ABSTRACT
Th ere are 27 students in Ms. Douglas’third-grade classroom, each with his or her own temperament, learning style, and motivation to engage in academic and social activities. Ms. Douglas has ideas about how to motivate children to learn, based on her training and her many years of teaching experience. We can begin to understand the way motivation operates in Ms. Douglas’ classroom by looking at Ms. Douglas and her students, but this is not the whole picture. Although they may not be sitting in the classroom, there are 43 parents, 4 grandparents, and 1 aunt raising the 27 students. Each caregiver has his or her own background, parenting style, values, and beliefs about education that signifi cantly infl uence the day-to-day experience of each of the 27 children in Ms. Douglas’ classroom. Further, Ms. Douglas also has her own ideas about how parents contribute to their children’s motivation and achievement in the classroom. Most research in motivation in the academic domain has focused on child and teacher factors, however, parenting attitudes and behaviors have proven to play a central role in these areas of children’s development. In order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of children’s academic motivation, we clearly need to consider the role that parents play.
