European Journal of Psychology of Education

2007, Vol. XXII, nº 1, 7-21

© 2007, I.S.P.A.

Students’ perceptions of family influences on their

academic motivation: A qualitative analysis
Tim Urdan
Monica Solek
Erin Schoenfelder
Santa Clara University, U.S.A.

Research examining family influences on student motivation and

achievement in school has generally focused on parental influences and
has often been limited to one or two variables (e.g., parental
expectations or aspirations, parental involvement in schoolwork). In
the present study we interviewed high school seniors to examine
whether and how family members affected their academic motivation
and achievement. Interviews were coded holistically for the strength,
affective tone, source, and types of familial influence. Emergent themes
from the interview analyses revealed that students perceived a broad
range of types and sources of familial influence on motivation.
Interviews were divided into five prototypical patterns: Family
Obligation, Family Pleasing, Family Support, Aversive Influence, and
No Influence. The types of familial influence differed by cultural
characteristics (generational status, native country) and by
achievement level. Associations between the five patterns of family
influence and existing theories of family influence are discussed.

Introduction

It seems intuitive that parents exert considerable influence on their children’s academic
motivation. Children spend the majority of their time with their parents (at least until
adolescence) and parents are more invested than anyone in their children’s education.
Research evidence, however, has been mixed, ranging from findings of very little direct
influence of parents (Thorkildsen & Scott-Stein, 1998) to indirect evidence of strong parental
influence via attachment (Ainsworth, 1982), parenting styles (Baumrind, 1991), modeling

This research was supported by a grant from the W. T. Grant Foundation to the first author.
8 T. URDAN, M. SOLEK, & E. SCHOENFELDER

(Bandura, 1986), involvement with their children’s school and school work (Holt & Campbell,
2004), and aspirations for their children’s higher education and career paths (Fan, 2001). The
purpose of the present research was to examine the range of students’ perceptions regarding
the strength and nature of familial influences on academic motivation. Rather than adopting a
theoretical stance, we began with the assumption that high school students would differ widely
in the types and strength of family influence perceived by students. Using interview
methodology, this study explored the variety of sources and types of motivational influences
that our sample of high school students perceived.
This article begins with a brief overview of the research on family influences on
academic motivation and performance. Most of this research has focused specifically on the
influence of parents. Next, we describe our own study of a sample of 47 high school students’
perceptions of the ways that family members have influenced their academic motivation.
Finally, we interpret the results of our study by placing them within the context of existing
research and theory regarding family influences on student motivation. Specifically, we
consider how the results of the present study fit with prior research and theory on the effects
parenting styles, modeling (from Bandura’s social-cognitive model), and cultural factors on
family influences of student motivation.

Overview of existing research

In their recent chapter examining parental influences on student achievement motivation,

Pomerantz, Grolnick, and Price (2005) provide a useful framework for categorizing this
research into different categories. Specifically, they divide this research into parental behavior
(e.g., level of involvement amount of structure provided, and autonomy supportiveness),
parental cognition (i.e., perceptions of children’s competence, expectations for performance,
and parental values), and parental affect (i.e., attachment and closeness, family obligation, and
self-definition in relation to parents). Using this framework to guide our own review of the
literature, we present a brief synopsis of this research. We focus primarily on research that is
closely related to our own. Namely, because we have a highly diverse sample, we were
particularly interested in research on cultural factors related to family influence. In addition,
because our study was conducted within the context of a social-cognitive theory of motivation,
and relies on students’ perceptions of family influence, we were particularly interested in
existing research on the association between parental beliefs and student motivation.

Research on parental behaviors

Most of the research on parental behaviors suggests that parents who are actively
involved in their children’s education have children who are more motivated in school and
achieve at higher levels (Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994; Englund, Luckner, Whaley, &
Egeland, 2004). Involvement can take a variety of forms including supervising homework,
actively selecting the school the child attends, and reading with children. In addition, research
suggests that when parents adopt an authoritative parenting style (i.e., high demandingness
coupled with strong support; Baumrind, 1991) and are not overly controlling, children tend to
respond with more autonomous motivation in school, achieve at higher levels, and have
greater feelings of competence (e.g., Dornbusch, Ritter, Leiderman, Roberts, & Fraleigh,
1987; Ginsburg & Bronstein, 1993; Grolnick, 2003). To summarize, it appears that parents
who are willing and able to provide support to their children, but do not become coercive or
controlling in their influence, produce academically motivated children. Of course, much of
this research is correlational in nature, making it difficult to determine whether these parenting
practices actually enhance motivation and achievement or whether autonomous, motivated
children elicit supportive parenting coupled with high expectations for success.
 FAMILY INFLUENCES ON MOTIVATION 9

