The Influence of Parental Authority Type on College Students’ Learning Engagement: The Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy

Abstract

Parental authority is a key component in understanding college students’ academic engagement because it has been demonstrated in various studies to influence children’s motivation, emotional control, and learning behavior from early adolescence to maturity. This paper seeks to investigate the impact of different kinds of parental authority on college students’ academic learning engagement and test whether and how interpersonal factors such as self-efficacy can mediate this influence. Data were collected from 121 college students using an online survey that included three instruments: Parental Authority Questionnaire, General Self-Efficacy Scale, and Learning Engagement Scale. Mediation analyses were performed by means of SPSS v25. 0 via PROCESS macro. The obtained results indicated that parental authority had a significant direct effect upon students’ learning engagement; however, mediation effect for self‐efficacy was not statistically significant. Thus, the finding suggest that parental authority might affect learning engagement mostly through direct pathways, whereas self‐efficacious behavior may not act as a useful mediator. Future research is recommended to consider situational factors when exploring the mechanisms of parental influence over pupils’ academic behaviors.