Parental Involvement, Life Satisfaction and Achievement Orientation in High School Students in Chile

Abstract

This study investigates the mediating effect of life satisfaction between parental involvement and academic achievement orientation in a sample of Chilean adolescents. Life satisfaction is conceptualised as a family resource that adolescents utilise to manage their school life. Two statistical models were adjusted using data from a subsample of 426 students in 9th to 11th grade, derived from the National Survey on Student Trajectories and Transitions in Chile. The first analysis examines the mediating role of life satisfaction between parental involvement, specifically of both father and mother and achievement orientation. The findings suggest that life satisfaction almost completely mediates the effect of paternal involvement on achievement orientation, while maternal involvement exerts a partial effect through life satisfaction. The second analysis assesses the moderating effect of the adolescent’s gender on the relationship mediated by life satisfaction. The results show that gender moderates the mediation for maternal involvement, but not for paternal. This study highlights the importance of adolescents’ life satisfaction as an essential mediator between family and school contexts, also emphasising the moderating effect that gender composition in relationships between parents and adolescents has on this mediation.