Students’ affective engagement, parental involvement, and teacher support in emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from a cross-sectional survey in China

Abstract

Emergency remote teaching has been widely implemented in the education system worldwide to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing upon data from a cross-sectional survey conducted in eight middle schools in eastern China (a sample size of 1,550 students and 1,550 parents), we employed multiple linear regressions with school fixed effects to examine the associations among student affective engagement, parental involvement, and teacher support in an emergency remote teaching environment. Our results show that higher levels of parental involvement and teacher support are associated with higher levels of student affective engagement with teacher support presenting the strongest relationship with student engagement. These findings contribute to the understanding of emergency remote teaching in different countries where schools and individual households devise varying strategies and solutions.

Keywords:

• Emergency remote teaching
• affective engagement
• parental involvement
• teacher support
• middle school students
• China

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the editorial board and anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions. Research for this article was made possible by a Shandong SDU Fundamental Education Group research grant for crosswise project, entitled “Creating Welcoming Schools” (No. 11090013552002), an Adream Foundation—China Children Think Tank research grant (No. CCTTDX202001), and Qilu Young Scholar research grant at Shandong University.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yang Yang

Yang Yang is an assistant professor in the Center for Educational Science and Technology, Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences at Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, China. His research interests include science education, curriculum design, teacher professional development, and quantitative research methods.

Keqiao Liu

Keqiao Liu is an assistant professor in the School of Public Finance and Public Administration at Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang, China. Her research interests include quantitative research methods, student engagement, parental involvement, psychological well-being, and career planning.

Miao Li

Miao Li is a professor in the School of Philosophy and Social Development at Shandong University, Jinan, China. Her research interests include new media and education, youth culture, and schooling of rural-origin students. Her articles appear in Information, Communication & Society, The China Quarterly, Eurasian Geography and Economics, and Citizenship Studies. [email protected].

Siqi Li

Siqi Li is an assistant professor at the College of Education for the Future and Research Institute of Science Education at Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China, and assistant professor at Research Institute of Science Education at Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China. Her research interests include science education, technology integration, ICT use in education, and mixed-method research design.