The Impact Of Parents' Educational Anxiety On Their Children's Academic Engagement: The Role Of Children's Learning Motivation And Parents' Academic Involvemen

As an important predictor of academic achievement,academic engagement has been a significant research focus.Nowadays,the “Involution” of education has become a social norm.The constant reform of education policies has put students under more competitive pressure,and parents’ educational anxiety has become increasingly severe.The “ease the burden of excessive homework and off-campus tutoring for students undergoing compulsory education” policy has been introduced to reduce the burden on students and highlight parents’ role in their children’s education.Therefore,this study aimed to investigate the impact of parents’ educational anxiety on their children’s academic engagement and its mechanisms.In this study,students and their fathers or mothers in three primary schools(grades 5and 6)and two junior high schools(grades 7,8 and 9)in Qingdao were surveyed and studied using a questionnaire.The instruments used were the Educational Anxiety Scale,reported by the fathers or mothers,and the Academic Engagement and Withdrawal Scale,the Academic Self-Regulation Scale,the Academic Motivation Scale and the Parental Academic Involvement Scale,reported by the students,to measure the level of parental educational anxiety,the level of academic engagement,the level of academic motivation and the level of parental academic involvement of primary and secondary school students respectively.The data were processed using SPSS 23.0,and the findings of the study were as follows:(1)Parental educational anxiety was moderate to high overall,with differences mainly in the number of children,place of birth and children’s school year,and relatively higher levels of educational anxiety among parents of non-only children,those in rural areas and those in lower secondary school.Academic engagement among primary and secondary school students was moderate to high overall,with differences mainly in place of origin,school band and grade level,and relatively higher levels of academic engagement among urban and primary school bands(5 and 6)grade students.(2)Parental educational anxiety negatively predicted children’s academic engagement.(3)Primary and secondary school students’ autonomous motivation,controlled motivation,and de-motivation played multiple mediating roles in the relationship between parental educational anxiety and students’ academic engagement.(4)Parental academic involvement played a moderating role in the process by which parental educational anxiety influenced students’ academic engagement through their autonomous and controlled motivation,and high levels of parental academic involvement played a protective role in the second half of the pathway by which parental educational anxiety influenced students’ academic engagement;it did not play a moderating role in the process by which parental educational anxiety influenced students’ academic engagement through their de-motivation.The results of this study illustrated that the multiple mediating roles of students’ three academic motivations in parental educational anxiety and students’ academic engagement held true and that parental academic involvement played a moderating role in the pathways by which students’ autonomous and controlled motivations influence their academic engagement processes.The findings suggested that psychology teachers should focus on fostering students’ autonomous motivation and that parents should be actively involved in their children’s daily learning,contributing to their academic engagement.