Journal of Psychiatry

Helicopter Parenting, Self-Efficacy and Academic Performance among College Students

Aouz Akhtar Khan and Sandhya Bhatt^* Department of Psychology, Amity University, Noida, India
^*Correspondence: Sandhya Bhatt, Department of Psychology, Amity University, Noida, India, Tel: 9335822000, Email:

Received: 03-Dec-2021 Published: 24-Dec-2021

Introduction

Parenting style refers to the way in which parents choose to raise their offspring. It is a psychological construct representing standard strategies that parents use in their child rearing. The quality of parenting can be more essential than the quantity of time spent with the child. Parenting styles are the representation of how parents respond to and make demands on their children. It has profound effect on child’s behavior outcome.

Diana Baumrind, a developmental and clinical psychologist was the first to lay out the theories of parenting styles in the 1960s through her research at the University of California, Berkeley. She conducted a series of studies that looked at people’s approach to parenting based on the demands they placed on their children and their responsiveness to their kids’ needs, and identified three primaries parenting styles–authoritarian, authoritative and permissive. A fourth parenting style– ‘uninvolved’ was added later by two other researchers.

Types of parenting styles

Authoritarian: There is low level of warmth but high level of control, strict discipline and guidelines, limited flexibility, frequent punishment and minimal negotiation with the child. There is one way communication from parent to child and the latter’s views are not entertained. Parents cannot listen to a ‘no’. Such parents have high expectations from their children as they are very demanding. The child of authoritarian parent is academically very high, not because he is interested in studies but fearing a backlash on getting low grades. Socially, the child is negatively affected. He develops hostility, delinquency, rebelliousness, antisocial aggression, anxiety and depression.

“Kids {in authoritarian households} will behave as long as the autocratic leader is in the room,” Schafer says. But the minute you leave-especially when they’re a little older and finally get a taste of freedom-they’ll either rebel or look for someone else to show them what to do.

Authoritative: This is the most effective style of parenting. The authoritative parents display both high levels of warmth and high levels of control. They set high expectations for the child, explain disciplinary rules clearly and engage in communication with their children. Child’s opinion is taken on most of the issues concerning him. Parents operate like CEOs, but in a friendly way that is respectful and allows the child to learn from consequences.

Permissive: Here, the parents genuinely love but have few to little guidelines or rules for their children. They readily fulfill the demands of their children and in return do not expect anything from them. They act more like friends than as parents. Although permissive parenting style may seem ideal to kids but it has its consequences as well.

Schafer says that the benefit of this style of parenting includes high self-esteem. Fran Wolfish paints a bleak picture of child from this most lenient parenting style -

• Grow up with poor emotion regulation

• Become rebellious and defiant when they don’t get what they want

• Don’t persevere when they’re faced with challenging tasks

• Engage in antisocial behaviors, like drug and alcohol abuse, vandalism, theft and gangs

Uninvolved: Also called neglectful parenting was added to the paradigm in 1983 by Eleanor Maccabee, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, and her colleague John Martin [1-5].

Uninvolved parents show low level of warmth and low level of control. They do not expect anything from the child and at the same time don't set any rules. There is no communication, either parent to child or child to parent. The parents are not involved in encouraging the child during the milestones of development. This means that psychologically and physically parents are unavailable for their children. This negligence negatively affects the child. It hinders his social development, self-esteem and positive self-concept. Thus, uninvolved parenting is not at all a good style of parenting.

“Neglectful parents who place no demands and don’t pay attention or respond to their children raise kids who have attachment difficulties because the bond between child and parent is so fleeting,” Walfish says.

Children of uninvolved parents face the following problems:

• Battle with depression

• Struggle to form close connections with others due to a lacking parent-child bond

• Have failed relationships

• Express anger and hostility through delinquent behavior

• Isolate themselves from society

Helicopter Parenting

Unlike the parenting styles mentioned above, helicopter parenting is not a philosophy. It is a descriptive term used to portray over-involved parents. The term “Helicopter parenting” was introduced back in 1990 in a book named, “Parenting with Love and Logic” written by Foster Cline and Jim Fay. The authors at the time wrote, “They hover over and then rescue their children whenever trouble arises. They’re forever running lunches, permission slips, band instruments, and homework assignments to school.”