Research on parental beliefs

Parental beliefs include a wide array of cognitions. The most heavily studied of these
include parental aspirations and expectations for their children’s academic success,
motivational beliefs regarding children’s competence and goals, valuing of academic
achievement, and endorsement of more intrinsic or extrinsic forms of motivation. Parents who
expect their children to do well in school, and who have high perceptions of their children’s
competence, often have children who had high perceptions of competence, expected to do
well, and achieved at higher levels (Parsons, Adler, & Kaczala, 1982). In addition, parents
who value academic achievement often have children who value academic achievement as
well. Some of this association is probably due to direct transmission of values from parents to
their children through speech (i.e., parents telling their children how important education is)
and deeds (e.g., rewarding children for doing well academically). An additional explanation
for the association between parent and child valuing of education may be due to modeling. For
example, children may witness the professional success of parents who achieved well in
school. Similarly, children may observe the negative consequences associated with low
parental academic achievement.
In addition to expectancies and values, parents’ motivational beliefs and behaviors
regarding achievement goals and intrinsic vs. extrinsic forms of motivation are related to
students’ motivation. Elliot and Thrash (2004) found parents’ fear of failure may be translated
to their undergraduate child’s own adoption of performance-avoidance goals in the classroom.
They found that a negative, aversive motive disposition was passed from the parent to the
child by parents expressing their own fear of failure and by threats of withdrawal of affection.
In addition, research on parental preferences for intrinsic or extrinsic reward structures has
revealed an association between parental motivational beliefs and children’s motivational
orientations (Ginsburg & Bronstein, 1993). Extrinsic rewards offered in response to both good
and bad grades were associated with lower grades and poorer achievement scores. Of the four
possible parental reactions to their children’s grades (Negative Control, Uninvolvement,
External Reward, or Encouragement), only Encouragement was positively related to the
purely motivational subscale used by Ginsburg and Bronstein. This research is consistent with
the findings of research described earlier demonstrating a link between student motivation and
parental support that was not controlling (Grolnick, 2003).

Research on cultural factors

Research examining parental influences on student motivation and achievement has

sometimes reported different effects for different cultural and ethnic groups. For example,
Dornbusch et al. (1987) found that authoritarian parenting styles were associated with lower
achievement for Caucasian students but was associated with higher achievement among Asian
students in the study. Mau (1997) found both Asian immigrants and Asian Americans spent
more time on homework and perceived higher parental educational expectation than did
Caucasian students. Caucasian students, however, reported more parental involvement in
school activities than did Asian American students, most likely because of immigrant parents’
struggle with the English language and their unfamiliarity with the American school system.
In addition to research on parenting styles and involvement, recent research has revealed
differences between students regarding their sense of obligation to parents (e.g., Fuligni,
Tseng, & Lam, 1999; Suarez-Orosco & Suarez-Orosco, 1995; Urdan, 2004). This research has
generally found that children of immigrant parents often report a sense of obligation to repay
their parents for the sacrifices the parents made when immigrating to the United States for the
purpose of providing greater educational and career opportunities for their children. This sense
of obligation is correlated with higher educational aspirations among students, more time
spent doing schoolwork, and greater valuing of academic achievement. Family obligation is
closely related to another cultural factor: definition of self as independent or interdependent
10 T. URDAN, M. SOLEK, & E. SCHOENFELDER

(Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Children from certain cultural groups (e.g., east Asian, Latin
American) are more likely than Western European and Caucasian American children to define
the self closely in relation to family members, including parents (an interdependent self).
Students with a stronger interdependent self-construal report greater investment in school than
do students with a more independent self-construal (Wang & Pomerantz, 2004, cited in
Pomerantz et al., 2005). Pomerantz et al. (2005) note that neither family obligation or
interdependent self construals is related to academic achievement, suggesting that wanting to
please parents by achieving in school does not necessarily translate into actually performing at
a higher level in school.

Summary

Existing research on family influences on student motivation has been limited primarily
to the influence of parents. Research from the parenting styles and self-determination theory
perspectives suggests that involved parents with high expectations but who are not overly
controlling of their children (i.e., authoritative parenting style) have children who value
school, have strong academic self-concepts, expect to do well, and often do perform at a high
level. However, this research has also revealed that such parental effects vary across cultural
groups. In addition, this research has generally relied on correlational data, making the causal
pathway difficult to determine. The present research sought to extend prior research in a
variety of ways. First, we used interview methodology to allow students to describe, in their
own words, how and whether family members influenced their academic motivation. Second,
we did not limit our exploration of family influences to parental factors. Participants were free
to describe the influence of non-parental family members, and many did so. Third, by asking
open-ended questions, we did not limit the types of motivational influences participants could
describe. We were primarily interested in the variety of family influences on motivation that
participants described, and they responded with influences ranging from family obligation to
sibling role modeling to critical incidents, such as the death of a family member. We were also
interested in how the types of family influenced described by participants in this study fit with
prior research and theory, especially research on parenting styles, modeling effects, and
cultural variations in family influence.

Method

Sample

Forty-seven high school seniors (the last year of secondary education in the United
States) participated. These students were participants in a large survey study conducted two
years earlier (see Urdan, 2004 for a description of that sample). This sub-sample was selected
to represent a diversity of achievement levels, genders, and generational status. Twenty-eight
percent of the sample was male. Ten participants were first-generation immigrants to the U.S.,
25 were children born in the United States to immigrant parents (i.e., second-generation), and
the remaining 12 were born to parents who were also born in the U.S (third-generation or
more). The sample consisted of students with Vietnamese, Chinese, Latin American (mostly
Mexico), Filipino, and Caucasian backgrounds.

Procedure

Participants were interviewed individually for 15-30 minutes in a private room on school
property. The interview included questions about students’ motivational orientations
(particularly about their achievement goals). The last section of the interview included
 FAMILY INFLUENCES ON MOTIVATION 11

questions about family influences on the student’s motivation. Specifically, we asked students
“Do you talk about school much with members of your family?” and “Do you think that your
family has influenced how you feel about school or how hard you try?” These questions
served as prompts for students to begin discussing their perceptions of family influence.
Students’ responses to these questions were followed by elaboration questions from the
interviewers, such as “Tell me more about this” or “Why do you think so?” The interviewers
were trying to engage participants in a discussion about how family members affected
academic motivation, if at all. In addition to these two questions, participants were asked to
respond to a specific question that had appeared on the survey students completed two years
prior: “An important reason that I try to do well in school is to please my parents/guardians”.
Participants were asked to rate the veracity of that statement on a scale from 1 (“not at all
true”) to 5 (“very true”) and then discuss their rating with the interviewer.

