Digital readiness and family support are associated with later learning engagement through digital self-efficacy among rural Chinese children

Abstract Digital technologies are increasingly embedded in primary education, yet rural children’s engagement may depend not only on access to technology but also on readiness to use digital resources for learning. This two-wave time-lagged study examined whether digital readiness was associated with later learning engagement among rural Chinese children through digital self-efficacy, and whether family support strengthened this indirect association. Participants were 768 Grade 5 and Grade 6 students from 15 rural primary schools in Sichuan Province, China. Digital readiness, family support, baseline learning engagement, and demographic variables were assessed at T1; digital self-efficacy and learning engagement were assessed three months later at T2. After controlling for baseline engagement and demographic covariates, T1 digital readiness was positively associated with T2 learning engagement. Digital self-efficacy partially accounted for this longitudinal association, and family support strengthened the association between digital readiness and digital self-efficacy. Measurement validation, attrition effect sizes, and school-clustered robustness checks supported the robustness of the findings. These results suggest that rural children’s later learning engagement is linked to readiness-related conditions and family support, but the findings should be interpreted as longitudinal associations rather than causal effects.