Fast forward almost 30 years; the parental involvement has become worse. In an updated version of their book the authors have written, “We have come to call them ‘jet-powered, turboattack mode’ of helicopter parents. They further write, “These parents are obsessed with the desire to create a perfect world for the kids one in which they never have to face struggle, inconvenience, discomfort or disappointment.” This hovering can take many forms like being physical when they stop the child from running freely in a park. The parents seem to be more worried than the child about his upcoming test or debate. There is constant worry in parent about their child’s safety and they put more restrictions than his or her peers. Parents know all the ins and outs of his child such as his current grades, friend’s names, the online passwords and the different platforms the kid is on [Figure 1].

Figure 1: Helicopter parenting.

Disadvantages of helicopter parenting: Whenever the child goes through something, they bring up their own coping mechanism; they explore the inner talent they have to sort out the problem they face. During child development it is always encouraged to put him into different situations, challenges, puzzles, etc. to make him tax his brain, align his body to find an answer on his own. Such an exercise helps him create a strong identity and confidence for himself. In helicopter parenting, everything is so clearly laid out that the child never gets an opportunity to dwell deeper and figure out what are his emotions and ways of managing, thinking, decision making. All these aspects are very important for a person on holistic level to go about life. In the VUCA world, that we are in today, it will be difficult for the child to step into adulthood if by ill fate the parents are not there. Parents are the building foundation for the child’s confidence and for even how he is to deal with school and its current environment. The parents should see to it that they are not into helicopter parenting. They should not be around the child all the time either physically or instructionally. Instead they should work with them and facilitate the latent to come out [6-9].

Advantages of helicopter parenting: While helicopter parenting has its flaws—most notably how it often fails to teach kids how to think on their own and make bold decisions in the face of uncertainty but nonetheless it is far better than authoritarian, permissive and uninvolved parenting. It also has many advantages. The kids feel supported and being cared for. They are exposed to many activities, though hesitatingly, at the instructions of hovering parents. This helps them in choosing their career as they know a little of everything. Besides, the child will take care of his parents and pass on the same family values.

Self-efficacy: Self-efficacy or confidence as it is commonly called is the optimistic self-belief in one’s competence or chances of successfully accomplishing a task and producing a favorable outcome. Self-efficacy theory was first described by Albert Bandura in 1977 in an article in the journal Psychological Review titled “Self-Efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioral Change”. Mahatma Gandhi perfectly understood the pivotal role that self-belief plays in our lives as he rightly put it. Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny [10-16].

Self-efficacy is an adaptive trait that has the potential to reap many benefits, suggesting high self-efficacy is a goal that one should strive to maintain. High levels of self-efficacy for example, allow a person to be active in his or her life, to exercise control over his or her circumstances and experiences, and to have more positive experiences overall, than people with low levels of self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy plays a major role in determining chances for success. Some psychologists place self-efficacy above talent in the recipe for success. One need’s to be extra careful when setting his goals to make sure that his self-efficacy beliefs are in line with his aims and not working against them. One needs to have a sound idea about the sources of self-efficacy and how he can get more of it. Albert Bandura, the originator of this theory names four sources of self-efficacy beliefs.

Sources of self-efficacy

• Mastery experiences: The first and foremost source of selfefficacy is through mastering a task. Repeated experience will enhance self-efficacy in that field whereas failure will undermine it. To acquire a high degree of self-efficacy one needs continuous effort and perseverance.

• Vicarious experiences: Seeing people similar to oneself succeed by their sustained efforts raises one’s beliefs that he too possesses the caliber to master the activities needed for success in that area.

• Verbal persuasion: Persuasion by influential people like parents, teachers, managers or coaches strengthens beliefs that one has what it takes to succeed. He is likely to put in more effort by such encouragement.

• Emotional and physiological state: The emotional state will influence the way one judges his self-efficacy. Depressions or stress reactions can dampen the confidence whereas positive emotions can boost it.

• Imaginary experiences: James Maddux has suggested a fifth route to self-efficacy through Psychologist “imaginal experiences”, the art of visualizing oneself behaving effectively or successfully in a given situation.

Academic performance

Academic performance means the knowledge and skills that students have mastered in a subject or a course. It’s actually a measure of how well students have performed in the various assessment items set for them by their educators. It may be measured by students’ reporting of past semester GPA and their expected GPA for the current semester. This grade point average or GPA is now being used by most institutions as an index of academic performance of their students. These educational standards are recognized as criteria for admission for further studies in institutions domestically and internationally. Asides from educational institutions, employers in the industry also judge the applicants’ academic performance in their selection of prospective employees.

