Abstract
In the age of innovation, the mission of higher education is to cultivate innovative talent. Teachers' innovative support behaviors have a significant impact on students' emotions and creative performance. As students at art and design colleges will generally confront creative anxiety-an unfavorable emotion that affects their innovative abilities-this study aims to explore the mediating effects of creative self-efficacy and achievement motivation in the relationship between teachers' innovative support behaviors and the creative anxiety of art and design students. Based on random cluster sampling, a questionnaire survey was used to collect 785 valid questionnaires from undergraduate art and design students attending six universities across eastern, central, and western China for the analysis of four variables: teachers' innovative support behaviors, creative self-efficacy, achievement motivation, and creative anxiety. The results show that (1) teachers' innovative support behaviors significantly negatively predict students' creative anxiety (β = -0.631, p < 0.001); (2) creative self-efficacy and achievement motivation both have significant mediating effects (β = -0.241, p < 0.001; β = -0.183, p < 0.05, respectively); and (3) these two factors present a chain mediation effect. Bootstrap tests showed an indirect effect of -0.062 with a 95% confidence interval [-0.121, -0.008]; as the interval did not include zero, this chained mediating effect was significant. The results indicate that teachers' innovative support behaviors not only have a direct effect on alleviating students' anxiety but also have indirect effects through motivational and cognitive mechanisms, which provides a new theoretical reference with practical significance for art and design education.