The aim of the study was to examine whether children's achievement strategies would prospectively predict their improvement in reading and mathematical skills during the 1st school year, or whether it is rather the skills that predict the change in their achievement strategies. One hundred five 6-to 7-year-old children were investigated 3 times during the 1st school year. Each time, their reading and mathematical skills were tested, and their task-avoidant versus task-focused behaviors were rated by their classroom teacher. In addition, their overall cognitive competence was measured before entry into school. The maladaptive strategies children deployed in the classroom and their reading skills formed a cumulative developmental cycle. On the one hand, task-avoidant behaviors decreased subsequent improvement in reading skills, and on the other hand, a low level of reading skills increased subsequent task-avoidant behaviors. Although a low level of mathematical skills increased subsequent task avoidance, the mathematical skills were not influenced by it.It has been suggested that the achievement strategies (Cantor, 1990; Jones & BergJas, 1978), motivational styles (Pintrich, Roeser, & Dc Groot, 1994), and causal attributions (Diener & Dweck, 1978) children and adolescents display in classroom settings provide a basis for their low achievement and related problems at school (

Simultaneous use of variable- and person-oriented methods in developmental research seems to be a valuable approach, which not only provides a proper way to investigate the cumulative developmental cycles but also an option to examine how large a proportion of the sample follows the positive and negative pattern found in variable-oriented analyses.

In order to examine the extent to which parents' levels of education, financial resources, self-esteem, and their mastery-orientation versus task-avoidance are associated with their parenting styles and parental stress, data from two studies were analyzed. In Study I, parents of 105 6 to 7-year old children were asked to fill in scales measuring their parenting styles and parental stress, mastery-orientation, financial resources, and their level of education. In Study II, 235 parents were asked to fill in the same scales. An identical pattern of results was found in the two studies. Parents' self-esteem and their use of mastery-oriented strategy were found to be associated with authoritative parenting and low parental stress, whereas parents' low level of education was related to an authoritarian parenting style. The results further showed that the impact of parents' self-esteem on authoritative parenting and parental stress was partly mediated by their use of a mastery-oriented strategy.

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Kaisa Aunola University ojHelsinki, FinlandOne-hundred and five 6-to 7-year-old children were given a test meas uring their helpl essness, fa ilure expec tatio ns, task-irrelevant beha viour, lack of p ersist ence and search fo r social suppo rt in a classroom setting in order to examine the impact ofpar ental well-being a nd parentin g styles on the childre n's cog nitive and behavioural strategies at school. Both par ents were also asked to fill in scales measuring their depression, parenting stress and parenting styles. The res ults reveal ed th at matern al .dep ressive symp to matology was associated with their children's use of maladaptive strategies, whereas pa ternal dep ress ion was not. Moreo ver, maternal auth or itat ive parenting styles and authoritarian control, seemed to decrease their children 's use of maladaptive strategies. On the other hand, the more parenting stress reported by the fa thers, the more their children showed the use ofmaladapti ve strategies.It has be en su ggest ed that the cog nitive and be hav io ural stra tegi es childre n and adolesce nts apply in classroom settings may provide a basis for their school achievement. Helplessness beliefs and related passivity (Diener & Dweck, 1978), being afraid of failure, task-irrele vant behaviou r and lack of persistence in the task at hand (Nurmi, Onatsu, & Haavisto, 1995a) have been found to lead to low achievement and related problems at school. For exa mple, Nurmi et a l. (1995a ) fou nd that und er achieving adolesc ents appl ied dysfunction al cognitive and behavioural patterns that res embled the se lf-handicapping behaviours des cribed earl ier by Jones and Berglas (1978). They showed higher levels of failure expectations and task-irrelevan t behaviour than their matched-pa ir controls. Butkow sky 544