Helicopter parenting, self-efficacy and academic performance

As per Albert Bandura, self-efficacy refers to “perceived capabilities for learning or performing actions at designated levels”. A helicopter parented child is seldom exposed to risks or actual performance. He doesn’t get the opportunity to feel or experience failure. He is saved from bumps and bruises by 24/7 available hovering parents. Human brain needs adequate regular exercising to evolve and devise newer methods to tackle ever growing unexpected problems. The shoes are new to start with but only those retain the shine which receive regular polishing and brushing. This paucity of exposure to adventures diminishes the confidence and self-esteem of a child.

Now, such a child has undeveloped coping skills and when he or she actually comes across an unusual situation and the parents are not available with a readymade solution he develops anxiety of depression. This further lessens his self-efficacy. Another factor that impacts self-efficacy is persuasion either social or parental. Rather than saying, “You have to do it “which pushes the child into pressure, it is always better to say, “You can do it.” It encourages the child and fills him with positive energy.

Helicopter parenting is not totally bad. It has its merits also. The helicopter parented child has a high sense of security as he knows there is someone in the world who really cares for him. Children tend to listen more to their friends than to the parents. So, an over anxious parent can save him from bad company. The child needs to be on various platforms during his academic career to gain experience and this requires a strong physical and financial support which is readily extended by the helicopter parents.

A particular dimension of self-efficacy is academic self-efficacy, which is an important predictor of students’ success, resilience and ability to perform academic task with ease. Consistent findings demonstrating that self-efficacy is linked to academic performance have in fact lead to a specific area of study known as Academic Self-Efficacy (ASE). Academic self-efficacy refers to the way in which a learner feels about his or her ability to learn and be academically successful. While there is lot of research demonstrating different parenting styles having different effects on academic performance, to date there is limited research assessing the influence of helicopter parenting on academic performance. However, unsurprisingly such research has consistently shown that academic self-efficacy is a predictor of academic performance.

There is evidence to support that parental involvement in one’s life is important and beneficial for students’ academic performance. However, the extent and type of parental involvement that is beneficial to an adult child is questionable. Previous research on the topic of parental involvement has shown that children of authoritative parents, who support them in developing autonomy and communication skills, while maintaining boundaries, tend to have higher academic performance and GPA. While over parenting is typically employed with good intentions to aid children in being successful, to remove any obstacles that the child may face, and to ensure happiness, it tends to yield very negative results overall for children. While this type of parenting is associated with many negative outcomes in the adult child’s life, there is very limited literature on the topic of helicopter parenting and self-efficacy and perceived academic performance. A recent study done on students migrating to university level shows that helicopter parenting is unrelated to students’ academic performance.

Literature review

Turner, E.A., Chandler, M., Heffer, R.W., conducted a study among 264 college students to examine relations among authoritative parenting style, self-efficacy and academic performance. Result indicated that authoritative parenting style ha a positive impact on self-efficacy and academic performance.

Ingen, Freiheit, David, Knutt, Scapinello, Roberts examined how helicopter parenting is related to self‐efficacy and peer relationships among 190 undergraduate students ages 16 to 28 years. Helicopter parenting was associated with low selfefficacy, alienation from peers, and a lack of trust among peers.

Kukreja, T., Chauha, N., conducted a study on 145 undergraduates residential and non-residential from Amity University, Gurgaon. The topic of research was to look for any relationship between helicopter parenting and college problems like career choice and academic issues. The result shows that there is no significant implication of helicopter parenting on career choice and academic issues.

Reed, Duncan, Greer, Fixille, Ferraro conducted a study on 461 emerging college adult students of a United States university. Helicopter parenting was found to have indirect effects on anxiety, depression, life satisfaction and physical health through self-efficacy.

Darlow, V., Norvilitis, J. M., and Schuetze, P. did a study on 294 students that examined the role of helicopter parenting and its effect on level of anxiety, depression, and selfefficacy and academic performance as evidenced by grade point average. The result points towards indirect relationship between helicopter parenting and anxiety, depression, selfefficacy and academic performance. It was observed that students of helicopter parents had higher levels of anxiety and depression and lower levels of self-efficacy leading to poorer college adjustment.

