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Article

The Mediating Role of Anxiety between Parenting Styles and Academic Performance among Primary School Students in the Context of Sustainable Education

by
Ion Albulescu
1,†,
Adrian-Vicențiu Labar
2,†,
Adriana Denisa Manea
1,*,† and
Cristian Stan
1,†
1
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Babeş-Bolyai University, 400029 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
2
Teachers’ Training Department, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, 700506 Iași, Romania
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Sustainability 2023, 15(2), 1539; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021539
Submission received: 10 December 2022 / Revised: 4 January 2023 / Accepted: 10 January 2023 / Published: 13 January 2023
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Abstract

:
The importance of parenting styles for the necessary fulfilment of the developmental needs of children and eventually improving their quality of life is frequently treated in the literature. Despite there being many studies that examined the relationship of parenting styles and academic performance, there is a lack of measurement of the relationship in the Romanian sample. This study analyzed the relationship between parenting styles and academic performance, along with cognitive test anxiety as a mediating variable. In order to identify how assessment anxiety influences the relationship between parenting styles and academic performance, we conducted a study on a sample of 231 students from rural and urban backgrounds. A questionnaire-based survey (to measure anxiety and parenting style) and assessment tests were used. The undertaken study highlighted the existence of a negative correlation between the level of assessment anxiety and the level of academic performance of students. At the same time, we found that poor supervision on behalf of parents negatively correlates with students’ performances in Romanian Language and Literature and in Mathematics. On the other hand, the results of the mediation analysis show that assessment anxiety partially mediates only the negative relationship between poor supervision and school performance.

