Effects of family ecological factors on perceived parenting style, and locus of control and self-efficacy of adolescents

The relationships between perceived parenting styles with adolescent’s locus of control and self-efficacy have been established. Yet, much is to be understood on what factors moderate these relationships. To address this paucity, the present study was conducted to determine the moderating roles of some selected family ecological factors (parent characteristics, family contexts, adolescent characteristics) on the relationships between maternal and paternal parenting styles with adolescents’ locus of control and self efficacy. Parent characteristics were age and level of education, while family contexts were number of children and family income. Adolescent characteristics consisted of age and gender. A total of 579 adolescents aged between 13 and 17 years from secondary schools in the Petaling district of Selangor, Malaysia was identified using Multi-Stage Cluster sampling. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaire that comprised questions on demographic informations, Parental Authority Questionnaire (Buri, 1991) as well as two other scales that assessed the respondent’s locus of control (Nowicki & Strickland 1973) and self-efficacy (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995). Descriptive statistics were utilized to examine parent’s characteristics, family contexts, adolescent’s characteristics, maternal and paternal parenting styles, locus of control and self-efficacy. Meanwhile, Pearson correlation analyses were conducted to identify the relationships between all variables of the study. Hierarchical regression analyses, followed by Post-hoc regression analyses were also performed to examine the moderating roles of parent, adolescent and contextual characteristics on the relationships between parenting styles, locus of control and self-efficacy. Regression analyses revealed that paternal authoritative parenting was significantly related to internal locus of control for adolescents whose fathers have higher level of education (b= -0.148, p≤0.001). Furthermore, it was indicated that paternal education moderated the relationships between paternal permissive parenting style and locus of control. It showed that high education reduce the negative influence of the permissive parenting style. The results also demonstrated that adolescents with older mothers reported more internal locus of control when they perceived their mothers as highly authoritative (b= -0.35, p≤0.05). Analyses for gender differences revealed that male adolescents (b=0.312, p≤0.001) had higher level of self-efficacy as compared to females (b=0.188, p≤0.001) when they perceived their fathers as highly authoritative. Additionally, adolescent’s age moderated (b=-0.145, p≤0.001) the relationship between perceived maternal authoritative parenting and locus of control. Findings from the study highlight the moderating role of factors within the ecology of the family on the relationships between parenting styles, locus of control and self-efficacy. Consideration should be given to family ecological factors in the design of interventions aimed at fostering necessary skills to parents and enhancing positive outcomes in adolescents.

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