The relationship between parental warm support, a type of parent-child relationship, and students’ academic achievement has been well established. A two-wave longitudinal study published in Current psychology examines the mediating role of self-control and the moderating role of teacher emotional support among Chinese adolescents on this well-known link.
About 2500 students from 7th and 8th grade in China completed a self-report questionnaire at two timepoints (baseline and one year later). The questionnaire contained measures of parental warm support, self-control, and teacher emotional support. Mid-term examination scores for three main disciplines, i.e., Chinese, Mathematics, and English, were combined as an achievement index. Results suggested that:
- Adolescents with higher parental warm support tended to have higher academic achievement one year later.
- The link was positively mediated by self-control. That is parental warm support heightened adolescents’ self-control, and in turn increased their academic achievement one year later.
- Additionally, when teacher emotional support was higher, parental warmth support at baseline elevated more academic achievement one year later through self-control.
The authors stressed the value of integrating parents’ and teachers’ support in adolescent development, which helps children establish better personality traits and improves their school performance.
Source: Saeed, M., Zhao, Q., Zhang, B., & Li, C. (2021). Does teacher’s emotional support amplify the relationship between parental warm support and academic achievement via self-control in Chinese adolescents: A longitudinal moderated mediation model. Current Psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.), 2021-04-08. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01695-7