1. Introduction

In response to the challenges raised by the need to achieve a sustainable education in the 21st century, pedagogy specialists have developed a series of active and interactive teaching–learning-assessment strategies that are able to ensure the achievement of this objective. However, the previously mentioned curricular innovations cannot be transposed into educational practice without careful scientific validation, validation that, in the spirit of the philosophy of sustainable education, must confirm not only the didactic efficiency of the new teaching–learning-evaluation methods but also their positive contribution to the foundation and harmonious development of both intragenerational and intergenerational interpersonal relationships. Moreover, it is imperative that the process of acquiring new knowledge, skills, and competencies occurs in the background of the student’s general state of well-being, which is a state considered to be optimal for knowledge, understanding, reflection generation, and the identification of innovative solutions.
In the context of standardized evaluations, specific to Romanian education, our concerns related to ensuring that sustainable education is naturally directed toward the analysis of the implications that evaluation anxiety generates both in terms of the level of students’ academic performances and in terms of their health and well-being. Children with anxiety disorders may be overlooked due to the difficulty of recognizing their internalizing symptoms, lack of knowledge of diagnostic criteria, and misconceptions regarding the negative consequences of these problems [1]. If left untreated, these disorders tend to have major long-term effects on students’ social and emotional development. Regarding evaluation anxiety, this is a construct that defines the extent to which the evaluation situation is perceived by the student as threatening. The generative causes of evaluation anxiety can be cognitive (negative thoughts, global evaluations associated with a previous failure, and threats to the ego that are based on self-esteem), affective (evaluation of one’s own state: state of tension, tense muscles, tremors), or of behavioral nature (lack of learning skills, avoiding and/or postponing work tasks, or the effort that needs to be invested).
Along with the bullying phenomenon, assessment is among the main sources of anxiety specific to the educational environment. Since the beginning of the 1970s, it has been widely accepted that evaluation anxiety is a particular case of performance anxiety and that this is a multidimensional phenomenon involving cognitive concerns (ruminations) related to the consequences induced by a possible failure—the concern dimension—as well as the responses/reactions of an emotional nature, thus resulting in the corresponding intensification of the autonomic nervous system activity—the emotionality dimension [2]. The anxiety that students show in assessment situations specific to school activity is described both by research specialists in the field and by practitioners through a set of negative cognitions regarding results/performance, personal skills or adaptive strategies, and neurovegetative reactions (expression of the intensification of the activity of the autonomic nervous system), which some of the students show before, during, or after a written or oral assessment situation—proficiency test, test paper, semester progress test, oral examination, university admission exam, Olympiad, etc. [3,4].
The state of anxiety can be triggered and maintained both in the short term (understood as an attribute/trait) and in the long term (in which case the problem is posed in terms of an anxiety disorder). For example, starting from the simple finding that a student’s attempt to anticipate possible exam subjects or the situation of waiting for the evaluation results places him/her in a horizon of uncertainty, we recall a study carried out in Great Britain that explored the relationship between the intolerance of uncertainty and anxiety as a state/trait that showed that the intolerance of uncertainty was strongly associated with both trait anxiety and state anxiety [5]. For this reason, a multidimensional approach to anxiety is required (such as the EMAS scales that evaluate anxiety as a state—the EMAS-S scale, anxiety as a trait—the EMAS-T and SAS-T scales, the individual’s perception of the threat from a certain situation—the EMAS scales-P and SAS-P), which provides high accuracy in predicting anxiety as a state of being and a high degree of accuracy in understanding the pattern of anxious reactions that a person can have in different situations.
Sources of assessment anxiety mainly include students’ uncertainty about the nature of expected demands as well as their ability to meet these demands [6]. Repetitive negative thinking and anticipatory exaggeration of the consequences of failure are thus one of the defining characteristics of evaluation anxiety [5]. The research carried out in the field of metacognitive beliefs has concluded that these play an important role both in the process of initiating and maintaining worry, an important psychological phenomenon in the evolution of anxiety [7].
Some studies reveal gender differences in the development of anxiety, in the sense that most subjects who show social anxiety are male [8], while others highlight the fear of evaluation as being responsible for social anxiety in young adults (university students); the t-test confirmed the significant difference between men and women, as well as between the level of education (university and postgraduate) for these two variables. Thus, in the previously mentioned specific context, female students recorded a higher level of evaluation anxiety and social anxiety than male subjects [9]; similarly, undergraduate students showed more social anxiety [10,11]. There are also gender differences in terms of the level of stress somatization, with female subjects recording a higher level than male subjects from this perspective, but, at the same time, they also recorded a greater ability to overcome challenges [12,13,14,15,16].
Broadly speaking, two possible explanations have been proposed for the observed gender differences in evaluation anxiety. The former explains the differences by the fact that the different social roles assigned to men and women reinforce the idea that since women are under more pressure than men when it comes to achieving school performance, they are more afraid of failing in a test situation. The latter suggests that men are more defensive than women when it comes to admitting and acknowledging the existence of anxiety, as this could be perceived as a threat to their masculinity [4,17]. As research in this field continues to multiply, the need to use a unitary tool to assess the theorized pathology of anxiety for its diagnosis is increasingly perceived. For example, the Anxiety Disorders Diagnostic Questionnaire (ADDQ) was developed as a screening tool for the presence of clinical fear and anxiety, regardless of diagnosis and etiology, as a brief four-section index developed to assess fear, anxiety/worry, escape/avoidance behaviors, physiological symptoms, and distress-associated interference [18].
Assessment anxiety thus refers to anxiety related to the administration of tests and their consequences, including transient states of anxiety in test situations (state test anxiety) and to traits that predispose the person to experience test anxiety (i.e., trait test anxiety) [19]. Examination anxiety or test anxiety is increasingly recognized as important in the analysis of educational environments, especially because of the impact it has on student academic achievement. The results of various studies undertaken in this regard indicated that test anxiety correlated significantly negatively with a wide range of ways of objectifying educational performance, including results on standardized tests and university admission exams [20]; test anxiety is associated with low performance on cognitive tests in general [21].
In other words, the statement that “a high level of test anxiety can lead to a decrease in motivation aimed at school or academic success, as well as in the performance that pupils or students actually achieve” [22] (p. 16) is fully validated and consistently indicates the existence of a significant negative correlation between test anxiety and academic performance [23,24].
Beyond the negative effect of assessment anxiety on the level of academic performance, there is also a high probability that highly anxious students in test situations will drop out or repeat an academic year, compared to their peers, who feel less anxious [25]. Additionally, students tested and diagnosed as highly anxious report poorer mental health [26].
