The Different Role of Mothers' and Fathers' Beliefs in the Development of Adolescents' Mathematics and Literacy Task Values

Abstract

This study examined how interest and importance values concerning mathematics and literacy develop from grade 7 to grade 9 in comprehensive school and to what extent gender, in addition to mothers’ and fathers’ beliefs about the abilities of individual children, predicts the level of and changes in these values. A total of 206 Finnish students (100 girls, 106 boys) were followed from grade 7 to grade 9, just before an important transition from compulsory comprehensive school to secondary education occurs in the Finnish context. Students’ parents participated in the study when the students were in grade 7. The results of multivariate latent change models showed that interest and importance values and their development in one particular subject were associated with one another. Mothers’ and fathers’ beliefs seemed to play a different role in relation to task values, and this role also varied according to the subject: mothers’ ability beliefs predicted the students’ level of interest in mathematics and evaluation of the importance of literacy. However, fathers’ ability beliefs were found to predict the changes related to interest and importance values in mathematics. The role of gender in students’ values was more evident in the case of literacy than in mathematics.