The Structural Relationships among Academic Pressure, Independent Learning Ability, and Academic Self-Efficacy

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease pandemic has caused significant disruption in the field of education, resulting in the need for more online classes and a blended offline and online teaching model. Therefore, understanding what makes this model effective is important. Accordingly, this study explored the structural relationships among academic pressure, independent learning ability, and academic self-efficacy in a blended teaching environment during the pandemic and independent learning ability’s mediating effect on the relationship between academic pressure and academic self-efficacy. METHODS: Adopting a random sampling method, this study surveyed 761 Chinese college, Shaanxi Province, China in 2022 and university students. Factor analysis, correlation analysis, structural equation modeling, and path analysis were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: The results show that the academic pressure faced by Chinese English majors had a significant negative impact on academic self-efficacy (P<0.001). However, academic pressure had no statistical effect on students’ independent learning ability (P=0.317). Moreover, independent learning ability had a significant positive effect on academic self-efficacy (P<0.001) and a mediating effect on the relationship between academic pressure and academic self-efficacy (P=0.032). CONCLUSION: Independent learning ability can directly and indirectly affect academic self-efficacy. Thus, in an online and offline blended teaching model, teachers should guide students regarding self-exploration, communication, and cooperation based on existing knowledge and experience. They should also enable students to improve their learning process and independent learning ability. Various language learning situations should be established for learning English so that by experiencing success and failure, students can ultimately improve their academic self-efficacy.