The scope of areas affected by assessment anxiety can sometimes go beyond the individual student’s level of academic performance. In this context, we refer to the fact that excessive evaluation anxiety can be a destructive phenomenon, including at the level of evaluating an entire study program, which can lead to a drastic reduction in the credibility of the evaluation results and the evaluators [27] and to the fact that this phenomenon can disrupt the efficient functioning of the attentional system—people with a higher degree of general anxiety, including anxiety toward mathematics, record poorer performance in behavioral tests that include spatial orientation [28].
It is also worrying that anxiety disorders existing in childhood can induce substantial negative effects even at the level of family relationships, relationships with colleagues, not only in the academic context, but also related to social achievements [29], which is why careful monitoring of anxiety from an early age is required, representing a fact that can facilitate both the increase in the level of school performance and the consolidation of the student’s general well-being [30].
If the relationship between evaluation anxiety and the level of academic performance has benefited from the attention of researchers in the field, the relationship between parenting style and the level of academic performance indicates, according to the analysis of published studies, both insufficient research on this aspect and the existence of certain incongruities of the results from various undertaken studies. Hence, while some studies indicate that the authoritarian parenting style had a direct positive effect on the level of academic performance as a result of the development of intrinsic motivation [31] and the permissive parenting style had a direct negative effect on achievement motivation and academic self-efficacy [32], other research demonstrates quite the opposite, namely that parental styles approached individually do not significantly influence the level of academic performance [33]. Differences also appear in terms of the authoritative parenting exercised by mothers or fathers. Thus, authoritarian paternal parenting generated a decrease in anxiety, while authoritative maternal parenting increased it [34].
One of the reasons for concern of the promoters of sustainable education values is related to the fact that the high level of social environment expectations regarding students’ levels of academic performance accentuates the pressure exerted on them, which in turn exacerbates the concerns of the evaluated subjects that they cannot achieve the success they want and what is expected of them [11,35]. At the same time, numerous studies carried out by specialists in the field of groups of subjects composed of high school students and their parents indicate that the level of stress felt by teenagers during the school year is significantly higher than that of adults and the peaks appear mainly in the timeframe preceding the exams. For example, in Romania, after each national test, statistics show that thousands of candidates who registered for the exams did not show up for the respective tests, the absences being recorded mainly due to the evaluation anxiety felt by them.
Today, pedagogy and psychology are able to offer effective ways of training and developing emotional self-control skills in evaluative situations; this is a fact that can lead to the reduction in or even extinction of evaluation anxiety. In this context, we refer to the implementation of certain specific strategies, among which we mention: the analysis of the competence levels within student groups, followed by an interactionist mediation [36] and the change of the student’s perception regarding the degree of assessment accuracy through a dynamic assessment, concurrently with the use of open assessment tools or the promotion of academic self-efficacy and the transfer of tacit knowledge through shared discussions [37].
Another element with a regulatory role used in the management of assessment anxiety is represented by the provided feedback. Thus, receiving positive feedback has a buffering effect whereby the post-negative arousal feedback remains low compared to the post-negative arousal feedback experienced by students who received initial negative feedback [38]. Another method of fighting school anxiety consists of the systematic desensitization of the shy and inhibited student by creating situations in which he/she can express himself/herself in front of the class, by addressing questions to him/her as often as possible, but without grading the answers [39]. A significant improvement in school performance was also recorded by simply changing students’ perceptions of their ability to cope with stressful test situation [40].
Additionally, it is necessary to pay more attention to choosing the most suitable assessment forms/tools, given the fact that there are numerous studies that confirm the existence of a strong relationship between test anxiety and the assessment tool used. Thus, there was a statistically significant decrease in the average anxiety score on the WTA scales in students who received computer-based examination compared to the paper–pencil examinations (2.48 vs. 3.90; p < 0.05), [9].
Correlative to the previously presented ways of reducing assessment anxiety, it is also recommended to involve parents in this approach that aims to prevent anxiety disorders and temperamental inhibition in young children, such as, for example, the program for parents “Cool Little Kids”, also provided in an online version [41].
Given the fact that individual differences between students involve personalized psycho-pedagogical interventions, accurately identifying the causes of anxious behavior in evaluative situations is essential for the success of the efforts undertaken. Thus, according to V. Robu [22,42], the possible causes can be identified at several levels: the presence of evaluative anxiety as a trait (the predisposition oriented toward experiencing anxious states of a certain intensity with a certain regularity), self-efficacy (low confidence in their own skills, seen as resources for adapting to the demands of everyday life, including school or academic life), self-esteem, including that related to the school or academic field (the degree to which they value themselves, i.e., one accepts and evaluates one’s own characteristics favorably), locus of control (the way of internal/external attribution of the causes of one’s own successes or failures), emotional stability (a factor related to pupils’ or students’ personalities that expresses their predisposition toward experiencing anxious and depressive states, vulnerability in facing stressful or tense situations, emotionality, impulsiveness, or irritability), resilience and style of adaptation to stressful situations (the characteristic way in which the person tries to cope with the stressful situations he/she encounters), or the skills and habits acquired over time regarding the study and learning activity.
Worthy of mention in this context is the fact that, sometimes, in certain concrete situations and at a certain thresholds of intensity, assessment anxiety can also have the role of facilitating the academic performance, thus being beneficial in the sense that teachers can use it in certain circumstances, strategies, and techniques that can lead students to an optimal point of anxiety, necessary to ensure an adequate cognitive mobilization [43]. Being able to discuss situations in which psychosituational interventions have proven their effectiveness in terms of improving the level of school performance [40]. However, it should also be noted that several studies in the field have shown that anxiety cannot influence the level and quality of academic performance in situations when it leads to the use of compensatory strategies, such as a significant contribution of additional effort for learning or the use of increased, intensive resources and information processing capacities [44,45]. The analysis of the mediating role of anxiety between parenting styles and academic performances may bring additional clarifications regarding the way in which educational action can increase academic performance. It should be noted that the correct understanding of the mediating role that evaluation anxiety plays in the relationship between parenting styles and the academic performance of young schoolchildren is one of the basic conditions for achieving a sustainable education. Although some studies have emphasized the mediating role of anxiety and stress between some parenting styles and students’ depression [46] and from the psychological impact generated by different parental approaches on children [47] from the analysis of published studies, we find insufficient research on the relationship between parenting styles and the levels of academic performance as well as the existence of certain inconsistencies in the results of the various studies undertaken so far. An investigation of the mediating role of anxiety between parenting styles and school performance among primary school students is necessary for the context of sustainable education, which was the starting point for the present study (Figure 1).

