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Cultural Variability in Parent and ChildAchievement Attributions: A studyfrom Hong KongSivanes Phillipson aa University of New England, Australia and The Hong KongInstitute of Education ,Published online: 19 Jan 2007.

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Educational PsychologyVol. 26, No. 5, October 2006, pp. 625–642

ISSN 0144-3410 (print)/ISSN 1469-5820 (online)/06/050625–18© 2006 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/01443410500390772

Cultural Variability in Parent and Child Achievement Attributions: A study from Hong Kong

Sivanes Phillipson*University of New England, Australia and The Hong Kong Institute of EducationTaylor and Francis LtdCEDP_A_139060.sgm10.1080/01443410500390772Educational Psychology0144-3410 (print)/1469-5820 (online)Original Article2006Taylor & Francis Ltd265000000October 2006SivanesPhillipsonsivanes@pobox.une.edu.au

The primary aim of the present study was to investigate whether variations exist in child andparent attributions in predicting child academic achievement within a culture and betweencultures. Participants were 158 students and their parents from three different primary schools inHong Kong, including one British international school consisting of students who are predomi-nantly from a British background and two Chinese public schools each with a distinct SES profile.This paper extends the findings of previous research whereby Western parents attribute theirchild’s success to ability and Chinese parents attribute their child’s success to effort. Additionally,this study found that the Chinese children’s attributions differed according to the SES catchmentsof their schools; children from higher SES were inclined to attribute success to effort. The resultsare discussed in terms of parent and child attributions’ prediction of child’s academic achievementwithin Hong Kong’s family demographic.

Previous studies have indicated that Chinese and other Asian students tend to dobetter than their Western peers in subjects like mathematics (Dandy & Nettelbeck,2002a, 2002b; Stevenson et al., 1990). Homogeneity of different cultures is assumedby these studies. However, the present study predicted variations in achievementwithin a culture brought about by different attributions. Different family demo-graphic situations are also said to contribute to these variations within a culture andbetween cultures (Der-Karabetian, 2004; Desimone, 2001; Finn, 1998; Hill et al.,2004; Siu & Lo, 1990). Thus, the primary aim of the present study was to investigatewhether variations exist in child and parent attributions in predicting child academicachievement within a culture and between cultures. The secondary goal of this studywas to examine the relationships between child and parent attributions and child

*Department of Educational Psychology, Counselling and Learning Needs, The Hong KongInstitute of Education, 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po NT, Hong Kong. Email: sivanes@une.edu.au orsivanesn@ied.edu.hk

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626 S. Phillipson

academic achievement. Participants’ demographic background was also taken intoaccount.

Culturally, Hong Kong society strives for academic achievement and excellence(D. W. Chan, 2000). Low achievers are frowned upon and high achievers are gener-ally rewarded with praise and opportunities. Intelligence and academic achievementare of the greatest concern to Chinese parents from Cantonese-speaking back-grounds, and the pressure to excel starts from birth (Salili, 1996). In fact, thecompetition to be the best is perpetuated in schools – solitary excellence is rewardedand encouraged to the point where cooperative learning becomes difficult to instill(Biggs & Watkins, 1995).

Hong Kong Chinese students are predominantly motivated by the need to live upto their parents’ and family expectations (Shek & Chan, 1999). It is known thatChinese students are willing to adhere to their parents’ wishes and advice, andconform to fulfilling their parents’ academic expectations (H. Chen & Lan, 1998).Therefore, doing well in exams and school assessments is generally a high priorityfor most students, and doing well is almost always connected to the notion ofintelligence (S. Lau, 1996).

However, little is known about Hong Kong’s Western children’s perception ofschooling and achievement. Western culture in general holds independence andindividualism to be the central basis of childrearing and education (C.-S. Chen &Stevenson, 1995; Georgiou, 1999b; Stevenson & Stigler, 1992). Children are notburdened with the notion of family responsibility, but take responsibility for them-selves. The degree of autonomy given to children differs from one Western countryto another, as some Western cultures have family structures with closer family tiesand more family responsibility (H. Chen & Lan, 1998). Nevertheless, Westernstudents are generally seen to be more individualistic in their aims and achievementgoals. They are also found to do well or poorly in school because they wanted to doso, and not because of parental or societal expectations (Dandy & Nettelbeck,2002a; Georgiou, 1999b; Stevenson & Stigler, 1992).

