Parental Involvement, Academic Self-Efficacy, and Depression on Academic Performance Among Chinese Students During COVID-19 Pandemic

Lili Kang,1 Changle Li,1 Duohui Chen,2 Xinxin Bao3 1School of Health Management, Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, People’s Republic of China; 2College of Public Health Sciences, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand; 3School of Foreign Language Studies, Inner Mongolia Medical University, Hohhot, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Xinxin Bao, School of Foreign Language Studies, Inner Mongolia Medical University, Hohhot, 010110, People’s Republic of China, Email 20120027@immu.edu.cnObjective: This study was conducted to identify the factors (especially parental involvement, academic self-efficacy, and depression) associated with academic performance among Chinese K-12 students during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: This cross-sectional study used data from the 2020 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). The CFPS was conducted from July to December 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. A multistage probability sample proportional to size was used for the survey. The final sample consisted of 1747 K-12 students. This study used the 14-item Chinese Parental Involvement and Support Scale, the Responsibility Scale, and the 8-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale to measure parental involvement, academic self-efficacy, and depression, respectively. An ordered probit regression and structural equation models were employed to analyze the factors associated with academic performance. A multiple imputation technique was applied to compute missing values in selected variables.Results: We found that parental involvement and academic self-efficacy were positively associated with good academic performance. In contrast, depression was negatively associated with good academic performance. Moreover, academic stress, male, rural residency, middle school, family size, high income, online gaming daily, reading, and intelligence quotient were statistically significant predictors on academic performance.Conclusion: The empirical findings suggested that parenta