1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«The objective of the present research is thus to test the relation between children’s competence in a task and maternal controlling practices during a mother–child guided learning interaction while addressing the limitations of past research.» (p. 123)

Questions/Hypothèses :
The authors «hypothesize that children’s competence in a task will be negatively related to the preponderance of controlling practices during mother–child interactions involving that task such that the less competent children are in the task, the more maternal controlling practices will be observed by an independent coder (Hypothesis 1; H1). In turn, the increased occurrence of maternal controlling practices should be linked to children’s perceptions of their mothers’ practices as more controlling during the interactions (H2). Third, an indirect negative link between children’s task‐specific competence and their perceptions of their mothers’ controlling practices should also be observed (H3). All of these associations are expected to hold true when controlling for the effects of mothers’ self‐reported controlling parenting style and preconceptions of their children’s academic skills.» (p. 124)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
L’échantillon est composé de 101 dyades mères-enfants (52 filles et 49 garçons). La région de provenance des participants n’est pas mentionnée, mais l’étude a été conduite par une équipe québécoise.

Instruments :
- Grille d’observation
- Questionnaires

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«Overall, the results of this study support the existence of a relation between children’s competence in a task and maternal controlling practices during guided learning interactions involving that task. Specifically, children’s lack of competence in the block design was associated with higher levels of coded maternal controlling practices. In turn, the more mothers emitted controlling practices, the more children experienced their mothers’ parenting as controlling. [The authors] also found that, as expected, children’s task‐specific competence was indirectly linked to their perceptions of maternal controlling practices during the guided learning interaction, through their associations with coded maternal controlling practices. Results were observed while controlling for the effects of mothers’ self‐reported controlling parenting style and preconceptions of their children’s academic skills. This suggests that children’s task‐specific competence is related to coded maternal controlling practices over and above what could be expected from mothers’ general tendency to be controlling, and regardless of their preconceptions of their children’s academic skills. Importantly, the results were found at a calibrated difficulty level, which implies that the relation between children’s task‐specific competence and mothers’ practices is less likely to be due to variations in children’s struggle with the task or to a perceived mismatch between children’s abilities and the task difficulty.» (p. 129)