Coding

All of the interviews were audiotape recorded and then transcribed. The development of
the coding procedure followed an iterative process. The first and third authors began by
reading a sampling of the interview transcripts and trying to identify themes. We decided to
analyze the interviews holistically. Entire interview transcripts were examined for family-
related content and judgments were made about the type and source of family influence along
five dimensions: (1) the strength of perceived family influence on motivation (strong, medium
weak); (2) valence (positive, negative, both, none); (3) the nature of the influence (e.g.,
nagging, pressure, desire to make parents proud, avoiding failure, proving competence or
worth to family members, obligation to repay parents for sacrifices); (4) the source of
influence (e.g., parents, siblings, critical incidents such as a death in the family; and (5) family
socioeconomic factors influencing motivation (e.g., cultural expectations relating to ethnicity
or heritage, poverty or financial hardship, level of academic success of other family members).
The first and third authors read random selections of 5 interview transcripts at a time to
develop the coding scheme. As new themes emerged with the reading of additional transcripts,
the coding scheme was modified until the 5 coding categories were developed. Once
developed, the coding scheme was given to two research assistants who had not participated in
developing the coding scheme. These research assistants coded a random selection of 10
transcripts and inter-rater reliability was established. The reliability was 91% on those 10
transcrips. The disagreements were discussed until consensus was reached and the research
assistants divided and coded the remaining 40 interview transcripts.

Results

The results will be presented in three sections. First, we will describe four student
patterns of family influence that emerged from the data. Next, we present the results of our
analysis comparing the family influence patterns of higher and lower achieving students.
Finally, we briefly discuss a set of results regarding critical incidents that students felt
influenced the motivation dynamic in their families. Where appropriate, cultural differences in
the pattern of family influence will be noted.

Patterns of family influence

Our analysis of the interviews revealed five patterns of family influence. The most
common of these was the Family Pleasing pattern, which was marked by the desire to make
the family proud through high academic achievement. The Family Obligation pattern included
students who felt indebted to their parents for the sacrifices they made to create educational
12 T. URDAN, M. SOLEK, & E. SCHOENFELDER

and financial opportunities for their children. This pattern represented a more specific type of
desire to please family members by achieving well academically. The third pattern of family
influence was the Family Support pattern. Students displaying this pattern described
authoritative parents who held high academic expectations for their children while providing
nurturing support for them. We labeled a fourth type of family influence the Aversive
Influence pattern. These students described negative family role models and a strong desire to
disprove the low expectations of family members. Finally, a small group of participants
claimed that their families had little influence on their academic motivation. We called this
Lack of Influence pattern. Each of these patterns is described in more detail below.

Family Pleasing pattern: Students in this category expressed the desire to make parents
proud and, sometimes, to repay them for the sacrifices parents made to allow their children
access to educational opportunities (e.g., by migrating to the United States). They described
supportive parents who refrained from placing overt pressure on their children to succeed
academically. The Family Pleasing pattern was the most common pattern and was especially
frequent among the second-generation students in the sample, as illustrated by this quote from
a second-generation student.
“It’s very important to me to do well to show him and my mom that all the effort they put
in throughout the years has paid off. I am doing well because of what they have done for
me. I want them to feel that pay off”.

The desire to please family members, especially parents, extended beyond the desire to
show gratitude for parental sacrifices. Sometimes it was the more simple desire to just please
parents for the sake of making them proud. “I definitely want to do good so I can show my
parents that I’m doing well, I am not a failure. It’s always good to make your parents proud of
you”.

Family Obligation pattern: The Family Obligation pattern shared the defining
characteristic of wanting to please family members, usually parents, that was described in the
Family Pleasing pattern. The distinction between these two patterns is that the Family
Obligation pattern was marked by a sense of debt. Students in the Family Obligation pattern
did not just want to please parents; they felt they owed it to them. Students displaying the
family obligation pattern of family influence frequently described the sacrifices that their
parents made to give their children access to educational opportunities. A number of these
students had parents who immigrated to the United States, most often from Mexico, the
Philippines, or Vietnam. These parents left behind family and familiarity in their native
countries in part so their children could have access to the educational and economic
opportunities offered in the U.S., and these students felt an obligation to take advantage of
those opportunities. Sometimes, students’ sense of family obligation was created by pressure
exerted on them by parents, and was described in a negative tone. For example, a Filipina
talked about her feelings of family obligation this way:
“They’re all counting on me. [There’s] so much pressure... they’re pushing me too far.
One time, I had a C, and my mom said, ‘What’s this? I’m gonna send you back to the
Philippines, no more going out’ and things like that”.

