Parents’ Parenting Styles and Academic Achievement of Underachievers and High Achievers at Middle School Level

The current research was conducted to find out the effect of parenting styles of both fathers and mothers on academic achievement of the underachiever and high achiever children. A sample of 210 participants including 70 students (35 low achievers and 35 high achievers) and their 70 parents (both fathers and mothers) was purposefully selected. The parents of the selected students were interviewed to find out their parenting style. The data were analyzed using SPSS 21. Parenting styles were compared to students’ academic achievement through ANOVA. t-test was conducted to find difference between underachievers and high achievers. Findings showed that students whose parents were fully authoritative, fully permissive or those who were using a mix of authoritative and permissive parenting style showed significantly better result than the students whose parents were permissive in their actions only.