How do supervisor-student relationship affect anxiety of graduate students? ——The mediating role of research self-efficacy and the moderating role of mindset

In China, the number of graduate students continues to increase, and graduate education is developing rapidly. However, mental health issues among graduate students are widespread. Self-efficacy and mindset have been found to moderate the effect of negative life events on individuals' anxiety a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one Vol. 20; no. 8; p. e0328068
Main Authors: Li, Peng, Tang, Xiaoqing, Sun, Yongjie, Huang, Songjie
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States Public Library of Science 20.08.2025
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects:
Adult
Anxiety
Anxiety - psychology
Behavior
Biology and Life Sciences
China
Cyberbullying
Depression - psychology
Education, Graduate
Effectiveness
Emotions
Female
Graduate students
Graduate studies
Humans
Hypotheses
Interpersonal Relations
Male
Medicine and Health Sciences
Mental depression
Mental disorders
Mental health
People and Places
Research and Analysis Methods
Self Efficacy
Social Sciences
Socioeconomic factors
Socioeconomic status
Student teacher relationship
Students
Students - psychology
Supervisors
Surveys and Questionnaires
Well being
Young Adult
China
ISSN:1932-6203, 1932-6203
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:In China, the number of graduate students continues to increase, and graduate education is developing rapidly. However, mental health issues among graduate students are widespread. Self-efficacy and mindset have been found to moderate the effect of negative life events on individuals' anxiety and depression levels. However, few studies have extended this conclusion to postgraduate student samples. This study utilized a moderated mediation model to explore the mediating role of research self-efficacy and the moderating role of mindsets. A sample of Chinese graduate students (n = 2278) was included in the study. The results indicated that the supervisor-student relationship significantly affects the anxiety level of graduate students. Satisfaction with the supervisor-student relationship was negatively associated with anxiety. Furthermore, research self-efficacy was found to significantly mediate the impact of supervisor-student relationships on anxiety. Additionally, mindset significantly moderated the association between supervisor-student relationships and both anxiety as well as research self-efficacy. For students with a growth mindset, both their research self-efficacy and anxiety levels were less influenced by the quality of the supervisor-student relationship. These findings highlight the critical importance of healthy supervisor-student relationships for graduate students' anxiety and depression, and suggest that fostering a growth mindset can mitigate the negative effects of poor supervisor-student relationships on mental health. Therefore, efforts should be made to cultivate students' growth mindsets to enhance their mental well-being. In addition, this study extends the application of self-determination theory to the field of education by verifying the mediating role of research self-efficacy.
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Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0328068