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College Mothers' Academic Achievement Goals as Related to their Children's Attitudes Toward Learning

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Abstract

The present study considers the relationship between college mothers' academic achievement goals (both learning and performance) and the mothers' attitudes toward their children's schoolwork as well as the relationship between each of these sets of characteristics in mothers and their elementary-school-age children's attitudes about learning. Results indicate that a mother's adoption of learning goals in her college education is positively related to the endorsement of a process/indirect focus with respect to assisting and evaluating her child on academic tasks and is associated with more personal satisfaction with providing homework assistance and greater optimism concerning the benefits of such assistance. Results also suggest that college mothers with more of a learning goal orientation and/or more of a process/indirect focus have children who display a similar concern with learning and a positive attitude about homework. Mothers who adopted more of a person/product focus with respect to their child's schoolwork had children who were less likely to interpret homework and other school tasks as opportunities to learn.

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Correspondence to Robert B. Ricco.

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Ricco, R.B., McCollum, D.G. & Schuyten, S. College Mothers' Academic Achievement Goals as Related to their Children's Attitudes Toward Learning. Social Psychology of Education 6, 325–347 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025644506640

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