Parental expectations and academic achievement of adolescents

Pages: 26-28
Poonam Malik (Department of Human Development and Family Studies, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana)

Parents are the most important persons in a child’s life. His personality and behaviour are heavily influenced by them. The same is true for his achievements. Achild’s performance is dependent not only his capabilities but also his psychological environment. The present experiment was conducted in Haryana state to find out the impact of parental expectations on academic achievement of adolescents. The expectations of 100 parents, 50 mothers and 50 fathers, of adolescent children were assessed using a self-structured questionnaire. Academic achievement of adolescent was assessed on the basis of their previous examination scores. Results showed that none of the parents had low expectations of their adolescent children. Fifty two percent mothers and 56 % fathers had high level of expectations. Academic achievement of adolescents was found to be positively and significantly correlated with father’s expectations (r=0.357*) and positively but insignificantly correlated with mother’s expectations. No significant relation was found between personal variables and parental expectations except family income which was found to be negatively and significantly correlated with mother’s (r=-0.292*) and father’s (-0.281*) expectations.