The Relationship of Parenting Styles, Self-confidence and Students’ Academic Achievement

Introduction   

Academic achievement is one of the main concerns of lecturers, university authorities, and students’ families (1). The purpose of education is to obtain academic achievement (2). Investigating the influential factors on academic achievement is a multidimensional process that is dependent on the social, political, cultural, cognitive and emotional development of the students. Many of the researchers have emphasized on the impact of mental and cognitive capabilities on the academic achievement. However, it should be noted that mental capabilities is not the only influential factor on academic achievement, there are other influential items, including family, society, peers, etc. (3).

One of the influential factors on academic achievement is family and parenting style. The family is the first founder of personality and intellectual values that plays a crucial role in determining the individual’s destiny and future lifestyle. Ethics, and mental health of the individual is largely dependent on the family (4). The family provides mental and physical needs and transfers social values, in addition, it plays very important role in the training of the children(5). The individual learns the demands of the society in the family and the cognition leads his/her behaviors (6). The appropriate function and relationship in the family is crucial for the health of the individual, family and society (7). What happens in the family and its function could be a key factor to reduce the social risks and adverse events and conditions in the society(8).

Kahrazee and Rigi Kotah presented that the function and family structure have the most important impact on the youth and teenagers and is the most influential factor in their development. The function of the family could influence the students’ educational self-regulation (9). The family uses five parenting styles, including coherence, intimate, permissive, authoritarian, disorganized, and rejecting-neglecting. Coherence and intimate styles are among the best training approaches. The powerful parents have reasonable demands of their children, they are friendly and listen to them patiently (10). In authoritative style, the parents expect unconditional obedience of children and rarely explain about their reasons (11). In permissive parenting style, the parents have low demands with high responsiveness. In rejecting-neglecting style, the irresponsible parents have no demands of their children. Their difference with permissive parents is that they expect less and focus on their own needs rather than their children. In disorganized style, the family has disruption and distress and does not care about the children’s training (12).  

Another influential factor in the academic achievement is students’ self-confidence. It is one of the main psychological needs of human. On the condition that self-confidence is properly shaped, there will be positive and effective outcomes such as self-efficacy, sense of capability, power, and qualification. However, if it is not well-shaped, there will be lots of negative outcomes such as sense of being worthless, not qualified and being useless in one’s life (13). Moradi and his colleagues presented that the students with a higher level of self-confidence are better in social communications and academic achievement (14).  

Accordingly, it seems that parenting styles and students’ function have direct impact on academic achievement. Consequently, family is studied in the present study as the main factor that influences self-confidence and educational self-regulation. Therefore, lack of attention to providing healthy mental and emotional environment for the students and lack of proper relationships mostly leads to shortage of emotion motivation and also mental disorders (15). Since the children of families are the leaders of their countries in the future, their academic achievement, along with mental and physical health, are highly important. Since the children are trained in the family, the present study was conducted to investigate the relationship between parenting styles with self-confidence and academic achievement.  

Method

This is a descriptive, analytical study. The population study was the students of five faculties of Birjand University of Medical Sciences. The sample was 364 students selected randomly based on Krejcie and Morgan table. Firstly, each faculty was considered as a category, then, based on the proportion of the population, the number of samples of each faculty was selected randomly. The students in the second semester that were eager to participate entered the study and the rest of them were extracted. Before distribution of the questionnaires, the ethnics were considered. Furthermore, it was explained that the results will be confidential. The questionnaire was about parenting styles, self-confidence and the total average of the students.

1. The questionnaire of parenting styles of Lotf Abadi (2006) (10) was used that included 37 questions and five sub-scales (coherence, intimate and responsive, permissive and ignorant, authoritarian, rejecting-neglecting and disorganized styles). The scoring was based on Likert-type 5 point scale (Strongly disagree, Disagree, neither agree nor disagree, Agree, Strongly agree). The validity of the questionnaire was determined via face validity. Ten questionnaires were delivered to lecturers of medical education and psychology in EDC and they confirmed the questionnaire. 
2. Coopersmith Self-esteem inventory: Coopersmith (1967) (14) inventory that included 58 questions was used. The validity was determined by face validity. Ten questionnaires were distributed among teachers of medical education and psychology in EDC of the university and was confirmed by them.
3. In order to evaluate the students’ academic achievement, their total average was received via self-report process. The new students that did not have total average were extracted from the study.

The data were analyzed by SPSS (version 18), descriptive statistics (frequency, mean, and standard deviation), and Kolmogorov–Smirnov test for the normality of the data, Pearson correlation, independent t and one way analysis of variance (5%).

