Abstract

This study investigated the relationship of parents' achievement-oriented and self- development goals (for their children) on youth reported anxiety, while taking parents' psychological control and responsiveness into account as possible mediating factors. More specifically, the purpose of this study was to further investigate the direct/indirect effects of (a) parents' reported achievement-oriented goals on youth anxiety via parental psychological control in two types of schools (key school for more academically advanced students and typical school for students with lower academic achievement); and (b) parents' reported self-development goals on youth anxiety via parental psychological control in key and typical schools. The current study also introduced parents' responsiveness as a new mediator and single-child family/ multiple- child family (family type/size) as a new moderator to investigate their effect on the overall model as related to youth anxiety. is study included 1,044 participants, reflecting 522 dyads (student and primary caregiver) from an urban city in Eastern Mainland China. Participating students were enrolled in the 11th grade in senior high school. Due to the high correlations of parents' achievement- oriented goals and parents' self-development goals (r = 0.975, p < 0.001), we combined and created one new variable--parents' achievement/self-development goals. Therefore, in the final multigroup SEM analyses we used this new variable in place of the previously hypothesized two goal-related variables. Additionally, rather than the initially proposed two types of schools, due to constricting limitations in the data, we were limited to making comparisons between single- child and multiple-child families. In our data analyses, no indirect effects were found among the identified variables. However, data analyses indicated a direct effect from parents' psychological control on youth anxiety in the key school regardless of family composition (single-child or multiple-child families), and in youth attending the typical school and from a single-child family. In general, the data analyses identified two major findings: (a) We found a positive relationship between parents' psychological control and youth anxiety for youth attending a typical school and living in a single-child family and for youth attending a key school, regardless of family type/size (single-child or multiple-child family); and (b) A marginally significant relationship (p = 0.053) was identified between parents' reported achievement/self-development goals and youth reported parent responsiveness. Some concerns were voiced among research team members about cultural sensitivity to one of the parents' survey questions. For example, one question referred to students being interested in and joining extracurricular activities. Students in China may or may not have had opportunities to participate in these types of activities. Data were reanalyzed after seven items were removed. In post hoc exploratory analyses, a new variable was defined and created, parents' reported achievement goals. Parents' reported achievement goals were found to be youth reported parents' psychological control only in (a) the typical school and single child family model and (b) the key school and multiple-child family model. Youth reported parents' psychological control is positively related to youth anxiety in all the models. Indirect paths were found from parents' achievement goals on youth anxiety via youth reported parents' psychological control were only found in (a) the multiple child model, (b) the multiple child and key school model, and (c) the single child and typical school model. We acknowledge that our data were collected in China during the COVID-19 global pandemic. During this pandemic, professionals note that youth, including youth in China, reported significantly higher levels of anxiety, making our current data more difficult to compare with pre-COVID-19 data collected in China. Future research should further explore the development of youth anxiety across time (longitudinal studies). To inform prevention and intervention efforts targeting youth anxiety, researchers must consider numerous variables that may directly or indirectly mitigate or exacerbate youth anxiety. Future research may consider and investigate the following variables: family composition; parenting styles and cultural factors that are embedded in parenting styles; parents' goals for and expectations of their children's academic achievement; family composition, including sibling relationships; and the type of school youth attend.

Degree

PhD

College and Department

David O. McKay School of Education; Counseling Psychology and Special Education

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2022-08-04

Document Type

Dissertation

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd12967

Keywords

adolescent anxiety, family size, school type, parental control, emotional responsiveness, psychological control

Language

english

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