A slight variation on this type of family obligation was described by students who clearly
recognized the efforts that their parents made to get them better educational opportunities by
moving to the U.S., but these students’ comments lacked the negative affect present in the
previous quote. For example, one second-generation student said,
“My dad at most finished high school, and my mom did not get any high school
whatsoever. But back [in Vietnam], kids who have the opportunity to go to school
cherish it. Here it’s just offered and people are throwing it away. I want them to see that I
did take what they gave me and made it better, doing and succeeding more than they did”.
 FAMILY INFLUENCES ON MOTIVATION 13

Similarly, a first-generation student commented “Since they didn’t have the opportunity
to go to school and to finish with a high degree, they want to see that in me. Because they
can’t accomplish their goals, they want to be able to say that their daughters or their son did”.
These statements include an element of felt pressure to succeed, but are neither positive or
negative in tone.
Other students in this category described their feelings of obligation in a more grateful
way. They mentioned how hard their parents worked, often holding multiple jobs and working
long hours in low-paying jobs. These students felt both an obligation to pay parents back for
their hard work by achieving academically and by getting higher paying jobs that they could
use to support their parents when they got older. “I want to graduate and get a really good,
high-paying job so I can pay my mom back for helping me through school. My mom’s always
had a dream of owning a house, maybe I can help her out”.
Finally, a few students in this category talked about their feelings of obligation to serve
as role models for their siblings. For instance, one student commented,
“I want to be the person that makes them say, ‘Oh, I wish I could do that’ or ‘Oh, I wish I
could write that good’. I just want to be who they look up to. I’m the oldest child of my
family and I have a younger brother and younger sister, so [my motivation] comes from
there”.

Parental Support pattern: The students in this group described a classic authoritative
pattern of parenting whereby encouragement and support were coupled with high expectations
of academic achievement. “My parents are all about positive reinforcement. They say, ‘We’re
disappointed that you got this C because we know you can do better’. They believe I can do
whatever I set my mind to, that helps me a lot” one third-generation student said. This type of
high-expectations, high-support parenting style is often associated with independence and
self-sufficiency in adolescence, and several of the students in this category mentioned that
they want to do well in school for themselves, not for their parents. Because this type of
individualistic pride is most commonly found in individualistic cultures (like the mainstream
American culture – see Markus & Kitayama, 1991), it was not surprising that students in this
category were more likely to be second- and third-generation rather than first-generation.

Aversive Family Influence pattern: Students in this category discussed two types of
negative family influence. When describing the ways in which family members influenced
their motivation in school, their affect was negative. One type of aversive family influence
was the perception among students that family members did not expect them to succeed
academically. One third-generation student put it this way: “Right now they want me to
graduate ‘cause they seem to think that I can’t make it. But I’m going to prove them wrong.
I’ll graduate”.
A second type of aversive family influence involved negative family role models. Several
students described family members who had not completed or done well in school and
discussed their desire to avoid a similar fate. For example, one girl described her family’s
educational background:
“I’m the first to graduate, the first to go to college. My mom only went to the first two
years of elementary school and then her parents didn’t let her go to school. My dad went
to sixth grade and really wanted to study, but they didn’t have the money for it. My sister
is doing really bad in school and my brother just dropped out of high school. I know from
stories my parents have told me that if only they had the opportunity to go to school, they
would be somebody now, they wouldn’t be working at a dead end job”.

Despite the negative affect among students in this category, there was not a clear pattern
of negative achievement. Students in the Aversive Family Influence category had grades in
their English class that ranged from D- (almost failing) to A (the highest grade possible).
14 T. URDAN, M. SOLEK, & E. SCHOENFELDER

Lack of Influence pattern: Finally, a few students told us that their families rarely
discussed school with them and had little influence on their academic motivation. Unlike the
Family Support pattern, in which several students acknowledged the effect their parents had
on them even though they wanted to succeed primarily for their own sense of pride, students
in this Lack of Influence category stated that their family simply had no influence on their
academic beliefs or motivation. One student claimed that his family never asks him how his
day was let alone how school is going, and that his parents never look at his report card or
inquire about his applying to college. Most of the students in this category were third-
generation Caucasian students.

Comparison of high, middle, and low achievers

In addition to documenting the different patterns of family influence described by high

school students, we were also interested in how students of different achievement levels varied
in their descriptions of family influences on their academic motivation. The sample was
therefore divided into high achievers (those who received a grade of A- or higher in their
English class), middle achievers (those earning a grade between, and including, B- to B+ in
English), and low achievers (those with grades of C+ or below in English). This division
produced 15 high achievers, 15 middle achievers, and 17 low achievers. The family influence
codes within each of these achievement levels were examined and family influence profiles
were created for high, middle, and low achievers.

High achievers. Students in this group often discussed cultural norms and expectations of
high academic success. These students, often first- and second-generation students, sometimes
made the link between pleasing relatives and fulfilling cultural norms. “To them [my grand-
parents], in my culture, education, they value it very highly. So my grandparents tell me ‘You
have to try to do your best and not waste this opportunity’”. High achievers often mentioned a
strong sense of family obligation, both the make parents proud and to serve as role models for
younger siblings. Some described the importance of living up to the high expectations that
their parents had for them, sometimes because of a lack of opportunities that parents had in
their native countries.
“They want me to become a doctor. And they always tell me they never got the
opportunity to go to school in Vietnam so ‘You’re really lucky that you get a chance to go
to school here, especially for free’. That helps me think, ‘Okay, I’m pretty lucky’. If I
don’t take a chance at this opportunity I’ll probably fail”.

Middle achievers. Similar to high achievers, students in the middle achievement group
often described their desire to please their parents by achieving academically. This desire to
please parents was often couched in cultural norms. For example, one Filipina girl said
“My mom and my parents actually are very traditional, and you know the whole Filipino
thing that you have to do good in school and like you can’t get lower than a B, even a B is
really bad for them you know”.