Parent and Child Achievement Attributions

Students attribute certain reasons to explain the way they perform in tasks, and thesereasons demonstrate what they think about their capabilities and the contributingfactors surrounding them. According to Weiner (1984), causal attributions occur inthree dimensions: locus (internal or external), stability, and controllability. He iden-tifies four major causes that fall into these dimensions: ability, effort, task difficulty,and luck (Weiner, 1974, 1979). The main thrust of this theory is the propositionthat students will accept challenges and persevere if they attribute controllablereasons such as effort as the cause for their success or failure in school-related work(L. K. S. Chan & Moore, 1997). Students with controllable internalised reasonssuch as effort will work harder or look for ways to improve themselves in school.Weiner (1984) asserted that frequent and repeated failures experienced by lowachievers are more likely to lead to beliefs of helplessness. Students who attribute

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Cultural Variability in Attributions 627

success or failure to external factors such as luck or outside help will not seek toimprove themselves and will lack the confidence to do so. In cases where studentsplead helplessness, it is best to incorporate strategy intervention and effort buildinginto the school curriculum (Borkowski, Chan, & Muthukrishna, 2000).

It has been suggested that students from different cultures have different attribu-tions about what helps them succeed or fail in the classroom, and they employ differ-ent techniques and strategies to achieve their learning goals (Ho, Salili, Biggs, &Hau, 1999; Parameswaran & Hom, 2000; Salili, Chiu, & Hong, 2001; Salili, Chiu,& Lai, 2001). Effort and hard work are seen by Chinese students as key to success,alongside intellectual ability, in contrast to Western students (C.-S. Chen, Lee, &Stevenson, 1996; Salili, 1996; Salili, Chiu, & Hong, 2001; Stevenson et al., 1990;Stevenson & Stigler, 1992; Watkins & Biggs, 1996, 2001). It has also been arguedthat the Chinese culture, with its emphasis on hard work, seems to encourageattributions to effort (Hong, 2001). Hong also suggested that exertion of effort stemsfrom the Chinese belief about the relationship between effort and ability: thisrelationship is usually a positive one, whereby effort is seen to promote ability. Sucha belief leads parents and teachers to pressure students to work harder in order to dobetter. Hong, however, found that working hard correlated negatively with academicperformance in most Chinese high and low achievers in Hong Kong.

The opposite was found by Salili, Chiu, and Lai (2001) in European Canadianstudents, whose studying time correlated positively with their academic perfor-mance. At the risk of generalising, this means that Western students might do betterif they worked harder. However, Western students are known to attribute a variety ofcauses including ability, task difficulty, and more situational factors such as moodfor their academic success and failure (Tuss, Zimmer, & Ho, 1995). Effort is notusually seen as a major cause of success or failure. This again may stem from acultural belief that one only needs to do one’s best and one’s best is not necessarilyimproved by working harder.

K.-L. Lau and Chan (2001, p. 417) found that low-achieving Chinese children inHong Kong “who had poor academic self concept, low attainment value in learning,and deficiencies in using effective learning strategies, did not demonstrate [a]maladaptive attributional pattern” as would low-achieving Western children. Chinesestudents seldom demonstrate characteristics such as low personal regard and lowexpectation of future success (Weiner, 2001). This finding suggests that neo-Confucian cultural and parental expectations might influence children’s attributions.

Repeatedly, researchers have also proposed and affirmed that parental expecta-tions and behaviour towards children relate to their attributions of their children’sbehaviour and achievement (Corcoran & Ivery, 2004; Dandy & Nettelbeck, 2002b;Georgiou, 1999a). Parents’ attributions are thus seen as the external factor affectingchild’s achievement as defined by Weiner’s theory (Weiner, 1980; Weiner & Kukla,2000). Parents are seen to communicate their attributions, or explanations for theirchildren’s achievement, through their everyday interactions and behaviour with theirchildren. Parents’ views, whether they are positive or negative, can be a paramountfactor in moulding a child’s personal sense (self concept) at home and at school

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(Sarason, Pierce, Bannerman, & Sarason, 1993). For example, Stevenson et al.(1990) found in their study of mathematics achievement in China and the UnitedStates that American children believed that they were progressing appropriately inschool even if they were not, and this thought was in line with their parents’ expres-sion of high satisfaction with their children’s progress and ability. In a later study(Crystal et al., 1994), it was reported that Chinese parents valued effort more thanability in ensuring their child’s academic achievement; they explicitly expressedhigher expectations of their child’s performance.

A study in Hong Kong reported that Hong Kong Chinese parents’ attributions fortheir children conformed closely to traditional Chinese culture (Shek & Chan, 1999).The authors found that Chinese parents stressed the importance of “family-related”and “academic-related” attributes (p. 300). The former category consisted of goodparent–child relations and fulfilling family obligations, and the latter categoryincluded good academic achievement and living up to academic responsibility.Georgiou (1999b), however, found that rising individualism (a Western trait), asopposed to traditional collective society, can help to minimise parental influence onchildren’s attributions. The author found that parent and child achievement attribu-tions in a Greek Cypriot society were not strongly related, which showed thatchildren’s attributions are not formed on the basis of their parents’ attributions. Thisfinding supported a similar conclusion by H. Chen and Lan (1998).

