Learning Experience, Learning Behavior, and Major Retention Intention: Mediating and Moderating Pathways among Chinese Undergraduates

Abstract

Whether students are willing to choose their own major again is an important indicator of the quality of education. In China, most students enter their major through the national college entrance examination, so this issue is particularly important. This study examines whether learning experience (course experience, resource support, and academic advising) mediates the link between learning behavior and major retention intention, and whether learning behavior moderates each dimension. We investigated 4,765 undergraduates in a large public university in mainland China, and used structural equation modeling, bootstrap parallel mediation analysis, and moderation analysis. Learning behavior not only directly predicts retention intention, but also indirectly predicts retention intention. The three dimensions of experience account for 58.98% of the total effect, among which course experience is the strongest path. Learning behavior weakened the relationship between resource support and retention intention (beta = -0.12, p less than .001), but enhanced the role of academic advising (beta = 0.08, p less than .05). This "support mismatch" pattern suggests that the best effect can be achieved only when institutional support matches students' engagement level.