Another middle achiever noted the connection between wanting to please family and her
culture. “[It is important] to have the reputation that you [are] growing up to be successful;
good kids supporting their parents, trying to keep it together”.
Another characteristic of the middle-achieving group was their relatively frequent mention
of role models. Unlike high achievers, who said they felt an obligation to serve as role models
for their siblings, middle achievers described the effects of relatives who served as role models
for them. Sometimes, these role models were negative: “Two or three of my cousins dropped
out, or like you know, they got pregnant and stuff. And I don’t want to do the same like their
mistakes”. Other times the role model was an academically successful sibling or cousin.
 FAMILY INFLUENCES ON MOTIVATION 15

Another defining characteristic of middle achievers was their frequent discussion of

financial hardship. These students described their desire to avoid being poor, as their parents
were, and recognized educational success as a pathway out of poverty.
“... I don’t really come from a rich family or whatever. Me and my brothers always talk
about having to handle business in school because we don’t want to end up how our
parents are; they have to struggle and do all that. [We] want to be able to be financially
stable.”

Although students in this group expressed the desire to achieve well academically to
avoid the financial difficulties of their parents, they are only moderately successful in school,
perhaps due to a lack of resources (both financial and in terms of academic support from
parents) associated with the financial burdens and limited educational opportunities of their
parents.

Low achievers. Whereas high and middle achievers often overlapped in the sources and
nature of family influences on motivation, low achievers were distinct. Low achievers rarely
described desires to please family members of make parents proud. Similarly, when low
achievers talked about role models in their families, they were more likely than high and
middle achievers to mention negative models. “Maybe my brothers, my brother that I talk to
now because he didn’t graduate. He graduated from jail. My sisters didn’t graduate”. In
addition, when low achievers talked about cultural norms, they were often negative cultural
stereotypes rather than the cultural expectations of high academic success discussed by middle
and high achievers. For example, one low-achieving Latino student had this to say about the
effects of cultural stereotypes:
“... like a lot of Hispanics aren’t doing very well, and just knowing that I’m Hispanic...
because sometimes the way I think is if I’m doing something and I can’t do it, I
sometimes think that other people are like, ‘Oh yeah, she’s just nothing but a stupid
Mexican’”.

Finally, low achievers and high achievers sometimes appeared to be defining academic
success using different standards. Whereas high achievers often defined success as being the
best student in the class, going to college, and having a prestigious career, low achievers were
more likely to define success as passing a class or graduating from high school. Whereas both
groups of students said academic success was important, what constituted academic success
differed for the high and low achievers, and for their parents. For example, one high achieving
student described his parents’ expectations as follows: “I know that in their [his parents] hearts
or in their minds they want me to be perfect or something. Yeah, and just have really good
grades and get into a good college”. In contrast, one low-achieving student defined success in
more modest terms: “I do care, but you know, I don’t really mind if their [other students’]
grades are higher than me. I’m just like, ‘Alright, that’s great, at least the fact that I’m passing
the class, is all that matters to me’”.

Critical incidents

In addition to the patterns of family influence presented above, a number of students in

our sample (11 of 47, or 23%) described a single incident in their family histories that altered
the nature of the family influence on academic motivation. It is impossible to determine
whether these single incidents really altered the motivational patterns of families, but we
thought it was both interesting and potentially important to note that some students perceive
one event to mark a turning point in their family dynamic and, consequently, their own
academic motivation.
We divided the critical incidents that students described into two types: academic and
non-academic. Academic critical incidents refer to events that occurred within school settings.
16 T. URDAN, M. SOLEK, & E. SCHOENFELDER

For example, two students discussed getting a “wake-up call” at school. After taking it easy
and underperforming for several years, they realized that they needed to increase their
academic effort and focus in order to graduate. Another student described her realization, six
years ago when she was in 6th grade, that another student in her class was smarter than her.
These critical incidents, although interesting, were not described by students as being related
to family influences on academic motivation.
The non-academic critical incidents, in contrast, did alter the nature of family influences
on motivation. For example, two students discussed how a death in the family altered their
academic motivation. One student described the effect this way:
“A couple years, just a year ago, my brother passed away of brain cancer. I think when he
passed away I saw a lot of change in the way my family reacts to situations and it kind of
pushed me. And he used to tell me, you know, you got to go to school, and reach for your
goals as a nurse, and so that’s why I’m going to go to Evergreen [junior college] for two
years and get my nursing degree and go to Stanford. So, I think my family has a big effect
on me, and losing my brother also has a big effect on me because he’s also pushing me,
even though he’s not here he’s pushing me to excel in my life”.

Two students discussed the influence of arrests of family members on their family
structure and, as a result, their motivation in school. One girl talked about the arrest of her
older sister, who had played a mothering role, and the problems that created. Another student,
a third-generation girl who was getting an A- in her English class, talked about her father’s
problems and how that shaped her own motivation to go to college.
“My family’s past hasn’t been the best ever. My dad didn’t do well in his school. He was
the troublemaker kid. All my life I’ve been told by my mom that we need to get out, we
need to lead a better life for yourself because she felt so bad for the kind of life for us. It’s
been a really bad memory and my mom, she’s just been there to take care of us and so
that’s what I want to do. So I’m going to college”.

