1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«The goal of this study was to test the contribution of parental behaviors to children’s adjustment in school using a multi-informant approach. More specifically, we wanted to estimate the contribution of mothers’ and fathers’ self-reported behaviors to children’s adjustment in school once children’s perceptions were controlled for.» (p. 63)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«Data came from a larger study on parents’ contribution to youths’ vocational development, which began when adolescents were in their third year of high school and included the participation of adolescents as well as their mother and father. The present study used the Time 1 data. A total of 522 adolescents (233 boys, 389 girls), their mothers (n=535), and fathers (n=296) participated in the first wave of the study. […] Participants came from a random sample provided by the Quebec Ministry of Education of students who were in Secondary 3 during the 2011-2012 academic year […].» (p. 63)

Instruments :
Questionnaire

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«Mothers and fathers’ behaviors were found to have unique contributions to their child’s adjustment in school, and sampled a variety of behaviors proposed by SDT [Self-determination theory] to contribute to children’s adjustment. These findings not only demonstrate the importance of mothers and fathers during adolescence but also of considering all behaviors proposed by SDT, some positive (autonomy support, involvement, and structure) and others negative (control). Another point that deserves attention regarding parental control is its relation to autonomy support. When we examined it from children’s perspective, as is often the case in the literature, these two categories of behaviors were highly negatively correlated. Hence, when children perceived their parents as supporting their autonomy […], they reported a low frequency of controlling behaviors such as pressure, reward contingencies, threats or guilt-inducing techniques. From parents’ standpoint, however, these two categories of behaviors coexist, as revealed by moderate positive correlations for both mothers and fathers. Concretely, this suggests that parents who use autonomy supportive behaviors such as perspective taking, choice offering, or providing rationales for their expectations can, nevertheless, use some control (e.g., rewards, threats and punishments, or guilt), although to a lesser degree, as suggested by the magnitude of correlations.» (p. 70) «In sum, the present study demonstrated that children and parents are discrepant in their evaluation of parental behaviors and that each informant provides useful information.» (p. 71)