Children's study habits are predicted by their parents' learning strategy preferences

Abstract

BackgroundMany studies have identified both cognitive and motivational factors influencing students’ use of learning strategies but the roles of family and social factors have been overlooked. AimsThis study examines whether parents’ beliefs about the effectiveness of learning strategies influence the learning strategies that their children use, with intergenerational longitudinal data. Sample200 pairs of parents and their adolescent children. MethodsParents and children separately rated how effective they believed 21 different learning strategies to be, with children also rating the frequency of their strategy use. Ratings were repeated approximately 1 year later. ResultsWe found that the pattern of parents' strategy effectiveness beliefs at the first time point predicted that of their children's use of the strategies one year later, even controlling for children's strategy use pattern at the first time point. ConclusionsThis finding demonstrates the importance of considering familial factors when studying students’ learning strategy use.