Purpose of the Study and Working Hypotheses

The purpose of the study essentially focused on the following main aspects: highlighting the extent to which academic performance is or is not influenced by anxious behavior in test situations, whether or not the state of anxiety is maintained by the practiced parenting style, respectively, if the practiced parenting style influences the level of academic performance of the young schoolchildren. Following the assumption of the previously mentioned investigative purposes, the following working hypotheses were formulated:
Hypothesis 1 (H1). 
Assessment test anxiety correlates negatively with the level of academic performance;
Hypothesis 2 (H2). 
Parenting styles (i.e., positive parenting, inconsistent discipline, and poor supervision) correlate with assessment test anxiety, as follows:
Hypothesis 2a (H2a). 
Positive parenting correlates negatively with assessment test anxiety;
Hypothesis 2b(H2b). 
Inconsistent discipline correlates positively with assessment test anxiety;
Hypothesis 2c (H2c). 
Poor supervision correlates positively with assessment test anxiety.
Hypothesis 3 (H3). 
Parenting styles (i.e., positive parenting, inconsistent discipline, and poor supervision) correlate with academic performance, as follows:
Hypothesis 3a (H3a). 
Positive parenting correlates positively with academic performance;
Hypothesis 3b (H3b). 
Inconsistent discipline correlates negatively with academic performance;
Hypothesis 3c (H3c). 
Poor supervision correlates negatively with academic performance.
Hypothesis 4 (H4). 
Assessment test anxiety mediates the relationship between parenting style (i.e., positive parenting, inconsistent discipline, and poor supervision) and academic performance, as follows:
Hypothesis 4a (H4a). 
Assessment test anxiety mediates the relationship between positive parenting and academic performance;
Hypothesis 4b (H4b). 
Assessment test anxiety mediates the relationship between inconsistent discipline and academic performance;
Hypothesis 4c (H4c). 
Assessment test anxiety mediates the relationship between poor supervision and academic performance.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Participants and Procedure

The sample used is conventional consisting of 231 subjects, with students enrolled in the third (60.6%) and fourth grades in two public secondary schools from the rural and urban areas in the central region of Romania. The participants’ age range was 8–11 years (M = 13.35, SD = 0.58), with 55% of them being girls and 35.1% of respondents being from the rural area. The participation in the study was entirely voluntary and anonymity was guaranteed. The self-assessing questionnaires were administered in paper-and-pencil format with written instructions. The students completed the questionnaires in a group format.