Kouros conducted a study on 118 American undergraduate college students. It revealed that helicopter parenting predicts lower levels of wellbeing for female students, but not males. The possible explanation given by the author is that parents use more controlling behaviors and less autonomy-granting behaviors with their daughters compared with their sons.

Pautler, L.R., conducted a study to observe the effects of helicopter parenting on depression, anxiety, worrisome and academic self-efficacy. Participants were enlisted from introductory psychology courses at Eastern Illinois University. 92 students were enrolled but data was collected from only 87 of them as the remaining 5 were disqualified on account of inadequate response. The result showed that helicopter parenting correlated positively with depression and worry symptoms but not with academic selfefficacy.

Schiffrin, H.H., Liss, M., conducted a study to examine the effects of helicopter parenting on academic achievement. Survey data was collected from 192 college students and their mothers (N=121) Mothers’ report of helicopter parenting was related to children’s’ sense of entitlement. The report concluded that helicopter parenting had negative implications on academic performance.

Ganaprakasam, Davaidass, Muniandy did a study on helicopter parenting and psychological consequences among adolescent hat concluded that if the child is not allowed to develop his own unique identity and explore his world independently, it severely disrupts his psyche and self-efficacy.

Lee, Kang did a study that deals with the effect of helicopter parenting on emerging adults of Korea. It shows that helicopter parenting leads to depressive symptoms but has no effect on overall life satisfaction, either negative or positive. Another aspect was evaluated in this study–the effect of career expectation pressure by over involved parents on the child without giving him the autonomy of decision making. Such adults show greater depressive symptoms.

Jung, Hwamg, Kim did a study which investigated the difference between mother and father helicopter parenting and its outcome on self-efficacy and academic excellence amongst Americans and South Korean college students. South Korean fathers’ parenting had a negative effect on academics and self-efficacy. But a comparable result was not observed in South Korean mothers or American parents. In addition, mothers’ helicopter parenting had no effect on either self-efficacy or academics across two countries.

Howard, A.L., Alexander, S.M., Dunn, L.C., conducted a study on 460 participants who were full time first-year undergraduates relative to positive parenting (autonomy, support, warmth, age-appropriate involvement) and academic motivation. A motivation was highest in combination with lower positive parenting. Intrinsic motivation was highest in higher positive parenting; helicopter parenting was similar across profiles and was not meaningfully associated with end-ofsemester well-being. Results do not support the narrative that helicopter parenting is common or a barrier to student success.

Materials and Methods

It includes a brief description of the method used to prove hypothesis. It has been divided into research design, sample, and tools.

Research design

In this study use of both quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis has been done.

• In quantitative analysis–correlation method was used on the collected sample.

• In qualitative analysis–semi structured interview method has been used on the collected sample and analysis was done using thematic analysis.

Sample

Sample was collected on 70 college going students of Amity University, Lucknow Campus, Uttar Pradesh. The students aged between 18 years to 25 years.

Research tools

General Self-Efficacy Scale (1995) by Ralf Schwarzer and Matthias Jerusalam.

The scale has 10 items which are to be self-answered. The scale is designed to measure the optimistic self-beliefs to cope with variety of difficult demands in life of the general adult population, including adults. All the items are answered using 4- point Likert Scale format. Scales 1-4 point towards Not At All to Exactly True.

Reliability: Internal reliability for GSE=Cronbach’s alphas between .76 and .90

Validity: The General Self-Efficacy Scale is correlated to emotion, optimism, work satisfaction. Negative coefficients were found for depression, stress, health complaints, burnout, and anxiety.

Helicopter Parenting Measure Scale (1996) by Dr. Hind.

The scale has 22 items which are to be self-answered. The scale is designed to access parental involvement in participants’ lives. All the items are answered using 5-point Likert Scale format. Scales 1-5 point towards Never to Always.

Reliability and Validity: Internal consistency is between 0.84 and 0.90 (Hind).

Results

Quantitative analysis

General Self -Efficacy- GSE

Helicopter Parenting Scale– HPS

Academic Performance– CGPA [Table 1]

Table 1: Quantitative Analysis.

Qualitative analysis

Theme 1: Impact of Parental Interference

RESPONSE 1: “Feel like leaving the house and going away, irritation.”

RESPONSE 2: “Crying, trying to make them understand sometimes.”

RESPONSE 3: “Feel like punching a wall at that moment.”

