Children's Academic Stress and Aggression - Examining the Moderating Effect of Attachment to Parents

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating effect of children's attachment to parents interms of the relationship between academic stress and aggression. The subjects were 2,694 fourth-gradechildren(consisting of 1,435 boys and 1,259 girls) who participated in a Korean Youth PanelSurvey(KYPS) in 2004. Data were analyzed through frequency, percentages, Cronbach’s reliabilitycoefficient, skewness, kurtosis, and Pearson's correlations using the SPSS 19.0. In addition, Ping(1996)'stwo-step approach was adopted in order to analyze the moderating effect through AMOS 7.0. Theprinciple findings are as follows. First, children's aggression revealed a significantly positive correlation withacademic stress, but a significantly negative correlation with attachment to parents. Second, theproposed model, as revised, demonstrated the effectiveness of an analysis of the structural equationmodel, and illustrated the fact that children's attachment to parents had a moderating effect on therelationship between academic stress and aggression. These findings suggest that children's secureattachment to their parents reduced the negative influence of academic stress on aggression. Theimplications of this research for future studies were also discussed