Influence of Perceived Maternal Psychological Control on Academic Performance in Chinese Adolescents: Moderating Roles of Adolescents’ Age, Gender, and Filial Piety

摘要

Existing studies with East-Asian samples have reported inconsistent findings on the association between parental psychological control and academic performance in children and adolescents. A Moderation effect is present, when the magnitude or direction of the association between two variables significantly changes with another variable called a moderator. This study explored moderators for the association between maternal psychological control and academic performance. 338 Chinese secondary school students aged 14 to 20 years completed self-report measures of perceived maternal psychological control, academic performance, and attitudes toward filial piety. Structural equation modelling suggested that adolescent age moderated the association of interest: the influence of perceived maternal psychological control on academic performance significantly varied between middle adolescents aged 14 to 17 years and late adolescents aged 18 to 20 years. Based on the findings, this study offers a possible rationale for the inconsistent findings in studies with East-Asian samples and proposes that parenting effect should be assessed developmentally.