In summary, the aims of this study were twofold: (1) to investigate whether variationsexist in child and parent attributions when predicting child academic achievementwithin a culture and between cultures; and (2) to examine the types of relationshipsthat exist between child and parent attributions and child’s academic achievement.

Method

Participants and Participating Schools’ Background

A total of 158 Primary 5 and 6 students from three schools, and their parents,participated in this study.

The three schools include one British international school and two Chinese publicschools, which will be referred to as BS, CSI, and CSII respectively. The BS is aprimary, co-ed, international, independent, not-for-profit school for English-speaking children with a total enrolment of approximately 400 students. The chil-dren in the school are predominantly from expatriate families, and are consideredwell off by Hong Kong standards. The school is run by a board of governors consist-ing of parents and senior administration staff. The school is 25 years old andprovides education for pupils from Reception to Primary 6, following the Britishprimary education curriculum. Average classes are in the ratio of one teacher and aneducational assistant to 20 students, and the medium of instruction is English. Asthe school is managed by its parents, the context of the school is somewhat unusual.Parents, especially mothers, are more involved in all the activities in the school, suchas manning the book and tuck shop and fundraising.

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Cultural Variability in Attributions 629

The CSI is a government-aided public school for boys with an enrolment of morethan 2,000 students. The boys in the schools are mainly from families with highsocio-economic status and most are Hong Kong-born Chinese. Each class in theschool has an average ratio of one teacher to 40 students, and the medium ofinstruction is Cantonese. The school is well over 40 years old but has recently beenrefurbished and now includes a computing facility. This school has strong supportand involvement from its parents through the parent–teacher association. Many ofthe activities in the school are voluntarily run by the parents.

The CSII is also a government-aided public school, for boys and girls, with a totalstudent enrolment of approximately 700. The average class sizes in this school arethe same as in the CSI. The school caters for students from a lower SES communityin the New Territories of Hong Kong, and has a considerable number of mainlandChinese migrants. Support agencies are available for these students through a localcommunity group. The school is closely associated with a local church that alsoforms part of the board of governors. The medium of instruction in this school isalso Cantonese.

Measures

This study used two instruments, namely the Causal Attribution Scale Question-naire (CASQ; L. K. S. Chan & Moore, 1997) and the Parents’ Attributions Ques-tionnaire (PAQ), a questionnaire designed for the purposes of this study. Theformer was used to investigate the student participants’ attributions, and the latterwas given to parents to find out their attributions for their children’s achievement.Year-end school results were used as the measure of academic achievement for theparticipating students.

The CASQ, developed by L. K. S. Chan (1994) and later revised by L. K. S.Chan and Moore (1997) and standardised in Hong Kong (Mok et al., 2002), wasbased on Weiner’s attribution theory (1974, 1984). The scale consists of 10 state-ments related to achievements in school activities. There are five statements thatreflect success and five that reflect failure. The statements are accompanied by fourcauses – effort, ability, strategy use, and luck. Participants rate each cause accordingto its relation to their achievement at school. Eight subscales are produced that coverthe four attributes for success and failure. The objective of this scale was to find outschoolchildren’s attribution of the four causes of success and failure in relation totheir schoolwork (L. K. S. Chan & Moore, 1997). The participants were to rate thecauses on a four-point scale of “Extremely accurate”, “Quite accurate”, “Not quiteaccurate”, and “Not accurate at all”. An example of the scale is shown in Figure 1.Figure 1. A scale from Causal Attributions Scale Questionnaire (L. K. S. Chan & Moore, 1997)The PAQ is a 30-item questionnaire which includes 24 items that ask parentsabout the reasons that they consider underlie their child’s achievement in school-related activities, and six items that capture the participating family’s demographicinformation. The 24 items were based on the items in the CASQ (L. K. S. Chan &Moore, 1997). There are 12 statements that reflect success and 12 that reflectfailure. Each statement is representative of one of the four causes of effort, ability,

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630 S. Phillipson

strategy use, and luck. Parents are asked to rate their agreement with each statementon a five-point scale ranging from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree”. TheEnglish version of the questionnaire was translated into Cantonese through a vigor-ous process of translate-back-translate technique. Some examples of the items in thequestionnaire are: “When my child comes first in the spelling test, it is most likelybecause he/she works very hard at it”; “If my child completes a worksheet well, it ismost likely because he/she is lucky”; and “When my child does well in exams, it ismost likely because he/she has effective strategies.”