2.2. Measures

The research methods used in the current study were the method of standardized test and the questionnaire survey method. The range of administered instruments included questionnaires for measuring anxiety in students and parenting styles validated on the Romanian population. It was decided to develop the assessment test by the authors of the study with supervision in order to ensure the validity of the content by four specialists in Mathematics and Romanian Language and Literature.

2.2.1. Parenting Styles

The parenting styles were assessed using the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire—Short Form [48] that was adapted and validated on the Romanian population [49]. The APQ-SF consists of nine items (three items for each of the three scales of parenting practice) presented with a 5-point endorsement scale: Never, Almost never, Sometimes, Often, and Always. It is scored on three subscales: positive parenting (e.g., “your parents tell you that you are doing things right”), inconsistent discipline (e.g., “your parents threaten to punish you, but in the end, they don’t”), and poor supervision (e.g., “you don’t think it’s necessary to notify your parents when you leave home”). An average score was computed for each subscale and high scores were interpreted differently depending on the scale: in the positive scales, they indicate adequate practices, and in the negative scales, they indicate inefficient practices.

2.2.2. Cognitive Test Anxiety

The cognitive test anxiety levels were assessed using the Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale-Short Form (CTAS-SF) [50]. The CTAS-SF is a 17-item revision to the original CTAS [51] that uses a four-point Likert-type scale (1 = not at all like me, 4 = very much like me). A sample item is: “My mind goes blank when I am pressured for an answer on a test”. The average scores were computed, with higher scores reflecting higher cognitive test anxiety. This last instrument was translated and adapted for the present study. First, two experts translated them into Romanian and then a third expert back-translated the questionnaires.

2.2.3. Academic Performance

The academic performances were measured using standardized tests for the curriculum subjects’ Romanian Language and Literature and Mathematics, for the third and fourth grade. The tests were developed by us in order to carry out the field investigation. It was submitted to analysis and evaluation by four specialized teaching staff for the subjects of Mathematics and Romanian Language and Literature to ensure content validity. The test consisted of items specific for the Mathematics and Romanian Language and Literature curriculum for the two specified grades. The reason behind choosing these two school subjects is that they are considered to be representative both at the level of curriculum areas as well as in the academic performance spectrum of young students. Two tests were administered for each class of students, with each test consisting of 10 items with different difficulty levels according to the age level, respectively; for the third grade, the test was composed of 10 items, of which 5 items were true/false and multiple choice, 3 items were semiobjective items, with short answer option, and 2 structured questions. For the fourth grade, the test had 7 items with an increasing difficulty level (3 semiobjective items with short answer options, 3 structured questions, and a subjective item for problem-solving). The performance standards corresponded to those in the curriculum.
The ethics research norms were followed and a written agreement on behalf of the parents was provided prior to the test administration for each of the students in the examined sample.

2.3. Data Analyses

The data analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS 24.0, the macro PROCESS 4.0 [52] for mediation analysis, and the AMOS version 24 for confirmatory factor analysis. First, we verified the factorial validity of the Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale using confirmatory factor analysis with the maximum-likelihood estimation method in the AMOS program. Next, we calculated descriptive statistics, Cronbach’s alpha, and correlations between measures. For mediation analyses, we used the macro PROCESS and bootstrapping with 5000 bootstraps resamples to examine indirect effects in mediation models. The confidence intervals that do not contain zero indicate a significant indirect effect (mediation).

