Disentangling the Interplay: Caregiving Styles, Self-Efficacy, Academic Entitlement, and College Students’ Academic Engagement

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to explore the relationship among caregiving styles, self-efficacy, academic entitlement, and academic engagement of college students. Drawing on Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory, the study seeks to unravel the interplays among these factors. By doing so, the study aims to enrich the existing body of literature. Additionally, I expect the findings to provide insights for educators, educational professionals, and policymakers to better understand factors that impact students’ engagement so as to inform effective pedagogical practices to facilitate college students’ academic success. Academic engagement is widely acknowledged as critical for students’ academic success. Although there has been increasing attention drawn to college students’ class involvement, there remains a paucity of research exploring how caregiving styles, self-efficacy, and student entitlement collectively impact student engagement. Previous research has often focused on a singular aspect of caregiving styles, leaving a holistic examination of caregiving style factors relatively unexplored. Additionally, there has been controversy as to the impact of authoritarian caregiving styles on student engagement, and limited evidence regarding the permissive caregiving style on academic engagement. Furthermore, gaps exist in how self-efficacy and entitlement mediate the relationship between specific caregiving styles and academic engagement. Nevertheless, inconsistent results remain as to the relationship between self-efficacy and academic entitlement. Moreover, most of the research has focused on caregiving styles’ impact on children and adolescents, with far less attention to how caregiving styles affect college students’ engagement. Hence, it is important to understand how these factors contribute to college students’ academic engagement so as to facilitate their learning success. A hypothesized model was generated based on research questions and previous empirical studies. A total of 1,199 students participated in this study. All participants completed an online survey hosted via Qualtrics. The survey packet consisted of a total of 98 items with a demographic questionnaire, the Parenting Style and Dimensions Questionnaire, the Self-Efficacy for Learning and Performance Subscale from Motivation Strategies Learning Questionnaire, the Academic Entitlement Questionnaire, and the Student Engagement Scale. Structural Equation Modeling was employed as the primary data analysis method. The results indicated that the authoritative caregiving style had a direct, significant positive effect on academic engagement, while the authoritarian caregiving style had a direct, significant negative effect on engagement. The permissive caregiving style didn’t show a significant effect on engagement. Self-efficacy was identified as a strong positive predictor of academic engagement, whereas academic entitlement was negatively correlated with engagement. As to the impact of caregiving style on self-efficacy and academic entitlement, only the permissive caregiving style significantly negatively impacted self-efficacy. Neither authoritative nor authoritarian styles showed a significant effect on self-efficacy. However, all three caregiving styles had significant positive effects on academic entitlement. Self-efficacy was identified as a significant mediator in the relationship between permissive caregiving style and student academic engagement, while academic entitlement acted as a significant mediator across all caregiving styles. Lastly, self-efficacy was found to be a significant negative predictor of academic entitlement. The study concluded by discussing the findings in the broader literature and highlighting the pedagogical implications.