Un-standardised achievement scores for two school subjects were used as themeasure of child achievement in this study. Cantonese and mathematics scores wereobtained for the Chinese student participants from the CSI and CSII, and Englishlanguage and mathematics scores were taken for the students from the BS. It mustbe noted that the different testing systems used in the schools ensured that theachievement scores in this study do not serve as an appropriate point of comparisonbetween the participants of the three schools. Therefore, the scores were only usedas dependent variables in regression modeling, for exploration of the relationshipsbetween the independent variables in this study.

Procedure

The CASQ (L. K. S. Chan & Moore, 1997) was administered at the schools at apre-arranged time that was suitable for both the class teachers and students.Students from the BS were administered the English version of the CASQ, and theCSI and CSII students were administered the Cantonese version of the instrument.The administration of the scale took 15 minutes in total. Administrators readthrough and guided the students through the items in the scale in order to ensurethat they understood the statements properly.

The PAQ was sent to parents via their children. Envelopes containing the question-naire and a return envelope were addressed to both parents. Prior to this, parents hadreceived an information sheet along with a consent form for participation in the study.The information sheet had advised them that if they consented to their and their

When you did well in an assignment, it was probably because

Notaccurate at

all

Not quiteaccurate

Quite accurate

Extremelyaccurate

a you are always good at schoolworkb you were just luckyc you had useful ways for doing

assignmentsd you spent a lot of time working on the

assignment

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Figure 1. A scale from Causal Attributions Scale Questionnaire (L. K. S. Chan & Moore, 1997)

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Cultural Variability in Attributions 631

child’s participation, parents were needed to complete the PAQ. Parents completedthe questionnaire and returned them sealed (for the purposes of confidentiality) in thereturn envelope to the schools. The schools’ administrators then sent them directlyto this author.

The three schools provided the end of year achievement scores for participatingstudents, with the parents’ consent. Consent to obtain these grades was sought fromparents at an early stage of data collection.

Results

Three sets of main analyses were conducted. The first was a preliminary analysiswhich consisted of a descriptive analysis to describe the sample population, factorregression to group child attribution factors, and a factor analysis to determine theparents’ attributional factor. The second was a series of one-way ANOVAs toproduce group comparisons between the three schools. The third consisted ofhierarchical multiple regressions to investigate the predictive ability of this study’svariables in relation to child achievement.

Preliminary Analysis

There were more boys (100 or 63.3%) than girls (58 or 36.7%) in this study. TheBS had more male student participants (59.5%) than female student participants.The CSI was an all-boys’ school, and the student participants from that schoolaccounted for 26.7% of the student participants. The CSII, on the other hand, hadmore female student participants (60.4%) than male student participants. Table 1displays the participants’ details.

The ages of students from the three schools ranged from 8.8 to 13.8 years. TheBS students’ ages ranged from 8.8 to 11.6 years, whereas the CSI students’ agesranged from 8.8 to 12 years, and the CSII students’ ages ranged from 9.8 to 13.8years. The mean ages of students who participated were 9.9 years (SD = 0.71; BS),10.9 years (SD = 0.76; CSI), and 10.9 years (SD = 0.84; CSII). The students from

Table 1. Participants’ details

BS CSI CSII

Mean age years (SD) 9.9 (0.71) 10.9 (0.76) 10.9 (0.82)Gender

Male 34 43 23Female 23 0 35

Parent who participatedMother 46 35 47Father 11 7 11Other (Grandmother) 0 1 0

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the BS had a lower mean age then students from the two Chinese schools as the BSpracticed Primary 1 intake at five years old as opposed to the Chinese schools’ intakeof Primary 1 at six years of age. CSII also had seven students whose ages were above12 years – were mainly new migrants from mainland China.

Of the 158 parents who participated in the study, 128 (81.0%) were mothers and29 (18.4%) were fathers. Only one participant was a grandmother, and this wassurprising as it is well known that extended families play an important role in theraising and education of Hong Kong families (Salili, Chiu, & Hong, 2001).

The BS families were generally high income earners: with income of more than$70,000 Hong Kong Dollars a month per family, as compared to families from CSIand CSII. The CSII families were mainly on lower incomes: 33.5% were in the lowincome bracket. The CSI had more upper middle income families. Dandy andNettelbeck (2002a, 2002b) considered parents’ educational level and occupationalstatus in order to determine the SES levels of the groups in their research. In thisstudy, parents’ educational level was also explored, to see whether it plays a role inchildren’s attributions and academic achievement. The BS had the highest percent-age of parents with a tertiary education and higher, at 25.5%, as compared with theCSI (11.2%) and CSII (0%). The BS also had more vocationally trained parents, at5.6%, as compared with CSI and CSII which each had 0.6% only. The CSII hadmore parents who were educated to secondary school level only, at 23.6%, than theCSI (13.7%) and the BS (2.5%). The CSII had more parents who only completedprimary school education, at 11.8%, as compared with the CSI (1.2%) and the BS(1.8%). However, it must be noted that most of the parents who participated in thisstudy were not the breadwinners of the family. The parents’ educational level did notnecessarily provide a true indication of the participant families’ SES levels, but ratherprovided an indication of the participating parents’ role in the children’s education.