ESULTS

The number of samples was 364. Two hundred of them (54.9%) were female and one hundred and sixty four (45.1%) were male. The average of the students’ age was 23.36 ± 5.37. The youngest was 18 and the oldest was 32 years old (table 1).

In this study, the mean and standard deviation of the items were as follows: coherence parenting style 37.58 ± 4.94, permissive parenting style 29.73 ± 6.33, authoritative parenting style 31.76 ± 5.70, rejecting-neglecting parenting style 28.17 ± 6.33, disorganized parenting style 28.92 ± 5.26, self-confidence 206.26 ± 27.08 and academic achievement 16.21 ± 2.12.

Based on Pearson correlation test, the findings presented that there is a significant positive relationship between coherence and intimate parenting style, self-confidence and academic achievement (p<0.05). However, there was no significant relationship between permissive parenting style, self-confidence and academic achievement (p>0.05). Furthermore, the findings showed that there is a significant negative relationship between authoritative, rejecting-neglecting and disorganized styles, self-confidence and academic achievement (p<0.05). (Table 2)

 Base on the findings of t-independent test, there is significant difference between self-confidence and academic achievement of the males and females (p<0.05) (table 3).

Discussion

The present study aimed to determine the relationship between parenting styles, self-confidence and academic achievement of students of Birjand University of Medical Sciences. The findings presented that coherence and intimate parenting style has direct and significant relationship with students’ self-confidence and academic achievement. It means that when this style is used more, the level of self-confidence and academic achievement enhances. The results of the present study are consistent with the finding of Aunola (16), Beyrami et al (12) and Kahrazee (9). Accordingly, it could be declared that the appropriate parenting style provides a balance between accepting and controlling of the children. Therefore, positive and consistent encouragement of the children in coherence and intimate parenting style could result in the enhancement of academic achievement. Moreover, self-confidence and academic achievement could be enhanced via education, support and providing pattern for children (12). In other words, there is a significant relationship between coherence and intimate parenting style and parents’ commitment to the students’ encouragement and education. It is confirmed that the relationship between parents’ rational authority and students’ academic achievement could be the result of parents’ commitment and encouragement that is the characteristic of the coherence parenting style. In contrast, the authoritative parents do not have the mentioned characteristics.

In addition, the findings showed that there is negative relationship between authoritative, rejecting-neglecting and disorganized parenting styles and self-confidence and academic achievement. This result is consistent with the studies of Tabatabaee et al. (17) and (12) and Saeedi and his colleagues (18). In this regard, it is mentioned that responsiveness and support of the parent is a crucial factor for students’ academic achievement. The families with authoritative, rejecting-neglecting and disorganized styles do not pay attention to their children’s scores, and if they have, they have negative reactions. They do not have any program for their children's leisure time and watching TV and do not have rational observation on their child's assignments and in accordance with their personal capabilities. On the other hand, if the children are not well observed, they might feel that they can do whatever they like which results in laziness and neglecting the homework. Therefore, although authoritative parenting style had the highest relationship with academic achievement, the parents’ awareness in this respect could lead to the upgrade of students’ academic achievement (12). In other words, parents with rational authoritarian pay attention to the emotional and mental needs of their children and are more responsive. While, the authoritative parents do not have these characteristics.

In addition, the findings presented that there is a significant relationship between self-confidence and academic achievement. The results of some of the researches have shown that there is a positive and significant correlation between self-confidence and academic achievement (19, 20). In the study of Zare and his colleagues, there was no significant relationship between students’ average score and self-esteem, which is not consistent with our study (21). Self-confidence is one of the influential factors in improving academic motivation. In fact, if the students have high self-confidence they become motivated and if not they lose their motivation (22). The people with high self-confidence are more resistant in the problems and have more perseverance, therefore, their chance of success is more (23). The limitations of the present study was that all of the students did not complete the questionnaire thoroughly and also the problems and mental status of the students might have influenced their responses which could not be controlled by the researcher.

 Conclusion

Therefore, the function and structure of the family has the most important influence on the youth and teenagers and the main influential factor in their growth. Consequently, parenting style could have impact on the students’ academic achievement. It is recommended that the families use coherence and intimate parenting style in order to enhance their children’s self-confidence and academic achievement.  

 Acknowledgement

The authors highly appreciate the Research and Technology Department of Birjand University of Medical Sciences that financially supported the research and also the esteemed students that kindly participated in our study.

 Ethics Approval

All of the tests had no first name and surname.

 Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interests.

 Financial Resources

The code of the present study is 998. It was supported by the Research and Technology Department of Birjand University of Medical Sciences.