The Relationship Between Helicopter Parentings Style and Academic Performance in Students: The Mediating Role of Self-Control

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Master of Family Counseling, Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Khatam University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Assistant professor, Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Khatam University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating role of self-control in the relationship between helicopter parenting and academic performance of female students. The method of the present study was descriptive-correlational.The statistical population of the present study included all female high school students in Rey city of Tehran province in the academic year 1399-1399 that 357 of them were selected by available sampling method. The research instruments included Kendall and Wilcox self-control questionnaire, Limvin and Bachchanan helicopter parenting questionnaire and Pham and Taylor academic performance questionnaire. Based on structural equation modeling, the mediating role of self-control in the relationship between helicopter parenting and academic performance was confirmed. Pearson correlation test also showed that there is a negative relationship between helicopter parenting and self-control, a positive relationship between self-control and academic performance, and a negative relationship between helicopter parenting and academic performance. Therefore, it is suggested that mental health and education professionals pay special attention to the role of helicopter parenting and self-control to improve academic performance.
Introduction
Existing studies on student academic performance have focused more on how to improve the quality of student academic performance in the school environment and little attention has been paid to identifying some underlying factors that may affect academic performance; One of the factors that can affect students' academic performance is the role of parents and how parents relate to academic performance, which can be described in terms of parenting style (Love, Cui, Allen, Fincham & May, 2019).
One type of parenting style is "helicopter parenting style". Helicopter parenting demonstrates behaviors in which parents take responsibility for their children to prevent them from failing (Bradley-Geist, & Olson-Buchanan, 2014). Although research has been done on the effect of helicopter parenting on psychological well-being more than academic variables, there is evidence that this style of parenting may also have a negative effect on academic performance (Warren, Locklear, 2021). Padilla-Walker and Nelson (2012) and Kim, & et al., (2013) found that helicopter parenting was positively associated with reduced child participation in school activities and poor academic achievement. However, the mechanism determining this relationship is not entirely clear; So, documenting the relationship between helicopter parenting and student academic performance raises the question of what mechanism can help explain why such a relationship exists? Given that previous research has shown that helicopter parenting is associated with a decrease in personal determination (Schiffrin & et al., 2014), from this perspective, helicopter parenting can disrupt academic performance; Because it reduces children's innate motivation to learn and emphasizes more external motivations (such as parental approval and grades) and thus reduces self-control. In general, helicopter parenting does n ot facilitate the development of self-control skills, and a lack of self-control can lead to unintended consequences such as academic failure and reduced academic performance (Love, May, Cui & Fincham, 2020).
Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the mediating role of self-control in the relationship between extreme parenting style and academic performance of female high school students.
Methods
The method of the present study was descriptive-correlational. The statistical population of the present study included all female high school students in Rey city of Tehran province in the academic year 2020. The statistical population of the study was 5000 female students and using Morgan table, 357 people were considered as a statistical sample. Due to the fact that the time of conducting the research coincided with the outbreak of Covid 19 pandemic, it was not possible to implement the pencil-paper questionnaires on the studied students, so sampling was done by available method and online submission method was used to complete the questionnaires. In order to observe the ethical considerations, the participants had the freedom to choose not to participate in the research and they were assured about the principles of confidentiality and confidentiality of the questionnaire information. Data analysis was performed using SPSS and PLS statistical software. The research instruments included Kendall and Wilcox self-control (1979) questionnaire, Limvin and Bachchanan (2011) helicopter parenting questionnaire and Pham and Taylor (1999) academic performance questionnaire.
Results
Relationships between variables were tested by Pearson correlation test and the research model was tested using structural equation modeling technique (partial least squares method or PLS).
The correlation results are shown in Table 1.
Table 2 reports the results of the research model relationship test. In the table, the value of the standardized path coefficient, the value of t and the significant level (p-value) obtained are reported. Examination of relationships and conceptual model shows that two of the three relationships in the model are confirmed (P <0.05).
Table 3 shows the results of the intermediate test, including direct, indirect, and total effects:
Findings show that the mediating role of self-control in the relationship between helicopter parenting and academic performance is confirmed (P <0.05). The intensity of indirect or intermediate effect is equal to 0.217.
Discussion and Conclusion
The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating role of self-control in the relationship between helicopter parenting and academic performance of female students.  Based on structural equation modeling, the mediating role of self-control in the relationship between helicopter parenting and academic performance was confirmed. To explain this finding, it can be said that helicopter parenting may have unintended consequences for children, adolescents and young people because the behaviors of helicopter parents do not facilitate the development of regulatory processes such as self-control, and these results indicate a lack of skills. Self-control (due to parental behavior) may lead to unintended consequences such as decreased academic performance in students. The limitation of the statistical population of the research, the type of research that is correlational and cross-sectional, and the lack of study of the possible impact of some intervening variables such as family, cultural, social and economic factors and personality traits, reduce the generalizability of research findings.
It is suggested that in future research, intervention factors such as the role of parental gender in the consequences of helicopter parenting style as well as other influential variables such as family, cultural and social factors should be considered as research variables.

Keywords

References

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