The Impact of Grief Experience Following Parental Loss on Students’ Academic Engagement: The Mediating Role of Cognitive Emotion Regulation and Teacher Support

Arman  Shafiei Rad; Zahra Ghanbarpour

Authors

Arman Shafiei Rad MA, Department of Educational Psychology, Electronic Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran Author https://orcid.org/0009-0008-2872-0081
Zahra Ghanbarpour Department of Educational Sciences, CT.C., Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran https://orcid.org/0009-0008-1780-428X

Keywords:

Parental Loss Grief Experience, Academic Engagement, Cognitive Emotion Regulation, Teacher Support, Bereaved Students, Structural Equation Modeling

Abstract

Purpose: The present study aimed to investigate the impact of grief experience resulting from parental loss on students’ academic engagement, with a particular focus on the mediating roles of cognitive emotion regulation and perceived teacher support.

Methods and Materials: This study employed a correlational design using structural equation modeling (SEM). The statistical population consisted of bereaved secondary school students who had experienced parental loss in Karaj during the 2026–2027 academic year. A total of 210 students were selected through cluster random sampling. Data were collected using the Academic Engagement Scale developed by Reeve (2013), the Student Perceptions of Classroom Climate Questionnaire by Ruzek et al. (2010), the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire by Garnefski and Kraaij (2006), and the Grief Experience Questionnaire by Barrett and Scott (1989). Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis, and structural equation modeling were conducted using SPSS version 26 and AMOS software.

Findings: The results demonstrated that the proposed structural model exhibited satisfactory goodness-of-fit indices, indicating an acceptable fit between the theoretical model and the observed data. Grief experience following parental loss had a significant direct effect on academic engagement. In addition, cognitive emotion regulation and teacher support were found to exert significant effects on academic engagement. The mediation analysis further revealed that grief experience indirectly influenced academic engagement through both cognitive emotion regulation and teacher support. The indirect pathways were statistically significant, suggesting that students’ ability to regulate emotions cognitively and the level of support they receive from teachers play important roles in explaining the relationship between bereavement and academic engagement.

Conclusion: The findings highlight the critical role of emotional and educational support mechanisms in mitigating the adverse effects of parental loss on students’ academic functioning. Enhancing adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and strengthening teacher support may promote higher levels of academic engagement among bereaved students and facilitate their adjustment to the challenges associated with parental loss.

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