RESPONSE 4: “Get a lot irritated in the beginning, but then make myself understand that they have also reached age.”

RESPONSE 5: “I get irritated and nothing more.”

RESPONSE 6: “in recent they have reduced their interference a little, just a little but before it use to be a lot. At that moment I used to feel like running away from the house.”

RESPONSE 7: “I feel shouting back at them at times.”

RESPONSE 8: “It’s very irritating when they keep buzzing around me all the time for every small things, but I have learnt to ignore them by just walking away when they are talking or giving me lectures.”

RESPONSE 9: “When I don’t how to know how to handle the situation and feel helpless I mostly start to cry to vent out my anger or irritation and eventually I am fine.”

RESPONSE 10: “It is very annoying, I feel like replying back to them but then keep my mouth shut out of respect and try to ignore as much as I can.”

Theme 2: Negative Impact

RESPONSE 1: “Because of over protection could not go further in sports.”

RESPONSE 2: “As I belong to a conservative family study is not a problem for them but certain things which are acceptable to me are not acceptable to them such as freedom.”

RESPONSE 3: “My relationships were the biggest thing that was hampered.”

RESPONSE 4: “Friendship, especially at the age of puberty.”

RESPONSE 5: “I have stopped making friends all because of them.”

RESPONSE 6: “I feel I don’t have that connect with them.”

RESPONSE 7: “I could no choose the career which I always wanted to choose – chef.”

RESPONSE 8: “My freedom is affected the most as I don’t get my space.”

RESPONSE 9: “Nothing as such”

RESPONSE 10: “Only small day to day things get affected such as my plans get cancelled, or don’t get to talk to my friends, rest nothing has been affected.

Theme 3: Factors Affecting Most

RESPONSE 1:

• Social media and friends – 8

• Family – 5

RESPONSE 2:

• Social media and friends – 9

• Family – 6

RESPONSE 3:

• Social media and friends – 5

• Family – 6

RESPONSE 4:

• Social media and friends – 7

• Family – 5

RESPONSE 5:

• Social media and friends – 7

• Family – 3

RESPONSE 6:

• Social media and friends – 7

• Family – 7

RESPONSE 7:

• Social media and friends – 9

• Family – 8

RESPONSE 8:

• Social media and friends – 6

• Family – 7

RESPONSE 9:

• Social media and friends – 8

• Family - 8

RESPONSE 10:

• Social media and friends – 8

• Family - 7

Theme 4: Degradation

RESPONSE 1: “Sports.”

RESPONSE 2: “Not able to communicate frankly to people as I hardly ever got chance to do it.”

RESPONSE 3: “My image is degrading in front of the world because of them.”

RESPONSE 4: “Friendship as they try to control a lot.”

RESPONSE 5: “Ability to make friends.”

RESPONSE 6: “I feel they don’t trust me, my connection with them has degraded.”

RESPONSE 7: “My wish, my career, my choices.”

RESPONSE 8: “Not able to do my own things according to my own thought.”

RESPONSE 9: “Not affected my life, my personal life don’t get affected easily by anyone.”

RESPONSE 10: “Nothing as such.”

Theme 5: Coping Disabilities

RESPONSE 1: “Affected more when I was younger; mostly happened itself and the rest I started ignoring them.”

RESPONSE 2: “It still affects but little less than before, maybe because I have got used to it now.”

RESPONSE 3: “Yes more when I was younger and immature; I have started paying more attention towards outer resources like reading book, studying, paying more attention to positive things that others say about me.”

RESPONSE 4: “Yes it did especially early teenage. After I reached a age, like started growing up I started taking it more positively and tried to ignore as much as I can.”

RESPONSE 5: “Yeah, it affected more when I was young as I was too immature and would take things to heart. As I started growing up and I moved out of house for further education, I started ignoring them to a very high level.”

RESPONSE 6: “Yes when I was young it affected more but with time and as I growing up my tolerance level has increased a lot.”

RESPONSE 7: “Yes young age was more difficult and heart breaking, I try to perform in my hobby of cooking and try to excel in it and it is helps me in diverting my mind and relaxing me from stress.

RESPONSE 8: “Young age was very difficult as I had to convince them for every small thing but now as I grew up I don’t tend to ask them much and coping ways just diverting my mind to studies or I start to write to express my thoughts.

