Parenting and english language learning at iranian grade one senior high schools: A theoretical and empirical approach

Abstract

This study aimed to explore whether the Parenting Authority Questionnaire (PAQ) relates significantly to the English language achievement of grade one senior high school (G1SHS) students in Mashhad, Iran. To this end, the PAQ designed by Buri (1991) was translated into Persian and administered to three hundred and nineteen students in two versions dealing with their fathers and mothers’ parenting separately. Inspired by the microstructural approach of schema theory, the PAQ was treated as a measure of parenting domain while its three sections were adopted as its authoritarian, authoritative and permissive genera. The students’ performance on the PAQ and its three sections were correlated with their scores obtained on the final English examination (FEE) held nationally at the end of grade three junior high schools. The results showed that not only the parenting domain but also its authoritarian, authoritative and permissive genera correlate significantly with English achievement at different degrees and in opposite directions. The findings are discussed and suggestions are made for future research.