3. Results

3.1. Factorial Validity of the Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale-Short Form (CTAS-SF) on the Romanian Sample

To verify the factorial validity of the scale, we used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). For the model fit, we applied the maximum-likelihood estimation method and reported the following fit indexes: chi-square statistic (χ2), χ2/df ratio, Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), and Tucker–Lewis Index (TLI). According to Hu and Bentler [53] and Kline [54], goodness-of-fit criteria were used in the current study that acknowledged the potential for acceptable (χ2/df ratio < 3, CFI and TLI > 0.90, SRMR < 0.10, RMSEA < 0.08) and excellent fit (χ2/df ratio < 2, CFI and TLI > 0.95, SRMR < 0.08, RMSEA < 0.05). The indices revealed a relatively good fit of the single factor solution (with two pairs of errors correlated): χ2(117) = 214.33, p < 0.001; χ2/df = 1.83; CFI = 0.92; TLI = 0.90; SRMR = 0.06; RMSEA = 0.06, 90% CI: [0.05, 0.08]. Therefore, the model fits the data from an acceptable to an excellent degree.

3.2. Preliminary Analysis

The descriptive statistics, Cronbach’s alpha, and correlations between measures are reported in Table 1. The results show that from parenting styles, only poor supervision was significantly negatively correlated with Romanian language performance (r = −0.260, p < 0.001) and math performance (r = −0.297, p < 0.001), while positive parenting and inconsistent discipline was not significantly correlated with Romanian language performance and math performance. Our results, therefore, support hypothesis H3c, and hypotheses H3a and H3b are not supported. Cognitive test anxiety was also found to be significantly negatively correlated with Romanian language performance (r = −0.241, p < 0.001) and math performance (r = −0.389, p < 0.001). Hypothesis H1 are therefore supported.
Next, we analyzed the correlations of each of the three parenting styles with test anxiety (Table 1). The results showed that test anxiety was significantly positively correlated only with poor supervision (r = 0.139, p < 0.05) and not significantly correlated with positive parenting and inconsistent discipline. These results, therefore, support hypothesis H2c and hypotheses H2a and H2b are not supported.
No gender differences were found regarding parenting styles or cognitive test anxiety. Instead, we found significant differences between the urban and rural areas of residence for positive parenting and poor supervision: thus, urban area students reported a significantly higher level of positive parenting (M = 4.66, SD = 0.47) than rural area students (M = 4.50, SD = 0.53), t(229) = 2.44, p < 0.05) and rural area students reported a significantly higher level of poor supervision (M = 2.51, SD = 1.36) than urban area students (M = 1.72, SD = 0.91), t(229) = 4.68, p < 0.001.

3.3. Mediation Analyses

To examine whether cognitive test anxiety is a significant mediator of the associations between each parenting style and academic performance (i.e., Romanian language performance and math performance) we performed mediation analyses (see Table 2). The results show that cognitive test anxiety partially mediates only the relationships between poor supervision and Romanian language performance (indirect effect = −0.127, 95% CI = [−0.309, −0.008]) and between poor supervision and math performance (indirect effect = −0.199, 95% CI = [−0.416, −0.011]). Therefore, hypothesis H4c was supported. Instead, cognitive test anxiety did not mediate the relationships between positive parenting and Romanian language performance (indirect effect = 0.219, 95% CI = [−0.099, 0.611]), inconsistent discipline and Romanian language performance (indirect effect = −0.009, 95% CI = [−0.222, 0.221]), positive parenting and math performance (indirect effect = 0.332, 95% CI = [−0.149, 0.831]), or inconsistent discipline and math performance (indirect effect = −0.013, 95% CI = [−0.318, 0.293]). These results, therefore, did not support hypotheses H4a and H4b.