RESPONSE 9: “I try to make myself happy by doing thing which I love like playing or swimming or even sometimes reading novels.”

RESPONSE 10: “Dose not affect me that, does not matter that much, I am very self-motivated.”

Discussion

The objective of the study was to find the relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance among college going students, to find the relationship between helicopter parenting self-efficacy among college going students, to find the relationship between helicopter parenting and academic performance among college going students. The study was done on 70 college going students. The data was obtained using helicopter parenting scale, self-efficacy scale and the CGPA of the last semesters. The data was analysed using t test and correlation.

Helicopter parenting is over parenting by over protective parents. The parents hover around their children just as one feels the helicopter all around when it is flying in the neighbourhood. All this leads to cognitive, emotional and physical setback to a child’s development and his self-efficacy. One dimension of self-efficacy is academic, which also gets affected, leading to poor academic performance. But, there is a brighter aspect too. The child has a complete sense of security. He is saved from bad company. He gets the right physical and financial ground to pursue his career. ‘Helicopter parenting’ is still debatable and not much literature is available on this topic.

Few surveys even reveal that helicopter parenting plays no role in academic efficacy and perceived academic performance. While there is lot of research demonstrating different parenting styles having different effects on academic performance, to date there is limited research assessing the influence of helicopter parenting on academic performance.

Kukreja, T., Chauha N, conducted a study on 145 undergraduates residential and non-residential from Amity University, Gurgaon. The topic of research was to look for any relationship between helicopter parenting and college problems like career choice and academic issues. The result shows that there is no significant implication of helicopter parenting on career choice and academic issues.

Discussion of the findings:

Hypothesis 1: There exits positive relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance among college going students.

As per the results there exists a positive relationship between self-efficacy and academic performances which means selfefficacy has a positive with academic performance. Therefore the null hypothesis will be rejected here and the predicted hypothesis will be accepted. It means an increase in the selfefficacy of the student will lead to an increase in the academic performance of the student, higher the self-efficacy higher will be the academic performance. This implies that when a student has a strong academic self-efficacy it will be reflected in his/her performance in the results. He/she would achieve good grades and marks in the subject. Moreover further analysis from the student’s responses showed that they had a good self-confidence within them and knew what they wanted in life. This study managed to established a direct relationship that self-efficacy is significantly correlated with academic performance. A particular dimension of self-efficacy is academic self-efficacy, which is an important predictor of students’ success, resilience and ability to perform academic task with ease (Cassidy; Hornicke and Broadbent, Telef and Ergun).

Motlagh, S. E., Amrai, K., Yazdani, M. J., altaib Abderahim, H., and Souri, H. conducted a study to investigate the relation between self-efficacy and academic achievement in high school students. In this study, 250 students in the academic year 2010/2011 were selected by means of multistage cluster sampling and completed self-efficacy scale. The results reviled that self-efficacy is a considerable factor in academic achievement.

Meral, M., Colak, E., and Zereyak, E. conducted a study to investigate relationships between self-efficacy and academic performance among a sample of 82 sophomore students who attended Instructional Planning and Evaluation class at the Marmara University Technical Education Faculty. Survey method used in this research. Each student's final grade note was used as a performance measure. The result showed that self-efficacy is an important variable on student’s academic performance and effects their achievements positively.

Loo, C. W., and Choy, J. L. F. conducted a study to examine the correlation of the four hypothesized sources of self-efficacy (mastery experience, vicarious experience, social persuasion, emotional arousal) with academic performance, and the prediction of the main source of self-efficacy that affects academic performance. A 40-item survey measuring sources of mathematics self-efficacy was administered to 178 third-year engineering students. It was found that self-efficacy had a positive impact on academic performance and more importantly, mastery experience was found to be the main predictor for academic achievements of mathematics and related engineering modules.

Hypothesis 2: There is negative relationship between helicopter parenting and self-efficacy among college going students.

As per the results there exists no relationship between helicopter parenting and self-efficacy which means helicopter parenting has a no relation with self-efficacy of the students. Here the null hypothesis will be accepted here and the predicted hypothesis will be rejected here. It means an increase or decrease in the helicopter parenting will lead to no increase or decrease on the self-efficacy of the students. As per this study it implies that if the student is facing high helicopter parenting at home there will be no impact or reflection of the helicopter parenting on the self-efficacy of the student. Moreover further analysis from the student’s responses showed that they had a good selfconfidence within them and were no more impacted by the continuous parental interference in their life, mostly the reasons were as they had moved out of the house and were staying in hostel and with time they had learnt to adjust and ignore the parents when they interfered. One of the most prominent reasons could be as they had started maturing and knew very well what is affecting them and their peace.

