A predictive model of students' academic achievement: the effect of psychological and parental variables

The effect of students´ personal characteristics and the impact of parental dimensions on academic performance were well-established evidence. Research indicates that cognitive abilities, students’ motivations, and their academic self-concept influence the way they perform at school. Also, parental academic degree and parental support and monitoring appear as important predictors of students' academic grades. Based on this evidence, this paper aims to explore the effect, throughout time, of these psychological and parental variables on academic achievement in a sample of Portuguese middle school students. Two hundred eighty-four students participated in this three-year longitudinal study. Academic grades (obtained in the 7th and 9th educational level) were predicted by psychological variables (such as cognitive abilities, academic self-concept and motivation style) and parental variables (such as parental academic degree, parental acceptance, and monitoring and parental expectation). Using SPSS software, a correlational and regression analysis were performed trying to explore the effects of psychological and parental variables on students’ academic performance in two moments: in the 7th and the 9th levels. The results show that psychological variables affected, significantly, students’ achievement in both moments. Although all parental variables predicted academic achievement in the 7th, in the 9th level only the mother's educational attainment maintained its significance. Findings will be discussed in the line of the literature review, and implications for the educational practice will be presented.