In order to reduce the number of independent variables in this study, two methodswere employed. First, the child attributions data were grouped as eight regressionfactors adapted from L. K. S. Chan & Moore (1997), namely: child success/ability(attribution to ability for success), child success/luck (attributing to luck for success),child success/strategy (attribution to strategy for success), child failure/ability (attri-bution to ability for failure), child failure/effort (attribution to effort for failure), childfailure/strategy (attribution to strategy for failure), and child failure/luck (attributionto luck for failure). Second, the parental attribution data from all three schools werefactor analysed in order to obtain valid and internally consistent categories of response.Varimax rotation with maximum likelihood was used to extract six factors for 158 validcases. The six factors amounted to 65.5% of the total variance for factors with eigen-value of more than 1.00. Items with factor loadings higher than .4 were included inthe final analysis. The factors and their components are displayed in Table 2.

The parents’ responses seemed to fall within six factors, as described below.

Parents’ Factor 1: attributing child success to effort and strategy. This factor (explainingthe highest percentage of variance at 19.2%) consisted of items that asked parents

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Cultural Variability in Attributions 633

whether their child’s success in a task at school or performance in school is due tohard work and useful strategies.

Parents’ Factor 2: attributing child achievement to luck. This factor (explaining 16.7%of the variance) contained items that asked parents whether they attributed theirchild’s success and failure in school-related work and grades to luck.

Parents’ Factor 3: attributing child success to ability. This factor explained 13.0% ofthe variance and consisted of items that asked parents whether they attributed their

Table 2. Parental attribution factors as revealed by factor analysis

Parental attribution factors (Cronbach’s alpha)

Factor eigenvalue

Percentage (%) of explained variance Factor components (loading)

Factor 1: Attributing child success to effort and strategy (.79)

4.6 19.2 Item 3 : works very hard (.70)

Item 10: works very hard (.77)Item 20: hard work (.65)Item 24: works very hard (.76)Item 8: effective strategy use (.66)Item 11: effective strategy use (.81)Item 21: useful strategy use (.77)

Factor 2: Attributing child achievement to luck (.79)

4.0 16.7 Item 5: unlucky (.73)

Item 6: lucky (.84)Item 7: lucky (.84)Item 13: unlucky (.85)Item 19: unlucky (.70)Item 23: lucky (.72)

Factor 3: Attributing child success to ability (.79)

3.1 13.0 Item 4: very clever (.68)

Item 15: very bright (.84)Item 18: very bright (.85)

Factor 4: Attributing child failure to strategy (.79)

1.6 6.6 Item 1: no useful strategies (.77)

Item 2: no effective strategies (.78)Item 22: no useful strategies (.66)

Factor 5: Attributing child failure to ability (.79)

1.3 5.6 Item 9: not good at (.60)

Item 16: not very bright (.83)Item 17: not good at (.70)

Factor 6: Attributing child failure to effort (.79)

1.1 4.5 Item 12: does not work hard (.86)

Item 14: does not work hard enough (.78)

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child’s success in school tasks and performance to their intelligence, cleverness,brightness, or talent.

Parents’ Factor 4: attributing child failure to strategy. This factor (explaining 6.6% ofthe variance) included items that asked parents whether they attributed their child’sfailure in school tasks and performance to lack of useful or effective strategies.

Parents’ Factor 5: attributing child failure to ability. This factor, which explained5.6% of the variance, consisted of items that asked parents whether they attributedtheir child’s failure in school tasks and performance to lack of talent, intelligence, orcleverness.

Parents’ Factor 6: Attributing child failure to effort. The final factor (explaining 4.5%of the variance) contained items that asked parents whether they attributed theirchild’s failure in school tasks and performance to lack of hard work.

Group Differences

The eight child attribution factors and the six parent attribution factors were thenput through a series of one-way ANOVAs. A Bonferroni-type adjustment was madefor inflated Type I error, due to the multiple comparisons (Tabachnick & Fidell,2001). Therefore, each ANOVA was evaluated at an alpha level of .01 as opposed tothe traditional .05. Table 3 shows the attribution factors that were found to besignificantly different across the three schools.

