ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2025
Depressive symptoms and Learning Motivation among Chinese freshmen: a longitudinal study using random intercept cross-lagged panel model and the subgroup analysis of parental educational background.
Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objectives: This study aimed to explore the bidirectional association between depressive symptoms and learning motivation (LM) among Chinese college freshmen, distinguish between interindividual and intraindividual effects, and analyze the moderating role of parental educational background. Methods: A prospective longitudinal study was conducted among freshmen from a university in Jingzhou City, Hubei Province, China, with three waves of surveys over two years (2023-2025) and follow-ups conducted annually. Data from a total of 4,669 freshmen were finally included in the analysis (mean age = 19.32 years, SD = 2.96; 53.8% female). Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and LM was measured via the LM Subscale of the Mental Health Scale for College Students (MHS-CS). The Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model (RI-CLPM) was employed to analyze the temporal association between depressive symptoms and LM, and separate models were constructed for the full sample, samples from low-educational background families, samples from intermediate-education background families, and samples from high-educational background families. Results: At the interindividual level, all groups showed a strong negative correlation between depressive symptoms and LM (full sample: r=-0.70, p<0.001; low-education families: r=-0.66, p<0.001; intermediate-education families: r=-0.72, p<0.001; high-education families: r=-0.85, p<0.001). At the intraindividual level, depressive symptoms were significantly negatively correlated with LM across all waves in all groups (r=-0.30~-0.46). For cross-lagged effects: depressive symptoms stably and negatively predicted subsequent LM at T1→T2 (β=-0.12) and T2→T3 (β=-0.10~-0.23) in all groups; LM negatively predicted depressive symptoms only at T1→T2 in the full sample (β=-0.11) and low-education families (β=-0.12), positively predicted depressive symptoms at T2→T3 in intermediate-education families (β=0.08), and had no significant effect across all waves in high-education families. Conclusions: A stable negative correlation exists between depressive symptoms and LM among Chinese college freshmen: depressive symptoms consistently impair subsequent LM, while the protective effect of LM against depressive symptoms is phased, with subgroup differences in family educational background. These findings suggest that colleges and universities should prioritize early screening and intervention for freshmen's depressive symptoms to protect their LM, and provide targeted support based on parental educational background.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.