Introduction: Educational anxiety is a true portrayal of Chinese parents. As an endogenous problem in the development of modern education system, the pressure of students’ entrance examination continues to rise.
Methods: Based on the empirical survey data of education in 3298 families, this study uses the analysis method of multiple linear regressions to analyze the influencing factors of parental education anxiety and finds that educational anxiety has become a common social emotion.
Results: After the regression analysis of the four-layer model was established, it was found that different school segments, school priorities, and student achievements had a significant impact on parents’ educational anxiety, and factors such as annual family income, educational satisfaction and family parenting style had a significant impact on parental educational anxiety. It is worth noting that the gap in parental expectations has a significant positive effect on educational anxiety, and the greater the expectation gap, the higher the educational anxiety of parents.
Discussion: Therefore, it is suggested that governments at all levels should conscientiously implement the task of “reducing burdens” and rationally allocate high-quality educational resources; parents and teachers should start from the needs of children to establish a scientific concept of education and the concept of becoming a talent; the whole society should put forward reasonable educational expectations in education, and be good at adjusting expectations on time so that education can return to a rational natural growth state and eliminate parents’ educational anxiety.
Keywords: parental expectation gap, educational anxiety, educational expectations, Chinese students