Abstracts - Earli

esearch and practice. Participants become partners in the research process by assisting in thedesign and conduct of the research process. Those parents and teachers who agreed to be involvedin the second stage of the study were asked to identify a common vision for the child, brainstorm arange of strategies, design an action plan and carry out strategies of their choices. This paperpresents two case studies: one involved a nine-year-old Chinese-Australian boy with Downsyndrome, Audi, whose parent and teachers chose reading as a common goal to work towards. Theother case study involved a six-year-old Vietnamese-Australian girl with autism spectrumdisorder, Jessica, whose teachers focused on the goal of self-management in the regular classroom.Results showed that the children improved in their respective areas, and that the frequency ofparent-teacher communication increased. Also, literacy improvements were noted among Audi’sclassmates, and Jennifer’s class teacher came to identify Jennifer as her pupil, rather than as avisitor to her class. Despite these successes, the PAR approach poses a number ofchallenges. There was reluctance on the part of some parents and teachers to devote the timerequired for joint planning and review. Also at times, the partners disagreed and were unable toquickly resolve differences in developing and carrying out their joint plan. The strategies deployedby the facilitator / researcher in mediating these differences are highlighted in the presentation.The influence of parental behavior on students’ emotions and achievement: Two field studies ingerman secondary schoolStefan Fuss, University of Education Ludwigsburg, GermanyThe role of parental behavior for students’ learning at school is widely discussed in the last years.Emotional and social support of the child is measured in this study by a latent variable named‘authoritative promotion of learning’ (e.g. offering help, emotional support). In contrast to theauthoritative style of parental behavior a further latent variable was measured to take intoconsideration the authoritarian style of school-related parental behavior, named ‘authoritariancontrol of achievement’ (e.g. punishment, pressure to perform). Both studies ®– the original studyand the replicated study – investigate the influence of perceived school-related parental behavior(‘authoritative promotion of learning’ vs. ‘authoritarian control of achievement’) on positive andnegative emotions and on achievement of 8th grade students in German secondary school in thesubjects Physics and German Language (n>315). The general hypotheses were, authoritativebehavior leads to positive emotions and better achievement, whereas authoritarian behavior leadsto anxiety and consequently to worse achievement. The hypotheses were tested by a linearstructural equation model (LISREL), in which the domain-specific marks of grade 7 (sciences,language) were used as additional exogenous variables to set all estimations in the modelindependent from prior achievement. The results were the following: ‘authoritative promotion oflearning’ affects positive emotions in a positive way, but the linear effects on achievement werevery small or not significant. ‘Authoritarian control of achievement’ affects more or less ‘anxiety’as expected, but there were no negative effects on achievement. The best predictors forachievement in grade 8 were the domain-specific marks of grade 7.Parents’ general and math-specific beliefs of children’s competence: their relations to children’sachievement strategies, task-value and skillsKatrin Magi, University of Jyväskylä, FinlandMarja-Kristiina Lerkkanen, University of Jyväskylä, FinlandAnna-Maija Poikkeus, University of Jyväskylä, FinlandHelena Rasku-Puttonen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland– 86 –