4. Discussion

In agreement with the results provided by specialized studies that emphasized strong negative correlations of assessment anxiety to a wide array of objectifying means for academic performance, including the results of standardized tests and university admission exams [20,21,22,23,24], our study indicated the same negative correlation for young students. Hence, the first hypothesis (H1) is supported; the results indicate the existence of a negative correlation between the level of assessment anxiety and the level of academic performance both for Romanian Language and Literature and for Mathematics, which leads to a necessity in educational practice for teachers to employ non-invasive assessment strategies that are accepted by students and are able to strengthen their emotional security feelings and ensure high self-esteem, elements that can facilitate academic performance according to students’ skills.
The results obtained with regard to the degree of effect of parenting styles upon students’ academic performances indicate a negative influence of the permissive parenting style, namely poor supervision of student’s performance, which highlights the belief that a permissive parenting style has a negative effect upon accomplishment motivation and academic self-efficacy [32], which further leads to weaker academic performance.
The second hypothesis (H2) is partially supported, as the results indicate that assessment anxiety shows a positive correlation only with poor supervision, without any significant correlations with positive parenting or inconsistent discipline; the practical relevance of this observation expresses the need for parents to practice more focused and constant monitoring of their children in the context of their training for assessment/evaluation.
According to the results, the third hypothesis (H3) is also only partially supported in the sense that poor supervision negatively correlates with students’ performances both in Romanian Language and Literature and Mathematics. At the same time, there is no significant correlation between a positive parenting style or an inconsistent discipline parenting style and academic performance in Romanian Language and Literature and Mathematics. The data resulting from the analysis confirm that the constant involvement of parents, even if moderate, in monitoring the school activity of their children can contribute to increasing the children’s school performances, especially since some studies indicate that perceived warm/affectionate parental attitudes were positively associated with active coping [55]. The fourth hypothesis (H4) is also partially supported. What is relevant is the fact that assessment anxiety partially mediates the negative relation between a parenting style based on poor supervision and the level of academic performance both in Romanian Language and Literature and Mathematics; high poor supervision can lead to low academic performance both directly and indirectly, through the increase in assessment anxiety, which, in turn, leads to low academic performance in the indicated subjects.
Consequently, assessment anxiety can mediate the relationship between a poor supervision parenting style and the level of academic performance both in Romanian Language and Literature and Mathematics. Other differences regarding the typology of parenting styles can be found in students’ backgrounds, in that positive parenting is most frequently encountered among students from an urban area as compared to those in the rural area, whereas triggered is higher among students coming from the rural area than in those from the urban area.
Regarding gender differences, even though some studies identified gender differences in the development of anxiety states, namely higher social anxiety levels in male subjects [8] and higher assessment anxiety levels in female subjects [9], the level of stress somatization in female subjects cumulated with a higher capacity to overcome obstacles [11,12,13,14,15], our study did not identify the existence of gender differences in cognitive tests for young students. Moreover, no gender differences were tracked regarding parenting styles. The obtained results highlight the mediator role of anxiety between parenting styles and school performance and the conclusions were also emphasized by other specialized studies that also took into account other parameters such as motivation [34]. The limitations of the study regarding the measurement of global school performance should be emphasized (school performance was reported only at the level of two subjects: Mathematics and Romanian Language and Literature). Parental approaches are an important factor in the social, psychological, physical, and mental development of children, hence the need to carry out an awareness and mentoring program for parents, to educate them on the risks associated with inappropriate approaches and their potential to increase the level of anxiety and behavioral disorders among students [47].
The decrease in the assessment anxiety level as a prerequisite of benefiting from sustainable education, capable of contributing to students’ well-being, entails actions that can be taken on different layers, such as: providing support for learners in the design and development of effective control/self-control capacity in assessment situations and counseling parents in order to familiarize them with the principles of positive education and to ensure optimum, non-invasive monitoring of the student’s academic activity, as well as training teachers to alternate traditional assessment tools such as pen-and-paper tests with assessment techniques that are compatible with the recent evolutions in the field of informatics and communication technology, with computer-based testing being acknowledged for the contribution to diminishing students’ assessment anxiety levels.

