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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1530289
This article is part of the Research Topic Enhancing Learning through Cognitive and Social Inclusion Practices in Education View all articles

The influence of parental burnout on middle school students' academic achievement: Moderated mediation effect

Provisionally accepted
Lingyi Peng Lingyi Peng 1,2Huohong Chen Huohong Chen 2*Jinhai Peng Jinhai Peng 3*Wei Liang Wei Liang 1,2*Mengfang Li Mengfang Li 4*Weifeng Fu Weifeng Fu 5*
  • 1 Hunan First Normal University, Changsha, China
  • 2 Cognition and Human Behavior Key Laboratory, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan Province, China
  • 3 Hunan Vocational College of Science and Technology, Changsha, Anhui Province, China
  • 4 Ma Tian Town Central Primary School, Yongxing County, Chenzhou, China
  • 5 Zhangjiang Town Middle School, Taoyuan County, Taoyuan, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This study investigates the influence of parental burnout on the academic achievement of middle school students, as well as the mediating role of academic self-efficacy and the moderating role of middle school students' gender and parental gender. Utilizing a parent-child matched-pair design, a questionnaire survey was conducted with 738 middle school students and their parents (either fathers or mothers). The findings revealed that: (1) parental burnout significantly and negatively predicted middle school students' academic achievement; (2) academic self-efficacy partially mediated the relationship between parental burnout and middle school students' academic achievement; and (3) the gender of middle school students moderated the initial segment of this mediating effect, while parental gender did not significantly moderate the relationship, indicating that the significant negative predictive effect of parental burnout on academic self-efficacy was evident only among female middle students. These results not only enhance our understanding of the mechanisms and conditions under which parental burnout impacts middle school students' academic achievement, but also have important implications for improving middle school students' academic self-efficacy and overall academic performance.

    Keywords: Parental burnout, Academic Achievement, Academic self-efficacy, gender, middle school students, Parental gender

    Received: 18 Nov 2024; Accepted: 20 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Peng, Chen, Peng, Liang, Li and Fu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Huohong Chen, Cognition and Human Behavior Key Laboratory, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, 410000, Hunan Province, China
    Jinhai Peng, Hunan Vocational College of Science and Technology, Changsha, 410004, Anhui Province, China
    Wei Liang, Hunan First Normal University, Changsha, China
    Mengfang Li, Ma Tian Town Central Primary School, Yongxing County, Chenzhou, China
    Weifeng Fu, Zhangjiang Town Middle School, Taoyuan County, Taoyuan, China

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