Relations Between Class Competition and Primary School Students' Academic Achievement: Learning Anxiety and Learning Engagement as Mediators

Cooperative school climates are positively linked with socio-emotional skills: A Cross-National Study

BACKGROUND

Socio-emotional skills are critical to life outcomes such as achievement, well-being and job success. However, existing research has mostly focused on the consequences of socio-emotional skills, with less attention devoted to the role of school climate in the deployment of these skills.

AIMS

This study investigated the role of school climate in socio-emotional skills. More specifically, we investigated whether cooperative or competitive school climates are associated with students' socio-emotional skills.

SAMPLE

Our study utilized data from the OECD Survey on Social and Emotional Skills, collected from 10 cities across nine countries. Participants were 60,985 students, including 31,187 10-year-olds (49.70% females) and 29,798 15-year-olds (51.6% females).

METHODS

We conducted multilevel structural equation modelling to test whether cooperative and competitive climates were associated with socio-emotional skills. These skills include five broad domain skills and 15 more specific skills: task performance (self-control, responsibility and persistence), emotion regulation (stress resistance, emotional control and optimism), collaboration (empathy, trust and cooperation), open-mindedness (tolerance, curiosity and creativity) and engaging with others (sociability, assertiveness and energy).

RESULTS

Our findings indicated a positive relationship between a cooperative climate and socio-emotional skills. In contrast, the relationship between a competitive climate and socio-emotional skills was primarily negative.

CONCLUSION

This study highlights the contrasting roles of cooperative and competitive climates in students' socio-emotional skills.

Longitudinal Associations Between Sluggish Cognitive Tempo and Academic Achievement in Adolescents: A Mediated Moderation Model

Sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) was initially studied in the context of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but is now recognized as a distinct disorder. Despite the growing recognition of SCT, its impact on academic achievement among adolescents remains controversial, even when controlling for the level of ADHD. This may be due to the influence of other factors such as learning engagement and emotional distress. To address this gap, we conducted a longitudinal study with a sample of 782 Chinese senior high school students, measuring their SCT, learning engagement, and emotional distress at Grade 10 (Time1, T1) to predict their academic achievement evaluated based on final exams scores five months later (Time2, T2). Results showed that learning engagement mediated the negative relationship between SCT and later academic achievement. Additionally, individuals with high SCT showed less impact by emotional distress on learning engagement. These findings may shed light on the complex interplay between SCT, emotional distress and learning engagement in shaping academic achievement, underscoring the potential adaptive function of SCT as a coping strategy for managing emotional challenges.

Relationship between family background and self-efficacy in adolescent table tennis players: a moderated mediation model

Introduction

A moderated mediation model was constructed in this study to clarify the relationship between family background and self-efficacy of adolescent table tennis players, focusing on the mediating effect of technical learning engagement in the relationship as well as the moderating role of factors such as gender and training years.

Methods

189 adolescent table tennis players (age: 13.69±1.28 years) were investigated as subjects using a questionnaire method.

Results

(1) Family background, technical learning engagement, and self-efficacy were significantly and positively correlated (p<0.01), with girls' technical learning engagement (M_female=5.81, M_male=5.19, p<0.01) and self-efficacy (M_female=3.34, M_male=2.66, p<0.01) significantly higher than boys'; (2) Technical learning engagement partially mediated the effect of family background on self-efficacy (ab=0.10, boot SE=0.02,95% CI=[0.07, 0.14]); (3) The first half of technical learning engagement's mediating role was moderated by gender (B=0.05, p<0.01), with a more significant influence of family background on boys' (B=0.24, p<0.001, 95% CI=[0.22, 0.26]) technical learning engagement than girls' (B=0.19, p<0.001, 95% CI=[0.17, 0.21]); (4) The second half of technical learning engagement's mediating role was moderated by training years (B=-0.21, p<0.001), with a more significant influence of technical learning engagement on the self-efficacy of adolescents with fewer training years (B=0.54, p<0.001, 95% CI=[0.39, 0.68]). The positive effect of technical learning engagement on self-efficacy gradually diminished with increasing training years, and the moderating effect of training years disappeared when the training years reached 8.94 years.

Conclusion

(1) More attention should be paid to adolescent table tennis players with poor family backgrounds, who are more likely to have low self-efficacy. (2) Parents should never neglect their initiative in providing guidance and support to adolescent players involved in long-term professional table tennis training, especially for boys. (3) Coaches should pay close attention to the level of technical learning engagement of players with long training years, who are more likely to have lower self-efficacy as a result of their own emotional experiences, stagnant performance, etc.

Impacts of family environment on adolescents’ academic achievement: The role of peer interaction quality and educational expectation gap

The current study uses a two-wave longitudinal survey to explores the influence mechanism of the family environment on adolescents’ academic achievement. The family environment is measured by parents and children’s reports, including family atmosphere, parent–child interaction, and family rules, to reveal the mediating effect of adolescents’ positive or negative peers between the family environment and academic achievement, and whether the gap between self- and parental educational expectation plays a moderating effect. This study uses the data of the China Education Panel Study (CEPS); the survey samples include 9,449 eighth-grade students (Mage = 13.55 years, SD = 0.70), establishing a multilevel moderated mediating effect model. The results showed (1) the family environment and peer interaction quality can positively predict adolescents’ academic achievement. (2) Using the KHB test, peer interaction quality plays a partial mediating role in the process of family environment positively affecting academic achievement, and the mediating ratio is 27.5%. (3) The educational expectation gap moderates the effect of the family environment on academic achievement and also on peer interaction quality. Therefore, from the perspective of environment and important others, to correctly grasp the academic achievement of junior high school students in the process of socialization, it is necessary to recognize that the family environment, peer interaction quality, and educational expectation gap play an important role.