The interplay of students' and parents' responsibility judgements in the school context and their associations with student motivation and achievement

Due to the important motivational implications of an individual's sense of responsibility, this paper studies the interplay of 271 secondary school students' and 101 of their parents' responsibility ascriptions for student learning and their relations to student motivation and achievement. Three dimensions of responsibility were identified; responsibility for the learning process, student achievement and establishing a supportive social network. Students' sense of personal responsibility was related to their ascriptions of responsibility to parents and teachers and their own subject-specific motivation and school achievement. All of these were found related to parents' responsibility judgements and expectancies. These findings underscore the importance of the school context for fostering students', teachers' and parents' sense of responsibility for ensuring students' academic success.