Mothers’ Characteristics and First-Grade Boys’ Performance: Testing an Academic Achievement Path Model

In this study, we tested an academic achievement path model containing four components: background, mothers’ educational expectations, mothers’ achievement-related behaviors, and boys’ academic performance. Analysis of data collected on 70 first-grade boys and their mothers showed that (a) verbal and quantitative performance are associated with different achievement-related behaviors, (b) compared to earlier findings (Seginer, 1986), the association between mothers’ characteristics and boys’ academic performance was weak, and (c) the hypothesis that mothers’ achievement-related behaviors mediate between mothers’ educational expectations and sons’ academic performance was not supported. These results were related to the mothers’ development in their role as a school child’s parent and to the adverse effect of adult surveillance and extrinsic rewards on activities originally having an intrinsic value for the child (Lepper & Greene, 1975).