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.