The influences of parental emotional warmth on the association between perceived teacher–student relationships and academic stress among middle school students in China

Using the Process-Person-Context-Time model by Bronfenbrenner as a foundation, this study investigated the effect of perceived teacher–student relationships and parental emotional warmth on academic stress among middle school students in China. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire administered to a sample of 1214 students in grades 7–9 in Xi'an, China. The hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to assess the statistical relationships. Measures of fathers' and mothers' emotional warmth were separately tested. Students' perceptions of teacher–student relationships and parental emotional warmth variables were negatively correlated with academic stress. The regression analyses found that parental emotional warmth had no main effect on academic stress; however, it had an interaction effect with students' perceptions of teacher–student relationships on academic stress. When middle school students perceive a good relationship between teachers and students, but the parents' emotional warmth level is low, students experience greater academic pressure. With an increase of parents' emotional warmth level, students experience lower levels of academic pressure. Efforts to reduce students' academic stress should simultaneously focus on improving teacher–student relationships and students' sense that their parents provide emotional warmth.