Finally, two students discussed the impact of their parents’ divorce on their academic
motivation. Both of these students described the divorces as tumultuous and disruptive. One
student said the divorce had cast him in the role of role-model for his younger brother, so he
needed to do well in school. The other student, a girl, noted that the divorce was accompanied
by increased attention and resources from her mother toward her younger sister, who showed
great academic potential.

Discussion

In this exploratory study, we were more interested in investigating the variety of ways
that high school students perceived family influences on their academic motivation than we
were on testing hypotheses about family influence. We asked our participants open-ended
questions and then developed a coding scheme that emerged from their responses to these
question. Previous research examining such factors as parental aspirations for their children’s
academic careers, parental involvement in school-related activities, and parental beliefs about
their children’s academic competence was not used to guide either the development of our
interview questions or of our coding scheme. We were interested in more general student
perceptions of family influences on academic motivation.

Varieties and types of family influence

Our first and strongest conclusion about family influence on student motivation is that it
takes many forms. The students in our sample talked about a variety of familial sources of
 FAMILY INFLUENCES ON MOTIVATION 17

motivation. Although parents were mentioned most frequently, students also talked about
siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, and grandparents as sources of influence on their
motivation to achieve in school. We were also struck by the affective tone of these interviews.
Students ranged from grateful to resentful, from burdened by oppressive expectations and
responsibilities to free from all parental pressure, and from warm to hostile as they talked
about the various influences of family members on their academic motivation. Some students
told us that their academic motivation came entirely from desires to please family members of
fulfill family obligations whereas others told us that their families had no effect on their
academic motivation. And whereas some students described family influences as ongoing and
embedded within a cultural history that encompassed the family (e.g., the high expectations or
Asian parents), others talked about one-time critical incidents and their effects on motivation.
Despite this wide variety of family influences, students’ responses were not entirely
idiosyncratic. Indeed, they often fit within patterns described by other researchers. For
example, students’ perceptions about the nature of family influences, and the effects of these
influences, fit with previous research regarding the effects of controlling vs. supportive parent
participation (Grolnick, 2003) and of authoritative rather than authoritarian parenting
(Baumrind, 1991). When students felt pressured or burdened by parental expectations and
demands, their own attitudes about school appeared to suffer. Other students, describing the
same parenting behaviors but in a more positive tone (i.e., feeling grateful rather than
burdened, supported rather than pressured) discussed the effects on their motivation in more
positive terms. These results point to the importance of the subjective quality of students’
perceptions about parental influences. It may be that students’ perceptions of parental
participation and support in their education as either supportive or coercive, or as authoritative
vs. authoritarian, may be more important than the actual practices themselves. Some research
indicates that whereas Asian American parents often appear to engage in controlling or
authoritarian parenting practices, Asian American students do not display the same pattern of
negative school-related effects as do European American students with authoritarian parents
(Dornbusch et al., 1987). One explanation for this cultural difference may be that Asian
students perceive their parents’ involvement as supportive, not controlling.

Cultural factors

Many of the participants in this study described patterns of family influence that fit with
existing research on cultural variations in student motivation. The most obvious of the
connections between this study and prior research is with the work on family obligation
(Fuligni et al., 1999; Suarez-Orosco & Suarez-Orosco, 1995). Many of the participants in our
study, particularly first- and second-generation students, described their strong feelings of
obligation to do well in school because they owed it to their parents. Sometimes the obligation
was an effort to repay parents for the sacrifices that they made to get them better educational
opportunities by immigrating to the U.S. Other times it was a recognition of the hard work that
their parents engaged in, a their desire to provide more comfortable lives for their parents by
doing well in school and getting high-paying jobs. In all cases, as Fuligni and others have
discussed, a sense of obligation to family provided a strong incentive for students to do well
academically. In addition to a sense of obligation, many students in our study described a
desire to make parents proud by achieving well in school. As Wang and Pomerantz (2004)
found, such a desire may be linked to a stronger tendency to define the self in relation to
parents. It is worth restating that a sense of family obligation can be perceived as either
burdensome or as an opportunity to express gratitude to parents who have sacrificed for their
children, and the effects on motivation may depend on these differences in perceptions. It is
also important to note that for some students, particularly those with a more collectivist self-
definition, striving to please family members by succeeding academically represents an
internal, not an external, motivational orientation.
18 T. URDAN, M. SOLEK, & E. SCHOENFELDER

Achievement level differences

The differences between high, middle, and low achievers, and particularly between the
low-achievers and the other two groups, appeared to fall somewhat along cultural lines. High
and middle achievers were often from Asian groups and from the first or second generation
(e.g., Vietnamese, Filipino), whereas low achievers were more often Latino and third generation.
One partial explanation for these results may be that in the U.S., there are different expectations
of success for different cultural groups, and these stereotypes affect achievement. The effects of
stereotype threat on achievement have been well documented (Steele & Aronson, 1995) and
would be expected to undermine the achievement of Latino students while having no ill effects
for Asian students because in the U.S., there is a stereotype about Asian students as high
achievers. Our results also suggest that socioeconomic status is an important factor. Although
high and middle achievers described similar forms of family influence, middle achievers were
more likely to describe economic hardships. Such hardships may have reduced important forms
of academic support – such as the availability of reading materials in the home or parental
education levels – that are related to academic achievement. Finally, the participants in the three
achievement level groups described different parental expectations. Although virtually all
participants said their parents wanted them to succeed in school, Asian American students said
their parents defined success as earning an A in all classes. Latino students in our study were
more likely to say that their parents defined success as graduating from high school.