Lee, Kang did a study that deals with the effect of helicopter parenting on emerging adults of Korea. It shows that helicopter parenting leads to depressive symptoms but has no effect on overall life satisfaction, either negative or positive. Another aspect was evaluated in this study–the effect of career expectation pressure by over involved parents on the child without giving him the autonomy of decision making. Such adults show greater depressive symptoms.

Jung, Hwamg, Kim did a study which investigated the difference between mother and father helicopter parenting and its outcome on self-efficacy and academic excellence amongst Americans and South Korean college students. South Korean fathers’ parenting had a negative effect on academics and selfefficacy. But a comparable result was not observed in South Korean mothers or American parents. In addition, mothers’ helicopter parenting had no effect on either self-efficacy or academics across two countries.

Hypothesis 3: There is a negative relationship between helicopter parenting and academic performance.

As per the results there exists no relationship between helicopter parenting and academic performance which means helicopter parenting has no relation with academic performance of the college going students. Null hypothesis will be accepted here and the predicted hypothesis will be rejected here. It means an increase or decrease in the helicopter parenting will lead to no increase or decrease on the academic performance of the college going students. As per this study it implies that if the student is facing high helicopter parenting at home there will be no impact or reflection of the helicopter parenting on the academic performance of the college going student. Moreover further analysis from the student’s responses showed that they had good self-confidence, they were affected more by the friends and environment then there parents and the prominent reason to this could be that their maturity level had increased, they had learnt to ignore conflicts or parental interference and had learnt to deal and cope with them without getting affected. When they were young parental inference had more impact on them and because of which they had to cut down on many of their desires such as sports, cooking, freedom, friendship but none mentioned studies. While there is lot of research demonstrating different parenting styles having different effects on academic performance, to date there is limited research assessing the influence of helicopter parenting on academic performance. There is evidence to support that parental involvement in one’s life is important and beneficial for students’ academic performance (Fan and Williams). However, the extent and type of parental involvement that is beneficial to an adult child is questionable. A recent study done on students migrating to university level shows that helicopter parenting is unrelated to students’ academic performance. (Andrea L Howard,)

Howard, Alexander, Dunn did a study to examine helicopter parenting (e.g., intervening, assisting with tasks that emerging adults are capable of performing independently) during the transition to university relative to positive parenting (autonomy support, warmth, age-appropriate involvement) and academic motivation. The study was done through a survey on n=460 full time first year undergraduates. The results showed that helicopter parenting was not a barrier to student success.

As per the objectives of this study, there is a positive between self-efficacy and academic performance, there is no relationship between helicopter parenting and self-efficacy and there is no relationship between helicopter parenting and academic performance.

Conclusion

Self-efficacy has a positive relation with academic performance of the college going students. There is no correlation found between helicopter parenting and self-efficacy and between helicopter parenting and academic performance among college going students. This means that helicopter parenting has no impact on the student’s self-efficacy and academic performance and higher self-efficacy leads to higher academic performance. Parenting is an art and the parents must be well versed in it. Amongst the various parenting styles, authoritative parenting is the best form. Helicopter parenting is not a philosophy but a descriptive term introduced by Foster Cline and Jim Fay in 1990 in their book, “Parenting with Love and Logic”. Self-efficacy theory was first described by Albert Bandura in 1997. Helicopter parenting is quite prevalent in the present world with most of the parents doing it unknowingly. It’s a competitive age today and most of the parents want to win the race. They lay down the road map, which they think is the most perfect for their child. The child is not encouraged to make or choose his own path. He is devoid of the opportunity where he can strain his brain to breed out novel ideas. The biggest casualty in helicopter parenting is ‘mastery experience’ and this lowers his self-efficacy and leadership qualities. There can be few merits of helicopter parenting like sense of intense security during childhood and physical and financial help from parents. Academic performance is the outcome of academic efficacy. Repeated positive efforts in academics results in improved academic performance. Views are still varied as to whether helicopter parenting plays any role in modulating academic efficacy and perceived academic performance.

REFERENCES

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