5. Conclusions

The conducted study highlighted both the existence of a conditionality in obtaining high academic performance due to the lack of assessment anxiety, as well as the mediating role of anxiety between parenting styles and school performance among primary school students. Based on the recorded results and on their analysis, we consider the positive involvement of parents in the lives of their children to be a necessity, thus directly contributing to the reduction in assessment anxiety, which will consequently generate an increase in the academic performance of students.
Achieving positive parenting requires a lot of determination and responsible, continuous, and quality action on the part of parents. Such an attitude can only be obtained by better informing them, creating an appropriate education regarding the evaluation culture, and recognizing the symptoms of evaluation anxiety developed by children. Supported positive parenting will be objectified in positive support, empathy, and communicative assertiveness.
The study emphasizes the interdependence between sustainable education and academic performance obtained through the control of anxiety, even more since the results obtained highlighted the fact that anxiety in assessment tests correlates negatively with the level of academic performance. Thus, in the context of sustainable education, we are in the position to emphasize the need for the responsible involvement of parents in the control of anxiety in young schoolchildren, knowing that a quality sustainable education can only be obtained under the conditions of an optimal coagulation of all the educative forces in the school environment (formal and nonformal), family and social (informal), and the formation and development of an authentic culture of evaluation at the level of all involved actors, as well as the harmonization of parenting styles with the specific needs of the child and the requests to which they are exposed. Therefore, in order to achieve some of the desirables of sustainable education such as quality education, healthy lifestyle, personal safety and comfort, appreciation and respect for diversity in all its forms, cooperation, and mutual help, a control of evaluation anxiety is necessary.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, I.A. and A.D.M.; methodology, A.D.M. and A.-V.L.; validation, C.S., I.A. and A.-V.L.; formal analysis, A.-V.L. and C.S.; investigation, A.D.M.; resources, C.S.; data curation, C.S. and I.A.; writing—original draft preparation, A.D.M., A.-V.L. and I.A.; supervision, I.A. and C.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

The financing is from internal funds of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Babeş-Bolyai University, from the research fund of the Doctoral School Education, Reflection, and Development.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Not applicable.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Sustainability 15 01539 g001 550
Figure 1. The research models.
Figure 1. The research models.
Sustainability 15 01539 g001
Table
Table 1. Scale means, standard deviations, reliability coefficients, and correlations (N = 231).
Table 1. Scale means, standard deviations, reliability coefficients, and correlations (N = 231).
VariablesMSD123456
1. RLP83.5415.13-
2. MP86.8513.910.469 ***-
3. CTA1.970.60−0.241 ***−0.389 ***0.886
4. PP4.610.500.1110.103−0.0930.619
5. ID2.660.83−0.0080.0080.0060.0350.526
6. PS2.001.15−0.260 ***−0.297 ***0.139 *−0.173 **0.1270.656
Note: RLP = Romanian language performance; MP = math performance; CTA = cognitive test anxiety; PP = positive parenting; ID = inconsistent discipline; PS = poor supervision. * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001. Reliabilities are provided along the diagonal in italic format.
Table
Table 2. Unstandardized direct and indirect effects with bootstrapped 95% confidence interval for mediation analyses.
Table 2. Unstandardized direct and indirect effects with bootstrapped 95% confidence interval for mediation analyses.
PredictorMediatorDependent VariableDirect EffectIndirect Effect (95% CI)
PPCTARLP0.9010.219 (−0.099, 0.611)
IDCTARLP−0.040−0.009 (−0.222, 0.221)
PSCTARLP−1.136 *−0.127 (−0.309, −0.008)
PPCTAMP0.6260.332 (−0.149, 0.831)
IDCTAMP0.058−0.013 (−0.318, 0.293)
PSCTAMP−0.995 *−0.199 (−0.416, −0.011)
Note: PP = positive parenting; ID = inconsistent discipline; PS = poor supervision; CTA = cognitive test anxiety; RLP = Romanian language performance; MP = math performance. Results based on 5000 bootstrap samples; CI—bias-corrected 95% confidence interval for the indirect effects. * p < 0.001.
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Albulescu, I.; Labar, A.-V.; Manea, A.D.; Stan, C. The Mediating Role of Anxiety between Parenting Styles and Academic Performance among Primary School Students in the Context of Sustainable Education. Sustainability 2023, 15, 1539. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021539

AMA Style

Albulescu I, Labar A-V, Manea AD, Stan C. The Mediating Role of Anxiety between Parenting Styles and Academic Performance among Primary School Students in the Context of Sustainable Education. Sustainability. 2023; 15(2):1539. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021539

Chicago/Turabian Style

Albulescu, Ion, Adrian-Vicențiu Labar, Adriana Denisa Manea, and Cristian Stan. 2023. "The Mediating Role of Anxiety between Parenting Styles and Academic Performance among Primary School Students in the Context of Sustainable Education" Sustainability 15, no. 2: 1539. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021539

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