Co-Investigators: Katharina Kriegbaum, M.Sc., Brandilynn Villarreal, M.A., Yookyung Kwon, Ph.D., and Professors Jutta Heckhausen and Esther Chang (Soka-University)

Despite youths’ growing desire for independence, parents remain a strong and pervasive influence in the lives of adolescents and young adults, especially for important life decisions and goal setting, such as where to attend college or what to major in. Thus, maintaining connectedness with parents is expected to provide certain benefits as young adults pursue higher educational goals. Shared agency describes the extent to which parents and children share similar academic goals and jointly engage in obtaining these goals (Chang, Heckhausen, Greenberger, & Chen, 2010). The proposed study investigates patterns of shared and non-shared agency with parents in predicting college students’ academic motivation and achievement. The findings of our study suggest that shared agency with parents was consistently beneficial for college students’ academic motivation and achievement. Out of the two non-shared agency types, parental directing was especially maladaptive for college students. Future interventions for increasing college students’ academic motivation and achievement may consider the parent-child relationship as a point of intervention. Specifically, more frequent communication with parents about educational goals in a supportive and collaborative environment can positively influence college student outcomes.