Structural Relationship among Children’s Academic Stress, Grit, Executive Function Difficulty, and Media Device Addiction

Abstract

This study examined the structural relationship between children’s academic stress, grit, executive function difficulty, and media device addiction. Data on 1,132 children and their mothers from the 11<sup>th</sup> (2018)Panel Study on Korean Children were used for the study. Data were collected by Academic Stress Scale, Grit Scale-Children, Child-Adolescent Self-reported Executive Function Difficulty Screening Questionnaire, and K-Internet Addiction Scale. Data were analyzed using SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 23.0 program with Pearson correlation, structural equation model and bootstrapping. The main results were as follows. 1) Children’s academic stress had a negative influence on their grit. 2) Children’s grit had a negative influence on their executive function difficulty and media device addiction. 3) Children’s executive function difficulty had a positive influence on their media device addiction. 4) The relationship between children’s academic stress and media device addiction was mediated by their grit and executive function difficulty. This study is significant in the sense that it found protective factors and risk factors for children’s addiction to media devices. We suggest that children’s grit be improved, and their academic stress and executive function difficulty be reduced to prevent and mediate children’s media device addiction.