Influence of mothers’ parenting styles on self-regulated academic learning among saudi primary school students

Much of the research on self-regulation has investigated the influence of school settings. However, fewer studies have concentrated on the home environment and its influence on student’s academic behaviour in school. The present research investigates the influence of mothers’ parenting styles on students’ self-regulated learning behaviours in schools. The research included 351 primary students (11 and 12 years-old) and their mothers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The research was conducted using a crosssectional survey design in which mothers were asked to complete a Parenting Styles Questionnaire (Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen & Hart, 1995) and their children completed a modified form of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia & McKeachie, 1991). Results differ from what had been reported in the literature. We find that Saudi mothers tend to be authoritative rather than authoritarian (cf. Dwairy et al. 2006; Achoui, 2003). We find that authoritative styles are significantly and positively related to students’ self-efficacy, cognitive and metacognitive strategy use, and study and time management, whereas permissive styles are significantly but negatively correlated to self-efficacy and metacognitive self-regulation. Authoritarian styles have a small negative influence on time and study management and a small positive influence on help seeking, both effects being marginally significant.