The Structural relationships among middle school students' perceived social support, academic engagement, and student's cooperation: Focusing on pre- and post-COVID-19 periods

Objectives This study reveals, from a middle school student perspective, the social support from parents, teachers, and friends, as well as the structural relationship of academic engagement, and student's cooperation in the pre- and post-COVID-19 periods. Methods For this purpose, the structural equation model was applied to the data set of the Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey 2018 (KCYPS 2018), using Wave 2 of the 1st grade middle school panel (8th grade, N=2,438) and Wave 5 of the 4th grade elementary school panel (8th grade, N=2,252), conducted by the National Youth Policy Institute. Results The results are as follows: First, parental support perceived by middle school students in pre-COVID-19 periods had a full mediating effect on student's cooperation through academic engagement, while in post-COVID-19 periods, parental support has only a direct and significant static effect on student's cooperation. Second, pre-COVID-19 periods middle school students' perceived teacher support had a direct, negatively significant effect on student's cooperation and a concurrent, positively significant effect mediated by academic engagement; however, post-COVID-19 middle school students' perceived teacher support had no significant direct or indirect effect on students' cooperation. Third, middle school students' perceived support of friends had only a direct and significant positive effect on students' cooperation in both pre- and post-COVID-19 periods. Conclusions Based on the main findings, discussions and suggestions for further research are presented to improve middle school students' cooperation.