Relationship Between Parental Involvement and Adolescents’ Academic Self-Efficacy: Evidence from Young Lives Study in India

• Published in: Youth Voice Journal 2024-01, Vol.14 (1)
• Main Authors: Radhakrishnan, Sumangali, Mishra, Shefali
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2049-2073; 2056-2969

Purpose: The present study aims to contribute towards an understanding of parental involvement and academic self-efficacy of adolescents in economically vulnerable families in India from an indigenous perspective.Design/methodology/approach: Employing a dataset for the younger cohort from Round 5 of the Young Lives Study – an innovative international project exploring the lives of around 9000 children from economically disadvantaged families in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana – questions around parental involvement and the adolescents’ sense of academic self-efficacy are examined. Data were analyzed using Linear Regression.Findings: Findings support the hypothesis that an increase in parental involvement influences adolescents’ sense of academic self-efficacy.Practical implications: As parental beliefs can be modified through training, understanding the relationship between children’s perception of parental involvement and self-efficacy can help streamline the efforts of teachers, educational psychologists, policymakers, and other professionals who design programs for encouraging parental involvement with lower socioeconomic status families.Originality/value: The present study analyses a relatively large sample from India to examine the relationship between parental involvement and the academic self-efficacy of children, an area that has received scant attention in the literature. Further, the study extends the conceptualization of parental involvement to emphasize on ‘at-home’ involvement, that may be more feasible for parents from economically disadvantaged families.