Relationship of Parental achievement goals in support of autonomy and psychological control perceived by adolescents

The importance of parental practices as one the most direct influences on the development of minors and adolescents has generated an increased relevance in recent decades of the study of parental expectations on the psycho-logical adjustment of children. In this sense, the Goal Content Subtheory of Self -Determination Theory has been the theoretical basis to explain that the purpose of human behavior responds to an extrinsic or intrinsic motivation. That is why, extrinsic motivation guides parents towards parental goals: the success of the task and the avoidance of task failure and they adopt more parental control strategies with their progeny, while intrinsic motivation guides the mastery goals of the task which would explain parental support behaviors.The objective of the study was to identify the achievement goals and parenting practices, support for autonomy-psychological control, and to determine the relationship between these parenting measures, according to the sex and educational level of the parents from Cuenca, Ecuador. For this, a quantitative, rela-tional, cross-sectional study was carried out with 713 mothers (M-edad = 43, DT = 7), 543 fathers (M-edad= 46, DT = 8) and 1 085 adoles-cents (M-edad = 16.1, DT = 1.1). The participants were selected from within 18 educational institutions through a probabilistic sample calculated with a 95 % confidence level, and a 3 % margin of error. For data collection, the Parental Achievement-Oriented Goals questionnaire was applied, adapted to Spanish from the Parental Achievement Goals AGQ instrument; and Autonomy Support Scale. In the data analysis, the T-Student test, ANOVA, Chi-Square, test of independence for contingency tables and the Pearson r correlation coefficient, were used for the linear relation-ship of the study variables.The results reveal that the achievement goals: mastery of the task and success in the task predominate and the avoidance of failure in the task is low, in terms of the sex of the parents, the parents were oriented towards the mastery of the task while mothers toward goals focused on homework success. Like-wise, parents with a low level of education orient themselves to success in the result of the task and the avoidance of failure in the task, while parents with a higher level of educa-tion orient their goals of parental achievement towards the mastery of the homework. The perception of support for autonomy is high and significantly upper than the psycholog-ical control of the parents, it was found that the manifestation of support "being aware of accepting and acknowledging the child's feelings" is the most valued statement in the mother in relation to the dad. On the other hand, adolescents perceive greater psycholog-ical control from mothers than from fathers, in the demonstrations "threatening to punish the child" and "induce guilt". Regarding the level of studies of the parents, the results indicate that the higher the level of studies, the greater the support for autonomy and when is lower the level of studies, there is greater psycho-logical control.This research has confirmed the relationship between the level of education of the parents, the sex the adolescent and parents with the goals of parental achievement, support and psychological control; this shows that these characteristics affect parental practices. It is necessary for future research to attention on the educational level of the parents, as this is one of the most consistent family variables that can favor appropriate parental goals and practices for the psychosocial adjustment of the children.