfied with school at time 1 than students for whom we have grades at both time points. We were also more likely to have grades from time 2 for students who were not minorities. There were no difference between these groups of students in terms of age, gender, family income, mothers’ education level or the teens view of the academic self-concept. We used year averages for core courses (English, Math, Science, and Social Studies). We used last high school grades available for students who had graduated within six months of their time 2 visit.
A measure of school risk was created by weighing the types of disciplinary actions students had experience. Students who had dropped out or had been expelled were considered at a high level of risk, intermediate levels of risk were based on the number of suspensions students had experienced. At time 1 42% of the sample had experienced more than 2suspensions from school.
(PAUSE)
Because of sample size limitations, preliminary analyses were conducted to determine which demographics and relationship variables had the strongest relationships with our outcome variables.

8. Time 1 Demographics _____________________________________ GPA Risk
Family Income .47*** -.25**
(n)
Mothers’ Education .48*** -.15#
(n)
note. *** p < ** p < .01. # p < .10.
Demographics --
For both the time 1 perceptions and academic performance variables correlations were examined with family income and mothers’ education level, and t-tests were examined for intact families versus other family types, African-American versus European-American ethnicity, and for gender differences. The correlations highlight that family income and mothers’ education level were related to academic performance. African-American students reported both higher levels of risk and lower GPAs at time 1 than European-American students. Adolescents’ gender was only related to school risk. Girls reported lower levels of academic risk. Family type was not related to any of these variables at time 1.
The perceptions of the teens in this study were not related to family or individual demographic characteristics.

9. Time 1 Relationships _____________________________________
Maternal Relationships
Perceptions
Attitudes r(115) = .27**
Academic S-C r(125) = .16#
Friendship
GPA r(103) = .24*
___________________________________
note. ** p < .01. * p < .05. # p < .10.
As predicted, in examining the relationship variables we found that adolescents’ current relationships with their mothers were related to their attitudes toward school and marginally related to their academic self-concepts.
Also as expected, we found that there was a positive association between close friendship and teens’ gpas at time 1.
All of our outcome variables at time 1 were significantly correlated with each other except teens’ academic self-concepts were not related to the school risk factor.
(PAUSE)
In predicting adolescents’ concurrent perceptions at time 1, maternal relationships were the sole predictor of these outcomes. This might be attributable in part to method variance but even after controlling for academic self-concept the relationship between maternal relationships and attitudes to schools remains. The partial correlation is essentially the same as the original one r(113) = .26 **.

10. Time 1 Grades -- Adjusted R2 = .29***
family income, mothers’ education level, ethnicity, close friendship
School Risk -- Adjusted R2 = .09**
adolescents’ gender, family income, mothers’ education level, ethnicity
_____________________________________
note. *** p < ** p < .01.
We used regression analyses to predict concurrent gpa and school risk. The italicized variables were significant predictors in our final regression analyses. In these analyses we entered a block of demographics factors. For GPA these included family income, mothers’ education level and ethnicity of the adolescent. For school risk we also included the adolescents’ gender.
For GPA we followed this block of variables with close friendship. As expected, close friendship was a significant predictor of GPA even after controlling for all of these demographic factors. Close friendship accounted for 5% of the variance in the final equation. We did test to see if peer reports of close friendship interacted with any of the significant main effects for demographic variables. There were no significant interactions.
For school risk in the block of demographic factors only adolescents’ gender was a significant individual predictor of this outcome.

11. Stability _____________________________________ Perceptions r n
Attitudes .49*** 116
Academic S-C .56*** 120
Academic performance
Grades *** 85
School risk .41*** 116
note. *** p < .001.
Because we were also interested in predicting change in our outcome variables it is important to note that for each of the variables that a significant proportion of the variance at time 2 was accounted for by the time 1 construct. The correlations note that between 17 and 31% of the variance in the time 2 constructs can be accounted for by the time 1 constructs.
(PAUSE)
As was the case in time 1, at time 2 teens’ academic self-concepts were not related to the school risk factor, at time 2 however their self-concepts were no longer significantly related to their attitudes toward school. All of the other outcome variables were significantly correlated.
Longitudinally quality of maternal relationship was only marginally related to teens’ satisfaction with school r(118) = .16, p < .10.
To test our hypothesis that relationship quality might have an indirect effect (not mediated because the initial relationship between the time 1 variable and the time2 variable is not present) we attempted to predict change in GPA and Risk from adolescents’ perceptions at time1.

12. Change to Time 2 Grades: academic self-concept F (2,78) = 20.89
adjusted R2 = .33***
School Risk: satisfaction with school
F (2,108) = 13.36
adjusted R2 = .18***
In predicting GPA we found that after controlling for time 1 GPA that time 1 academic self-concept was a significant predictor of time 2 GPA - standardized parameter estimate .29, p < .01.
And in predicting school risk, after controlling for time 1 risk, time 1 satisfaction with school was a negative predictor of risk. That is students who were unsatisfied reported increased risk between time 1 and time 2, beta
-.20, p < .05.

13. Question 1
Concurrently -- Is the quality of maternal relationships related to:
adolescents’ perceptions of their academic engagement? YES
objective measures of adolescents’ academic performance? NOT DIRECTLY
The quality of maternal relationships was related to adolescents’ perceptions of their academic engagement concurrently.
The quality of maternal relationships was not related to objective measures of academic performance concurrently, however satisfaction with school was related to these measures.

14. Question 2
Longitudinally -- Is the quality of maternal relationships related to:
adolescents’ perceptions of their academic engagement? TREND
objective measures of adolescents’ academic performance? NOT DIRECTLY
There was a trend for maternal relationships to be directly related to teens’ satisfaction with school longitudinally.
Quality of maternal relationships was related to teens’ perceptions at time1. Longitudinally for both GPA and risk teens’ time 1perceptions had effects in predicting changes in these performance measures.

15. Question 3
Do peer relationships have the same or different influences? DIFFERENT
The quality of maternal relationships was related to adolescents’ perceptions
of their academic engagement concurrently.
Friendship was related concurrently to GPA.

16. Conclusions Quality of Maternal Relationships Sample Characteristics
Multiple Aspects of Academic Experience
In this study we focused on the quality of maternal relationships. Whereas the measure of relationship quality we used assesses current relationship functioning it draws on attachment theory for its theoretical foundation. This makes this construct distinctively different than parenting style. Aspects of trust, communication and lack of alienation may have some relationship to maternal warmth but they do not appear to be theoretically related to the dimension of parental control. Teens who report positive relationships with their mothers on the IPPA do not necessarily come from authoritative homes. However, the way a person views oneself should theoretically and was empirically related to this aspect of maternal relationships. Furthermore, academic perceptions were related to maternal relationships but not to close friendships. Future research should look at how paternal or lack of paternal relationships interacts with these other relationships.
The importance of this study, at least in part, is derived from the fact that we have used a longitudinal study that has not relied on single informants to predict change in a sample of “at-risk” teens. There were attribution biases in this sample and it appears that the teens for whom grades were not available at Time 2 were some of the teens who were performing poorly at time 1. Whereas we may have lacked school data for these teens at time 2 we did have other measures of academic outcomes for them. By assessing multiple aspects of the family context (demographics and relationships), multiple aspects of adolescents perceptions, and multiple measures of academic performance we have gained a deeper understanding of the nature of maternal influence on academic outcomes.