The importance of modeling

The results of the present study overlap with some of the principles of social-cognitive
theory (Bandura, 1986). Specifically, in each of the family influence categories students
discussed the importance of modeling in some form. For example, students in the Family
Obligation pattern discussed both their desire to serve as models for younger siblings as well as
the effects of observing their parents struggle to achieve without a strong educational background.
Students in the Aversive Family Influence pattern discussed the impact of observing relatives
who failed academically, thereby serving as negative role models. A defining distinction
between low achievers and higher achievers in the sample was who they viewed as models.
Whereas higher achievers wanted to emulate high-achieving family members, and serve as
high-achieving models themselves, low-achievers in this sample were more likely to mention
negative, low-achieving role models. Although the low-achievers in this sample said they
wanted to avoid emulating such negative models, their low-achievement suggested that the
model itself may be stronger than the desire to avoid becoming like the model.

A systems approach to understanding critical incidents

Although only a few students mentioned family-related critical incidents, those who did
often discussed how the critical incident shifted the dynamic of the family. A systems-theory
analysis (Granic, Hollenstein, Dishion, & Patterson, 2003) of these critical incidents might
suggest that a radical change in the family situation (e.g., a death in the family, a divorce) is
often accompanied by a shift in the roles that members of the family play. Dymanic systems
theory suggests that over time, repeated interactions among components of a system (e.g.,
family members in the family system) solidify the roles of each component. For these roles to
change, it may be necessary to throw a wrench into the machinery. A critical incident in a
family may serve the function of the wrench: it shuffles and alters the roles of family members.
For example, one girl in this study mentioned that her parents’ divorce shifted the
relationships between the mother and her daughters, with a subsequent shifting of resources
toward one daughter and away from the study participant. Such a shift resulted in deleterious
consequences for our participant. In contrast, another participant in this study described how
his role shifted from mere student to role model for his younger brother after his father’s
 FAMILY INFLUENCES ON MOTIVATION 19

departure from the family following divorce. This new role caused the participant to become
more serious about school. Although such critical incidents may be rare and have consequences
that are difficult to predict, a dynamic-systems approach to analyzing the effects of critical
incidents may prove interesting and fruitful in the study of family influences on student
motivation and achievement in school.

Limitations

Our conclusions regarding family influences on students’ academic motivation are tempered
by the knowledge that our results may not generalize well to other samples. Our sample consisted
of 47 high school seniors from two California high schools. All of these students self-selected
into the study and all were proficient in English. Students who did not want to talk about family
influences on motivation, or immigrant students who were not yet proficient in English, may
have had quite different perceptions of how, and how much, family members affected their
academic motivation. In addition, students from schools outside the San Francisco Bay Area,
an atypically liberal section of America, may have quite different experiences of family
influence. Parents in this region of the country tend to be more authoritative and permissive
than parents in other parts of the country, and such differences may limit the generalizability
of this research to other parts of the United States and to various European cultures.
In addition to the limitations of the sample, the interview format has limitations as well.
First, open-ended interviews are subject to the truthfulness and verbosity of respondents.
There may be a strong tendency on the part of participants to cast family influences in a
favorable light. Moreover, the more articulate and socially comfortable participants may have
unduly swayed the results by providing more readily codeable, and quotable, interviews. A
student who said “My parents do not influence me much” may have simply been less verbose
than a student who described in great detail how family members influenced motivation. The
nature and effects of the influence may have been more similar between these two students
that the interviews would have revealed. Finally, because the questions about family influence
came at the end of an interview that was focused on students’ definitions of achievement
goals, participants may have been primed to think about motivational influences in a particular
way (i.e., as defined by achievement goal theory), thereby influencing their responses.

Conclusion

Despite these limitations, we believe that this research has the potential to inform
research on familial influences on student motivation. The primary contribution of this
research is its highlighting of the variety of ways that families can exert influence of student
motivation in school. Participants in this study described important influences of non-parental
family members, and often discussed their motivation in terms of the roles that they played in
their families (i.e., as dutiful son or daughter, as sibling role model, as the perceived weak-link
in he family or as the family’s best hope for social and economic advancement). By
considering the broad range of potential family influences on motivation, researchers may
gain better insights into the important role that the family context contributes to the overall
motivational orientations of students.

References

Ainsworth, M.D.S. (1982). Attachment: Retrospect and prospect. In C.M. Parkes & J. Stevenson-Hinde (Eds.), The
place of attachment in human behavior. New York: Basic Books.

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
Hall.
20 T. URDAN, M. SOLEK, & E. SCHOENFELDER

Baumrind, D. (1991). Parenting styles and adolescent development. In J. Brooks-Gunn, R. Lerner, & A.C. Peterson
(Eds.), The encyclopedia of adolescence. New York: Garland.

Dornbusch, S.M., Ritter, P.L., Leiderman, P.H., Roberts, D.F., Fraleigh, M.J. (1987). The relation of parenting styles to
adolescent school performance. Child Development, 58, 1244-1257.

Elliot, A.J., & Thrash, T. (2004). The intergenerational transmission of fear of failure. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 30, 957-971.

Englund, M.M., Luckner, A.E., Whaley, G.J.L., & Egeland, B. (2004). Children’s achievement in early elementary
school: Longitudinal effects of parental involvement, expectations, and quality of assistance. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 96, 723-730.

Fan, X. (2001). Parental involvement and students’ academic achievement: A growth modeling analysis. The Journal of
Experimental Education, 70(1), 27-61.

