The causal relationship between parenting styles and academic performance mediated by the role of academic self-efficacy and achievement motivation in the students

Family is the most important social environment that affects the people’s growth. People are affected by their homes’ environment, not only physically and biologically, but also by their personality and early experiences. The aim of this study was to test a model consisting of causal relationship between parenting styles and academic performance, by mediating role of academic self-efficacy and achievement motivation. 236 Shahid Chamran University students (117 males and 119 female) completed Baumrind Parenting Styles Questionnaire (BPSQ), Achievement Motivation Test (AMT) and Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (ASES). The findings indicated that the authoritative parenting style had a positive direct effect and the authoritarian parenting style had a negative direct effect on achievement motivation and academic self-efficacy. The permissive parenting style had a negative direct effect on academic self-efficacy but had no effect on achievement motivation. Also, academic self-efficacy had a positive direct effect on academic performance, but there was no meaningful relationship between achievement motivation and academic performance. The results showed that the proposed model does not fit the data well. Therefore, a better fit was obtained by omitting the non-significant path from permissive parenting style to achievement motivation. In addition, the indirect total effects of authoritarian, authoritative and permissive parenting styles with academic performance, mediated by the role of academic self-efficacy and achievement motivation was significant.