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A longitudinal study on the impact of parental academic support and expectations on students’ academic achievement: the mediating role of happiness

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Abstract

Previous studies have separately explored the impact of parents’ academic support and expectation on students’ academic achievement. However, few studies have explored the common impact of these two factors simultaneously and from the perspective of development. The purpose of this study was to explore the dynamic long-term impact of parental academic support on students’ happiness and academic achievement, as well as the moderating effect of parental academic expectations. A total of 539 students from a high school in eastern China participated in a five-wave three-year survey with measurements with the interval of half a year. The results showed that the slope of parental academic support across the five measurements predicted the slope of students’ academic performance through the slope of student happiness. In addition, the slope of parental academic expectations moderated the effect of the slope of parental academic support on the slope of student happiness. Specifically, this positive effect was significant only when the slope of academic expectation is positive. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are also discussed.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

This research was supported by the Beijing Well-being Foundation under Grant #0020344.

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Author notes

  1. Guanjun Li and Bingcan Li are the first two authors contribute equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behaviour and Mental Health, Peking University, Room 1215, Wangkezhen Building, No. 52 Haidian Road, Haidian, 100080, Beijing, China

    Guanjun Li, Bingcan Li, Lei Wang, Chunquan Liu & Li Lu

Authors
  1. Guanjun Li
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  2. Bingcan Li
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  3. Lei Wang
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Contributions

L.W. and G.L. conceived the main research idea and research design. G.L., L.W., and C.L. collected the data. B.L., C.L., L.L., G.L., and L.W. conducted the data analysis. All authors involved in paper preparation.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lei Wang.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Guanjun Li. School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behaviour and Mental Health, Peking University, Room 1215, Wangkezhen Building, No. 52 Haidian Road, Haidian, Beijing, 100080, China. +8610-62757551: E-mail: liguanjun@pku.edu.cn

Bingcan Li. School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behaviour and Mental Health, Peking University, Room 1215, Wangkezhen Building, No. 52 Haidian Road, Haidian, Beijing 100080, China. +8610-62757551. E-mail: libingcan@pku.edu.cn

Lei Wang. School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behaviour and Mental Health, Peking University, Room 1215, Wangkezhen Building, No. 52 Haidian Road, Haidian, Beijing 100080, China. +8610-62757551; E-mail: leiwang@pku.edu.cn

Chunquan Liu. School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behaviour and Mental Health, Peking University, Room 1215, Wangkezhen Building, No. 52 Haidian Road, Haidian, Beijing 100080, China. +8610-62757551; E-mail: lcq999psy@163.com

Li Lu. School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behaviour and Mental Health, Peking University, Room 1215, Wangkezhen Building, No. 52 Haidian Road, Haidian, Beijing 100080, China. +8610-62757551; E-mail: lu_li@pku.edu.cn

Current themes of research and most relevant publications

Guanjun Li is studying student psychological capital academic achievement. He has No previous relevant publications.

Bingcan Li is studying parent participation and student well-being and performance. She has No previous relevant publications.

Lei Wang is a professor in school of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences at Peking University. His current themes of research include student psychological capital and achievement; student emotion, parent-children relation and performance; student counterfactual thinking, well-being and performance. His most relevant publications include:

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Lei Wang (1989). Adolescent Psychology. Beijing: Peking University Press.

Junqi Shi, Lei Wang, & Wei Deng (2005). Reliability and validity of the subjective well-being scale of Chinese middle school students. Chinese Mental Health Journal, 19(11), 727–729.

Junqi Shi & Lei Wang* (2007). Validation of Emotional Intelligence Scale in Chinese University Students. Personality and Individual Differences, 43(2), 377–387.

Chunquan Liu is studying parent participation and student well-being and performance. He has No previous relevent publications.

Li Lu is studying student depressive emotion, parent emotion and performance. She has No previous relevant publications.

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Li, G., Li, B., Wang, L. et al. A longitudinal study on the impact of parental academic support and expectations on students’ academic achievement: the mediating role of happiness. Eur J Psychol Educ 38, 801–818 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-022-00608-x

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