关键词: 父母教育卷入, 学习投入, 学习成绩, “双减”政策, 潜变量增长模型

Abstract: Since the implementation of the “double reduction” policy in 2021, the education has focused not only on academic results but also on the learning process of students. However, few studies have examined the changes and influence mechanisms of this policy on primary school students’ learning engagement and academic performance. Investigating these factors is crucial for fostering students’ academic development and evaluating the effectiveness of the policy. Parental involvement is a critical determinant of students’ academic success. Studies have shown that active parental involvement in children’s education significantly enhances their academic achievement. The “double reduction” policy not only reduces the burden of students but also puts forward new requirements for parents to improve the quality of education involvement. However, no existing research has focused on the dynamic change trajectory of the three sub-dimensions of parental involvement (i.e., emotional, intellectual, and behavior involvement) before and after the policy. Thus, the present study used a longitudinal design to explore the change trajectory of parental involvement’s three sub-dimensions before and after the implementation of “double reduction” policy and investigate how the initial level and change rates of parental involvement predict students’ learning engagement and academic performance two years later. A sample of 323 primary school children was selected via cluster sampling from two primary schools in Shandong Province, China, with data collected over three waves: baseline (June 2021), 1.5 years later, and 2 years later. The mean age of participants at baseline was 8.89 years (SD = 0.94, range = 7 to 11 years old; 47.82% boys). Parental involvement and children’s learning engagement in this study were based on participants’ self-reports, and academic achievement was obtained from school records. At baseline, participants provided demographic information, including gender and grade. Parental Involvement Scale was used to measure parental involvement in Waves 1 to 3. At Waves 1 and 3, Learning Engagement Scale was used to measure students’ learning engagement. In Wave 3, the final grades of the students were collected from the school as an academic performance indicator. Analyses were conducted in Mplus 8.3 using a series of latent growth models. First, three unconditional latent linear growth models were established based on data from the three-time points to characterize the developmental trajectory of emotional, intellectual, and behavior involvement before and after the “double reduction.” Second, the initial level of parental involvement at Time 1 (intercept), change rates from Time 1 to Time 3 (slope), and interrelationships between the initial level and change rates were estimated. Finally, conditional latent growth models with latent variable interactions (between the initial level and change rates) were used to examine how the initial level and change rates of parental involvement from Waves 1 to 3 jointly predicted learning engagement and academic performance at Wave 3. Several findings were obtained. First, unconditional latent models showed that parental involvement’s sub-dimensions (emotional, intellectual, and behavior involvement) exhibited a linear decreasing trend before and after the implementation of the “double reduction”. Second, the individual differences in parental involvement among primary school parents demonstrated a stable developmental pattern over time. Third, after controlling for age and learning engagement at Wave 1, conditional latent growth models showed that emotional and behavior involvement had cumulative effects on students’ learning engagement under the background of “double reduction.” In terms of academic performance, the change rates of emotional involvement significantly predicted academic performance, while intellectual involvement showed no significant effects on either learning engagement or academic performance. Supported by the amplification model, students with a low initial level of parental behavioral involvement experienced a more rapid decline in academic performance when the decline rate of behavior involvement accelerated. In contrast, students with high initial levels of behavioral involvement experienced slower declines in academic performance, even when they experienced faster rates of decline. The present study makes both theoretical and practical contributions. First, this study provided a comprehensive overview of the developmental trajectory of parental involvement before and after the “double reduction” policy among Chinese primary school children by examining initial levels, change rates, and their interrelationships. Second, the findings indicated that both the initial level and change rates of emotional and behavior parental involvement influenced learning engagement through an accumulative effect, and the change rates of emotional parental involvement significantly predicted academic performance. However, behavior involvement influenced academic performance through the amplification model. These results underscore the differential effects of the initial level and growth rates of different dimensions of parental involvement on learning engagement and on academic achievement. Third, this study emphasizes the importance of prioritizing both the initial level and change rate of behavioral involvement in fostering children’s learning and the necessity of high-quality parental involvement for academic development.

Key words: academic performance, “double reduction” policy, latent growth modeling, learning engagement, parental involvement