This study used both parental factors and students’ individual motivational factors to understand college students’ academic achievement and resilience. Students bring various strengths with them to college that may be especially important as they experience challenges, including individual motivational strategies and joint collaboration with parents in pursuing educational goals (parental shared agency). Based on cultural backgrounds and values, we hypothesized differences between parental shared agencies for White and Latinx students. Consistent with previous literature, we expected parental shared agencies and motivational factors to independently predict high levels of academic buoyancy and academic achievement, respectively. Unique to this study, we proposed an interaction between shared agency and motivation in predicting academic outcomes.
College students at a rural postsecondary institution in California were surveyed (N = 98). Participants completed an online questionnaire that contained the Academic Buoyancy Scale (Martin & Marsh, 2008), the Shared Agency Scale (Chang, 2009), and the Optimization in Primary and Secondary Control Scales in the Domain of Education (Heckhausen, 1998). Results show no significant differences between Latinx and White students in parental shared agencies. Similarly, no significant results were found in the hierarchical regression models predicting academic buoyancy nor academic achievement. Further research with a larger sample size is needed to gain additional insights into the constructs at hand. Further exploration of these factors may also lead us to understand the achievement gap using a strengths-based perspective, allowing us to consider suitable interventions
