Parental intrusive homework support and math achievement: Does the child’s mindset matter?

Click the buttons to download the infographic and transcript!

Title: Parents Intrusive Homework Support and Math Achievement: Does the Child’s Mindset Matter?

Authors: Daeum Park, Elizabeth A. Gunderson, Erin A. Maloney, Eli Tsukayama, Sian L. Beilock, Angela L. Duckworth, and Susan C. Levine. (2023)

Journal and DOI:

Developmental Psychology, 59(7)

https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001522

Previous Research

Uninvited homework help from parents is negatively related to children’s motivation and academic achievement.
Autonomy is an important element of the learning environment and uninvited homework-help impedes the child’s sense of autonomy.
Individuals with a growth (incremental) mindset believe intelligence is malleable, whereas those with a fixed (entity) mindset believe it cannot change.
When given a choice, individuals with a growth mindset tend to choose challenging tasks that offer learning opportunities over easy tasks that ensure success. In contrast, when given a choice, individuals with a fixed mindset tend to choose easy tasks over challenging ones.

Young elementary school children with a growth mindset perform better than those with a fixed mindset about intelligence.

What did we ask?

Does intrusive homework support from parents predict a greater decrease in academic achievement for children with a fixed mindset than for children with a growth mindset?

How did we do it?

Study 1: First and second graders (n= 563) and their parents (n=349)

To measure Growth vs Fixed mindset, children responded to a 12-item motivational framework questionnaire.
To measure children’s perceptions of their parent’s intrusive math homework support, children responded to a 3-item questionnaire. Parents also reported the frequency of their homework involvement in math.
To measure Math Achievement, children took the Applied Problems sub-test of the Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Achievement. Parents and children also responded to a demographics questionnaire.

Study 2: Eighth graders (N= 1,613)

To measure Growth vs Fixed mindset, children responded to a 3-item questionnaire.
To measure children’s perceptions of their parent’s intrusive homework support, children responded to the same 3-item questionnaire as in study 1, but the questions were not specific to math.
To measure Academic Achievement, math GPA for the current school year was collected for each child. Children also responded to a demographics questionnaire.

What did we find?

For study 1 and 2, consistent with the hypothesis, when parental intrusive homework support was low, there was no difference in changes in achievement between children with a fixed mindset and those with a growth mindset. In contrast, when parental intrusive homework support was high, the achievement of children with a fixed mindset performed worse than that of children with a growth mindset.

Intrusive homework help was more strongly related to lower achievement among the younger group of children with a fixed mindset than the older group of children with a fixed mindset.

Take away Message

The combination of a child’s fixed mindset and a parent’s intrusive homework support, can negatively impact the child’s academic achievement.
Younger children may be more effected by the type of homework-help their parents provide than older children.

Brought to you by Dr. Erin Maloney’s Cognition and Emotion Lab at the University of Ottawa.