The Impact of Parental Warmth and Rejection on Primary School Students’ Learning Engagement: The Role of Learning Strategies

Objective: To investigate whether parental warmth and rejection influence primary school students’ learning engagement through the mediating variable of learning strategies. Methods: A total of 317 valid data were obtained from primary school students using the Parental Rearing Behavior Questionnaire, Learning Engagement Questionnaire, and Learning Strategies Questionnaire. Results: (1) Parental warmth was significantly positively correlated with primary school students’ learning strategies and learning engagement (r=0.221, 0.293, p<0.01), while parental rejection was significantly negatively correlated with these variables (r=-0.155, -0.174, p<0.01). (2) Parental warmth had a significant direct predictive effect on learning engagement (β=0.140, p<0.01), while the direct effect of parental rejection was not significant. (3) Learning strategies played a partial mediating role between parental warmth and learning engagement and a complete mediating role between parental rejection and learning engagement, accounting for 53.4% and 64.7% of the total effects, respectively. Conclusion: Parental warmth not only directly promotes primary school students’ learning engagement but also indirectly influences it through learning strategies. parental rejection mainly indirectly weakens primary school students’ learning engagement by affecting learning strategies.