There was a significant difference between the BS and the CSI in Parents’ Factor6 (attributing child failure to effort; F[100] = 8.34, p < .01). Parents from the BSattributed their child’s failure more to effort than did parents from the CSI. Signifi-cant differences were found between the BS and the CSII for Factor 4 (attributing

Table 3. Multiple comparisons across BS, CSI, and CSII

Factorsa School School Mean difference SE F Sig.

Parents’ Factor 4: Attributing child failure to strategy

CSII BS .68 .18 7.68 .00

Parents’ Factor 6: Attributing child failure to effort

CSI BS −.73 .19 8.34 .00

CSII BS −.56 .18 8.34 .00Child failure/ability CSII BS .67 .17 7.34 .00Child success/effort CSI CSII .50 .17 5.89 .01

CSI BS .55 .17 5.89 .00

*Mean difference is significant at the .05 level.aOnly factors that are found to have significant value of p are reported in this table.

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Cultural Variability in Attributions 635

child failure to strategy; F[115] = 7.68, p < .01) and Factor 6 (attributing childfailure to effort; F[115] = 8.34, p < .01). This suggests that parents from the CSIIattributed their child’s failure more to strategy than did the BS parents. Parents fromthe CSII, however, attributed less of their child’s failure to effort than the parentsfrom the BS did.

The BS and the CSI were significantly different in only one child attributionfactor – child success/effort (F[100] = 5.89, p < .01). It seems that students from theCSI attribute their success to effort more than the BS students. Difference was alsofound between the BS and the CSII in child failure/ability (F[115] = 7.34, p < .01),which tends to suggest that students from the CSII attributed failure to ability morethan did students from the BS.

A significant difference was found between the CSI and the CSII for only onechild factor – child success/effort (F[101] = 5.89, p < .01). It seems that the CSIstudents attributed their success more to effort than did the CSII students. Therewere no other differences between these two schools in any of the child and parentalfactors. Child success/effort in the CSI was found to have a moderately weak corre-lation with Parents’ Factor 6 (attributing child failure to effort; r = .32, p < .01), anda moderate correlation with the child attribution factor success/luck (r = .43, p <.01). On the other hand, child success/effort in the CSII had a moderately weaknegative correlation with parents’ gender (r = −.26, p < .5). This may suggests thatthe difference between the two Chinese schools in terms of child success/effort maybe influenced by this factor’s significant correlations with Parents’ Factor 6 and childsuccess/luck in CSI, and parents’ gender in CSII.

Hierarchical Regressions

A series of hierarchical regressions were computed for each school upon the childand parent attributions along with the observable demographic variables (child age,child gender, parent gender, parent educational level, and family income), withmathematics and language as the dependent variables. Due to differences in demo-graphic factors, separate regressions were performed for each school. Table 4 showsthe regression model for the BS, whereas Tables 5 and 6 show the regression modelsfor the CSI and the CSII respectively.

The regression model for the BS shows that three factors significantly predictmathematics achievement for participants from the BS. The model with an adjustedR2 of .213 (p < .01) presents significant relationship paths from Parents’ Factor 3(attributing child success to ability; β = .321, t = 2.66, p < .01), child success/effort(β = .284, t = 2.36, p < .05), and child success/ability (β = .261, t = 2.14, p < .05) tomathematics achievement. Parent’s Factor 3 seemed to have a larger standardisedcoefficient than the other two predictors. However, no significant correlation wasfound between the three factors for BS participants. For language achievement, theregression was significant with an adjusted R2 of .252 (p < .01). A demographicfactor, child’s gender, was one of the significant predictors of language achievement(β = .297, t = 2.55, p < .01). The other two predictors were Parents’ Factor 3

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(attributing child success to ability; β = .387, t = 3.27, p < .01) and child failure/strategy (β = .273, t = 2.28, p < .05). Again, there was no correlation between thesethree factors which predict language achievement. However, language achievementwas seen to correlate moderately weakly with two other parental factors: Parents’Factor 1 (attributing child success to effort and strategy; r = −.27, p < .01) andParents’ Factor 6 (attributing child failure to effort; r = .30, p < .05). It was alsofound that a moderate and significant correlation existed between mathematics andlanguage achievement in the BS (r = .59, p < .01). Interestingly, Parents’ Factor 3was found to correlate significantly with parents’ educational level (r = .32, p < .05)and Parents’ Factor 1 (r = −.43, p < .01).

