Impacts of parents’ resources and helpers’ resources on Hong Kong children’s mastery motivation

Abstract

This study aims to investigate into the impacts of the parents’ and foreign domestic helpers’ (FDHs) resources on Hong Kong children’s mastery motivation. Being the primary care-givers in the family environment, parents and FDHs have impacts on children’s development from cognitive, language and behavioral perspectives. Amongst these, their respective influences on children’s mastery motivation in terms of the intrinsic drive to master a challenging task remained unexplored in Hong Kong. In the current study, consensus from three kindergartens, their students’ parents and FDHs was sought to participate. 247 parents with children studying in Kindergarten Grades 2 and 3 each completed a set of Chinese questionnaires collecting information about their children’s mastery motivation using items from the Chinese version of Dimension of Mastery Motivation, their sense of parenting competence using items from the Chinese version of Parenting Sense of Competence as well as other demographic particulars including their educational levels and family income. 93 FDHs completed another set of English questionnaires measuring their sense of care-giving competence and other demographic particulars including their educational levels. Results from multiple regression analysis showed parents’ sense of parenting competence positively predicted both the instrumental and expressive pillars of Hong Kong children’s mastery motivation. In contrast, FDHs’ sense of care-giving competence did not predict either of them. Moreover, this study did not elicit findings supporting the association of Hong Kong children’s mastery motivation with other aspects of family resources such as family income, parents’ and FDHs’ educational levels. In sum, parents’ sense of parenting competence was a key family resource contributing significantly to the development of Hong Kong children’s mastery motivation. These empirical observations supported the notion of increasing parents’ awareness on the importance of their parenting competence on their children’s mastery motivation as well as the introduction of health education programmes with a view to enhancing parenting competence.