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Parental Involvement in Adolescents’ Learning and Academic Achievement: Cross-lagged Effect and Mediation of Academic Engagement

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Abstract

Parental involvement in adolescents’ learning has been linked to high academic achievement, yet few studies have examined its reverse relationship at the same time and the potential mechanisms that underly these associations. To address this research gap, this study investigated the reciprocal relationship between parental involvement and academic achievement as well as the mediating role of adolescents’ academic engagement among Chinese adolescents. In addition, the current study explored whether these relationships varied by gender. Using a longitudinal design, a total of 2381 secondary school students (48.8% girls, Mage = 13.38 ± 0.59) participated in the study. The results found significant positive directional effects from academic achievement to parental involvement among total sample, but not vice versa. The cross-lagged effect from academic achievement to parental involvement only existed among adolescent girls. Bootstrap analyses in the total sample revealed that parental involvement was related to academic achievement through the indirect effects of adolescents’ behavioral engagement. In terms of gender differences, behavioral engagement totally mediated the path from academic achievement to parental involvement for boys, while no significant mediation effect was found for girls. These results have provided empirical evidence of the evocative role of adolescents’ academic characteristics on parenting behaviors and the double-edged effect of parental involvement on adolescents’ academic performance, they also suggest that further research is needed to explore effective and appropriate ways for parents to get involved in adolescents’ learning in order to promote their children’s academic achievement.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Hui Wand and Liu Yang for valuable suggestions on this manuscript. We are especially indebted to the adolescents and their parents whose participation made this research possible.

Authors’ Contributions

P.R. conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination, and drafted the manuscript; Y.X. participated in the analysis and interpretation of the data, and produced the drafting of the manuscript; X.Q. participated in the collection of data and critiqued the output for important intellectual content; Q.W. critiqued the output for important intellectual content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China [Grant number: 20BSH067].

Data Sharing and Declaration

The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, No. 19 Xinjiekouwai Street, Beijing, 100875, China

    Yuke Xiong, Quanquan Wang & Ping Ren

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Groningen, Grote Rozenstraat 31, 9712 TG, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Xingna Qin

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  1. Yuke Xiong
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All procedures performed in the present study were in accordance with the recommendations of the Research Ethics Committee of the Beijing Normal University and with the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consent was obtained from both adolescents and their caregivers included in the study.

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Xiong, Y., Qin, X., Wang, Q. et al. Parental Involvement in Adolescents’ Learning and Academic Achievement: Cross-lagged Effect and Mediation of Academic Engagement. J Youth Adolescence 50, 1811–1823 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-021-01460-w

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