The influence of parental educational involvement on learning engagement among first-year college students: the mediating effects of academic self-efficacy and professional identity

This study examined how parental educational involvement influences learning engagement among first-year college students and tested the mediating roles of academic self-efficacy and professional identity. Using cluster sampling, survey data were collected from 803 first-year undergraduates (228 male, 575 female, with average of 18 years). Serial mediation was tested using PROCESS Model 6 with 5,000 bootstrap resamples. Parental educational involvement positively predicted learning engagement, and the direct effect remained significant after including the mediators (<i>β</i> = 0.14, <i>p</i> < 0.001), indicating partial mediation. The overall regression model explained substantial variance in learning engagement (<i>R</i> ² = 0.37; <i>F</i> = 155.46, <i>p</i> < 0.001), and the total indirect effect accounted for 57.54% of the total effect. These findings suggest that parental educational involvement continues to shape students' engagement in the first year of university, primarily through strengthening students' competence beliefs and professional identification.