The CSI regression model had only two factors predicting mathematics achieve-ment, but the regression was better and significant with an adjusted R2 of .439 (p <.01). Family income, with a larger coefficient (β = .529, t = 4.53, p < .01), displayeda significant path to mathematics achievement. The second predictor with a signifi-cant path was Parents’ Factor 1 (attributing child success to effort and strategy; β =.360, t = 3.08, p < .01). While these two predictor factors did not correlate with eachother, it was found that mathematics achievement for CSI participants correlatedmoderately and negatively with three other parental factors: Parents’ Factor 4(attributing child failure to strategy; r = −.39, p < .01), Parents’ Factor 5 (attributingchild failure to ability; r = −.34, p < .05), and Parents’ Factor 6 (attributing childfailure to effort; r = −.33, p < .05). The CSI had three factors predicting languageachievement with an adjusted R2 of .393 (p < .01). Family income was again one of

Table 4. Summary of regression models with beta weights for BS

Adj. R2 = .213, p < .01, for dependent variable mathematics

PredictorsUnstandardised

beta (B) SEStandardised

beta (β) t Sig.

(Constant) 83.39 2.08 40.20 .00Parent’s Factor 3: Attributing child success to ability

5.49 2.06 .321 2.66 .01

Child success/effort 5.39 2.29 .284 2.36 .02Child success/ability 5.28 2.46 .261 2.14 .04

Adj. R2 = .252, p < .01, for dependent variable English language

PredictorsUnstandardised

beta (B) SEStandardised

beta (β) t Sig.

(Constant) 56.34 7.88 7.15 .00Child Gender 13.46 5.29 .297 2.55 .01Parent’s Factor 3: Attributing child success to ability

8.61 2.63 .387 3.27 .00

Child failure/strategy 6.42 2.81 .273 2.28 .03

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the predictors, but with a smaller coefficient and a non-significant path to languageachievement (β = .220, t = 1.81, p > .05). The main predictors with significant pathswere: Parents’ Factor 1 (β = .459, t = 3.71, p < .01) and Parents’ Factor 6 (β = −.288, t = −2.35, p < .05). Like mathematics achievement, it was found that languageachievement correlated moderately and negatively with two other parental factors:Parents’ Factor 4 (r = −.38, p < .01) and Parents’ Factor 5 (r = −.31, p < .05). Itmust also be noted that, similar to the BS, mathematics achievement in the CSIcorrelated significantly and moderately strongly with language achievement (r = .62,

Table 5. Summary of regression models with beta weights for CSI

Adj. R2 = .439, p < .01, for dependent variable mathematics

PredictorsUnstandardised

beta (B) SEStandardised

beta (β) t Sig.

(Constant) 54.08 5.81 9.31 .00Family income 5.72 1.26 .529 4.53 .00Parents’ Factor 1: Attributing child success to effort and strategy

4.73 1.54 .360 3.08 .00

Adj. R2 = .393, p < .01, for dependent variable language (Cantonese)

PredictorsUnstandardised

beta (B) SEStandardised

beta (β) t Sig.

(Constant) 72.29 4.39 16.47 .00Family income 1.73 .96 .220 1.81 .08Parents’ Factor 1: Attributing child success to effort and strategy

4.38 1.18 .459 3.71 .00

Parents’ Factor 6: Attributing child failure to effort

−2.79 1.19 −.288 −2.35 .02

Table 6. Summary of regression models with beta weights for CSII

No convergence of model for dependent variable mathematics

Adj. R2 = .234, p < .01, for dependent variable language (Cantonese)

PredictorsUnstandardised

beta (B) SEStandardised

beta (β) t Sig.

(Constant) 75.79 .99 76.49 .00Factor 6: Attributing child failure to effort

−1.66 .96 −.204 −1.74 .09

Child failure/ability −3.50 .99 −.419 −3.53 .00Child success/effort 2.15 1.03 .246 2.10 .04

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p < .01). A significant moderate correlation was also found between family incomeand parents’ educational level (r = .55, p < .01).

In contrast to both the BS and the CSI regression models, the CSII produced aregression model only for language achievement. It was found that none of thedemographic, child, or parental factors predicted mathematics achievement for theCSII participants. A model with an adjusted R2 of .234 (p < .01) produced threefactors as predictors of language achievement for the CSII. The three predictorsare: Parents’ Factor 6 (attributing child failure to effort; β = −.204, t = −1.74, p >.05), child failure/ability (β = −.419, t = −3.53, p < .01), and child success/effort(β = .246, t = 2.10, p < .05). The first child factor, child failure/ability, seemed tohave the biggest coefficient and a significant path to language achievement; thesecond child factor had a smaller coefficient and a significant path to languageachievement. The parents’ factor did not yield a significant path to languageachievement. However, similar to the other two schools, language achievementcorrelated moderately strongly and significantly with mathematics achievement (r= .61, p < .01) for the CSII. It was also interesting to note that Parents’ Factor 6correlated moderately weakly and negatively with child’s gender (r = −.31, p <.05), and moderately weakly with parents’ educational level (r = .32, p < .05).Additionally, child success/effort correlated moderately weakly and negatively withparent’s gender (r = −.26, p < .05). However, none of the predictors correlatedwith each other.

