Effects of Socioeconomic Status, Parent-Child Relationship, and Learning Motivation on Reading Ability.

Qishan Chen,Wenyang Gao,Lei Mo,Yurou Kong

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01297

Abstract

Against the background of Chinese culture, we investigated the relationship between family socioeconomic status (SES) and children’s reading ability. Participants included 2294 middle-school students in grade 8. SES was measured by parents’ education level, parents’ occupational prestige, and family property, and children’s reading ability was estimated with item response theory. In addition, we adopted an 8-item parent–child relationship scale and a 22-item learning motivation scale that included four dimensions. We examined whether the parent–child relationship mediated the relationship between family SES and reading ability and whether this was moderated by learning motivation. The results indicated that the parent–child relationship played a mediating role in the relationship between SES and reading ability. This relationship was moderated by students’ learning motivation. The direct effects of SES on reading ability at high, medium, and low levels of learning motivation were 0.24, 0.32, and 0.40, respectively.

Highlights

Reading, the process of acquiring meaning from text, is one of the most complex and unique cognitive activities of humans
Our study focuses on students’ learning motivation, which reflects the extent of challenge, engagement, intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation and examines it in a moderated mediation model
Based on the previous literature (e.g., Hess and Holloway, 1984; Bradley and Corwyn, 2002; Spinath and Steinmayr, 2012; Zhang et al, 2013; Wen et al, 2016; Kim et al, 2017), we propose the following hypotheses: (1) family socioeconomic status (SES) positively relates to children’s reading ability, (2) parent–child relationship mediates the positive relationship between SES and reading ability, and (3) learning motivation moderates the influence of SES on reading ability

Summary

Introduction

The process of acquiring meaning from text, is one of the most complex and unique cognitive activities of humans. Reading ability can have a significant influence on both the academic achievement and further personal development of students (Espin and Deno, 1993; Herbers et al, 2012; Reed et al, 2017). It is necessary to investigate the factors that influence students’ reading ability and to explore the possible mechanisms of these factors. Numerous studies have shown that personal characteristics, family socioeconomic status (SES), teachers, and school characteristics are key factors affecting students’ reading ability and academic achievement (Sirin, 2005; Stanovich, 2009; Law, 2011; Chiu and Chow, 2015). SES is one of the most common factors and is the most discussed.

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