The Relationship Between Parental Involvement and Children’s Self-Efficacy Profiles: A Person-Centered Approach

The present study used a person-centered approach to identify self-efficacy profiles in different domains (academic, emotional and social) and examined whether different dimensions of parental involvement were associated with these profiles. Data were collected on 1998 children. Five student self-efficacy profiles were identified: very low self-efficacy (low levels of all types of self-efficacy), low self-efficacy (low levels of all types of self-efficacy but higher than those in the “very low self-efficacy” profile), low emotional self-efficacy (relatively moderate levels of academic self-efficacy and social self-efficacy but very low emotional self-efficacy), moderate self-efficacy (moderate levels of all types of self-efficacy), and high self-efficacy (high levels of all types of self-efficacy). We also found that father’s and mother’s educational aspirations, father-child activity, mother-child activity and mother-child communication can lead to more favorable children profiles.