Fuligni, A.J., Tseng, V., & Lam, M. (1999). Attitudes toward family obligations among American adolescents with
Asian, Latin American and European backgrounds. Child Development, 70, 1030-1044.

Ginsburg, G.S., & Bronstein, P. (1993). Family factors related to children’s intrinsic/extrinsic motivational orientation
and academic performance. Child Development, 64, 1461-1474.

Granic, I., Hollenstein, T., Dishion, T.J., & Patterson, G.R. (2003). Longitudinal analysis of flexibility and reorganization in
early adolescence: A dynamic systems study of family interactions. Developmental Psychology, 39, 606-617.

Grolnick, W.S. (2003). The psychology of parental control: How well-meant parenting backfires. Hillside, NJ: Erlbaum.

Grolnick, W.S., & Slowiaczek, M.L. (1994). Parents’ involvement in children’s schooling: A multidimensional
conceptualization and motivational model. Child Development, 64, 237-252.

Holt, J., & Campbell, C. (2004, May 31). The influence of school policy and practice on mathematics achievement
during transitional periods. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 12(23). Retrieved August 20, 2006 from
http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v12n23/.

Markus, H., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation
Psychological Review, 98, 224-253.

Mau, W.C. (1997). Parental influences on the high school students’ academic achievement: A comparison of Asian
Immigrants, Asian Americans, and White Americans. Psychology in the Schools, 34, 267-277.

Parsons, J., Adler, T., & Kaczala, C. (1982). Socialization of achievement attitudes and perceptions: Parental influences.
Child Development, 53, 310-321.

Pomerantz, E.M., Grolnick, W.S., & Price, C.E. (2005). The role of parents in how children approach achievement:
A dynamic process perspective. In A.J. Elliot & C.S. Dweck (Eds.), Handbook of competence and motivation
(pp. 259-278). New York: Guilford.

Steele, C.M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans.
Journal of PersonA

Suarez-Orozco, C., & Suarez-Orozco, M.M. (1995). Transformations: Immigration, family life, and achievement
motivation among Latino students. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Thorkildsen, R.J., & Scott-Stein, M.R. (1998). Is parent involvement related to student achievement? Exploring the
evidence. Phi Delta Kappa Center for Evaluation, Development, and Research, 22.

Urdan, T. (2004). Predictors of academic self-handicapping and achievement: Examining achievement goals, classroom
goal structures, and culture. Journal of Educational Psychology.

Wang, Q., & Pomerantz, E.M. (2004). Children’s inclusion of their relationships with their parents in their self-construals:
Implications for children’s well-being. Unpublished manuscript.

La recherche examinant des influences de famille sur la motivation

et l’accomplissement d’étudiant à l’école s’est généralement concentrée
sur des influences parentales et a été souvent limitée à un ou deux
variables (par exemple, les espérances ou les aspirations parentales, la
 FAMILY INFLUENCES ON MOTIVATION 21

participation parentale aux devoirs). Dans la présente étude nous avons

interviewé des seniors de lycée pour examiner si et comment les membres
de famille ont affecté leur motivation et accomplissement universitaire.
Des entrevues ont été codées globalement pour la force, la tonalité
affective, la source, et les types d’influence familiale. Les thèmes
émergents des analyses d’entrevue ont indiqué que les étudiants ont perçu
une large gamme des types et des sources d’influence familiale sur leur
motivation. Des entrevues ont été divisées en cinq modèles prototypiques:
Engagement à la famille, satisfaction de la famille, appui de la famille,
influence opposée, et aucune influence. Les types d’influence familiale
ont différé par des caractéristiques culturelles (statut de generations,
pays d’origine) et par le niveau d’accomplissement. Des associations
entre les cinq modèles de l’influence de famille et les théories existantes
d’influence de famille sont discutées.

Key words: Adolescence, Family, Motivation, School.

Received: November 2005

Revision received: August 2006

Tim Urdan. Department of Psychology, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA
95053, U.S.A. E-mail: turdan@scu.edu; Web site: www.scu.edu

Current theme of research:

Dr. Urdan is currently conducting research on cultural influences on adolescent students’ motivation, particularly their
achievement goals. He is also examining the theory-into-practice of motivation research through his efforts with middle
school mathematics teachers to enhance the motivational climate in their classrooms.

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Urdan, T. (2004). Predictors of academic self-handicapping and achievement: Examining achievement goals, classroom
goal structures, and culture. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96, 251-264.

Urdan, T., & Mestas, M. (2006). The goals behind performance goals. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 354-365.

Urdan, T., & Midgley, C. (2003). Changes in the perceived classroom goal structure and patterns of adaptive learning
during early adolescence. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 28, 524-551.

Urdan, T., & Turner, J.C. (2005). Competence motivation in the classroom. In A.E. Elliot & C. Dweck (Eds.),
Handbook of competence motivation (pp. 297-317). New York: Guilford.

Urdan, T., Midgley, C., & Anderman, E.A. (1998). The role of classroom goal structure in students’ use of self-
handicapping. American Educational Research Journal, 35, 101-122.

Monica Solek. Department of Psychology, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA
95053, U.S.A. E-mail: msolek@scu.edu; Web site: www.scu.edu

Erin Schoenfelder. Department of Psychology, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa
Clara, CA 95053, U.S.A. E-mail: eschoenfelder@scu.edu; Web site: www.scu.edu