Author
Listed:
- Chao Wang
(Huzhou University
The Key Laboratory of Brain Science and Children’s Learning of Huzhou)
- Xin-yue Li
(Huzhou University
The Key Laboratory of Brain Science and Children’s Learning of Huzhou)
- Xin-yi Lin
(Huzhou University
The Key Laboratory of Brain Science and Children’s Learning of Huzhou)
Abstract
Math anxiety is a prevalent issue among junior high school students, particularly those in rural areas with left-behind experiences who often receive insufficient attention in research and interventions. Rural left-behind children face higher academic stress and mental health risks due to long-term parental absence, and peer support and psychological resilience may serve as important protective factors in alleviating their math anxiety. This study involved 572 junior high school students from rural settings who completed the Peer Support Scale, Math Anxiety Scale, and Youth Psychological Resilience Scale. The findings indicate that peer support is negatively associated with math anxiety, with psychological resilience mediating this relationship. Additionally, the left-behind experience significantly moderates the relationship between psychological resilience and math anxiety. The findings suggest that peer support indirectly reduces math anxiety by enhancing psychological resilience, but that the experience of staying behind weakens this protective effect. This study highlights the importance of fostering supportive peer interactions and enhancing resilience to address educational challenges faced by vulnerable rural students, especially those with a left-behind experience. It also emphasizes the need to design more targeted interventions to support these students.
Suggested Citation
Chao Wang & Xin-yue Li & Xin-yi Lin, 2025.
"Peer support as a buffer: reducing math anxiety through psychological resilience in left-behind rural students,"
Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, December.
Handle:
RePEc:pal:palcom:v:12:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-025-05075-5
DOI: 10.1057/s41599-025-05075-5
Download full text from publisher
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:12:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-025-05075-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.nature.com/ .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.