Online Learning Self-Efficacy as a Mediator between the Instructional Interactions and Achievement Emotions of Rural Students in Elite Universities

Previous research has shown that social capital (teachers’ and peers’ interaction) is a chal-lenge for rural students in China’s elite universities due to underlying issues of online learning self-efficacy (OLSE) and the quality of interaction. To understand how interaction quality is influenced, the present study drew on the achievement emotion theory to explore the mediating role of OLSE between social interactions (teacher–student, student–student) and achievement emotions (enjoy-ment, hopelessness, shame). Data were collected using an online questionnaire with a sample of rural students studying at elite universities (n = 479) in China. The results analyzed through Structural Equation Modeling confirmed the mediation model in which self-efficacy is a mediator in the relationships between social interactions and three types of achievement emotion as participants learned online during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown.