1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«The goal of this one-year prospective study was to test if considering all six dimensions of parental structure provided a stronger prediction of students’ competence-related constructs than considering only some of its underlying dimensions, as typically found in the literature.» (p. 91)

Questions/Hypothèses :
«It was expected that some s-factors would more strongly predict competence-related constructs than others […].» (p. 96)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«Data came from a longitudinal study on parents’ contribution to youth’s academic and vocational development. The sample included 379 adolescents (177 boys, 202 girls) in their fourth year of secondary school. […] 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 and attended a French-speaking high school.» (p. 92)

Instruments :
Questionnaire

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«Results of exploratory bifactorial analyses revealed that global structure explained the largest share of variance in academic achievement, adjustment, self-efficacy, and identity. [Moreover,] findings did not provide unequivocal support for th[e] hypothesis. Specifically, the rules factor only predicted half of these constructs, while predictability and opportunities factors had a negative contribution, and their role was limited to academic achievement and adjustment.» (p. 95) In short, this «research demonstrated that students’ constructs related to the satisfaction of their need for competence can be better predicted from parental structure when all six dimensions are assessed. Parental structure was previously found to be important for children’s developing competence and self-regulation. The present findings show that prediction is optimized when structure is operationalized through all its underlying dimensions. Future research would therefore benefit from increasing questionnaire length to map on all dimensions of structure to more strongly predict the satisfaction of children’s need for competence and its associated consequences. While there is combined contribution of structure components, as revealed by the fact that global structure was a stronger predictor of students’ competence-related constructs, it is possible that, at different developmental stages or in different learning contexts, some dimensions will be more important than others in predicting specific elements of students’ competent functioning.» (p. 96)