Abstract

Little empirical study has been conducted to figure out how environmental factors including family, school, and peers are related to academic and affective characteristics of science-gifted high school students. This study investigated the relationship of perceived parenting styles to academic performance and self-esteem of the 10th grade science-gifted students (N=141) who are relatively homogeneous with high intellectual capability. Simple regression analysis was employed to understand the relationship. Out of the four sub-categories of parenting styles, only achievement-oriented parenting style of both mother and father was found to account for 6.5 percent and 4.5 percent of the variance of grade point average, respectively. Love-oriented parenting of both mother and father perceived by the participants explained 15 percent of the variance of self-esteem, respectively. These results are significant in terms of pinpointing the specific parenting styles that are associated with both academic performance and self-esteem of science-gifted high school students. Further research was suggested that can help understand the characteristics of science-gifted high school students.