Discussion

This study confirmed the traditional nature of Chinese culture: Chinese parents’attributions for their child’s achievement are inclined towards fulfilling family obli-gations by working hard to achieve good academic results. Both the Chinese schoolstypically showed effort as the primary predictor of achievement: CSI parents attrib-uted their child’s success to effort and strategy in predicting both mathematics andlanguage achievement, while CSII parents attributed their child’s failure to lack ofeffort in predicting language achievement. On the other hand, parents from the BSattributed their child’s success to ability in predicting both mathematics andlanguage achievements. The Chinese schools’ parents were not willing to attributetheir child’s failure to lack of effort, as opposed to BS parents. This suggests thateffort is typically accepted as producing success in the Chinese culture. These find-ings support previous studies’ findings that Western parents attribute their child’ssuccess to ability and Chinese parents attribute their child’s success to effort andhard work (Dandy & Nettelbeck, 2002b; Georgiou, 1999a; Shek & Chan, 1999;Stevenson et al., 1990).

This study also found that while parents’ attributions did not differ between theCSI and the CSII, one child attribution did. The CSI students attributed theirsuccess more to effort than the CSII students. The difference was seen as a result ofother factors’ influence within the CSI, such as parents’ attribution of failure to lackof effort and students’ own attribution of success to luck, and within the CSII,

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parents’ gender. This difference between the two Chinese schools is seen as a varia-tion within the culture.

This variation can also be seen in the factors that predicted achievement in thetwo Chinese schools. In the CSI, which has mainly middle-income-earning families,family income and parents’ attribution of child success to effort and strategy are seenas predicting mathematics achievement, while adding in parents’ attribution of fail-ure to effort to these factors predicts language achievement. In the CSII, which has alarge number of low-income-earning families, different parent and child attributionfactors were found to predict language achievement. This may suggest that varia-tions within a culture may be influenced by differences in socio-economic status.Moderate relationships between parental education and the main predictors ofachievement for all the schools seem to suggest that parents’ educational level influ-ences the predictors to produce the outcome of child school achievement. Thedifference in child attributions between the BS, the CSI, and the CSII also tend tosupport the supposition that demographic factors play a role in creating variationbetween cultures. This finding is in line with the proposition that demographicfactors such as parental education and family income may account for somevariation in achievement within a culture and between cultures (Der-Karabetian,2004; Desimone, 2001; Finn, 1998; Hill et al., 2004).

It was further found that the parents’ attributions were not strongly related tochildren’s attributions, which supported Georgiou’s (1999a) results. Parents’ attri-butions do not necessarily influence child attributions. As indicated by Georgiou,this assumption could be specific to Hong Kong, where individualism is seen to begrowing in Hong Kong Chinese culture to be as prevalent as it is in Western culture.However, this study found that parents’ attributions and other parental factors suchas parents’ educational level played some role (possibly significant and important) inthe process and outcome of their child’s academic achievement in the Hong Kongenvironment. Weak to moderate correlations of parents’ factors with the predictorsof achievement in this study supported this finding. An interesting point to note isthat mathematics achievement and language achievement seemed to have a positivemoderately strong relationship with each other in the Hong Kong schools. Thisseems to indicate that mathematics and language achievement are given equalimportance within the Hong Kong school environment.

This study was limited in that it investigated a small sample over a restrictedtime. While a longitudinal study and a larger sample might yield more precise find-ings, this study made some important findings about parent and child attributionsalong with demographic factors in connection with child academic achievement. Itconsistently found that parents’ attributions predicted academic achievement inboth the British school and the Chinese schools. The study also found that childattributions predicted academic achievement only in schools which fell into thehigh and low family income group. Child attributions did not predict academicachievement in the school which consisted of predominantly middle-incomefamilies. This study thus showed that there are differences in attributions withinand between cultures, and that these differences are influenced not only by parent

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and child beliefs, but also by demographic factors such as family income andparents’ educational level.

Further research into whether variation within and between cultures is substantivelyaffected by demographical factors can support or dispute the findings of this study.The proposed research needs to use a longitudinal design with a large sample in HongKong. Such a study could extend to evidence of the effects on cultures, the develop-ment of demographic factors, and the acculturation of parent and child attributions.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the schools, parents, and children who participated inthis study. Sincere thanks also go to the anonymous reviewer of this paper for usefulsuggestions. The author expresses her gratitude to Dr Shane N. Phillipson of theHong Kong Institute of Education for his valuable comments on an early draft ofthis paper.

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