Middle school students’ mental unwellness and academic performance in China: The effects of parental involvement

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between the mental unwellness of middle school students in China and their academic performance in the subjects of Chinese, mathematics, and English. Additionally, this study explored the potential ameliorating effects of parental involvement variables (parental non-academic activity involvement and parent-child communication) on the adverse impact of mental unwellness on academic performance. The examination of the effects of parental involvement also considered the differential effects of involvement by mothers and fathers. This study utilized national longitudinal representative data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS). Findings of the two-level Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analyses indicated that mental unwellness in Grade 7 negatively impacted academic performance in the aforementioned subjects in Grade 8. Nonetheless, these adverse impacts were alleviated when the parental involvement variables were taken into account. Furthermore, the results revealed that mother-child communication and father-child communication had moderating effects on the negative relationship between mental unwellness and academic performance in Chinese and English, respectively. This study contributes to the existing literature by shedding light on the beneficial effects of parental involvement and highlighting the differential involvement of mothers and fathers.