The Relationship Between Junior Middle School Students’ Psychological Suzhi Development And Teacher Support And Aggressive Behavior

The research on the development and function of adolescent students’ psychological suzhi is rooted in the needs of suzhi education in China,and it is becoming more and more important with the overall advancement of suzhi education.The development of students’ psychological suzhi is based on the existing level of psychological suzhi,and through the effect of the real environment(education),it is maintained or promoted in the dynamic process of ‘‘balance to imbalance and then to balance’’,thereby affecting individual’s external behavior.The junior middle school stage is not only an important period for the development of psychological suzhi,but also a period of concentrated outbreak of aggressive behavior.Thus,exploring the influence of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi on aggressive behavior has important theoretical and practical significance for the early prevention and early intervention of aggressive behavior,as well as the healthy development of students.At the same time,in the real educational situation,teachers have no less impact on students’ development than parents and peers,and teacher support has a unique and stable positive effect on students’ development.The existing cross-sectional study also found that teacher support can positively predict the psychological suzhi of middle school students.However,so far there has been no empirical research report on the relationship between psychological suzhi and aggressive behavior,and no research has explored the relationship between teacher support,psychological suzhi,and aggressive behavior.Moreover,previous studies on the development of middle school students’ psychological suzhi and its function have adopted the method of variable-centered analysis.The results obtained can only reflect the overall characteristics of the development of psychological suzhi and its function,and can not reveal individual differences within the group.However,in the reality education,there are generally individual differences in the development of students,which is manifested in the classified development characteristics of Matthew effect of ‘‘the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker’’.Therefore,based on the existing researches,and according to the research purpose and task of this study,we constructed the relationship model of junior middle school students’ teacher support,psychological suzhi,and aggressive behavior from the person-centered perspective.Then,this study adopted the comprehensive design research methods of cross-sectional survey,longitudinal tracking and educational psychological intervention experiment,and used the variable-centered and person-centered analysis to systematically investigates the relationship between the classification and development characteristics of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi and teacher support and aggressive behavior,which was expected to provide theoretical support and empirical basis for deepening and expanding the research on the development of psychological suzhi and its function,and to provide educational psychology basis for promoting the healthy development of middle school students.The empirical content of this study mainly includes four major parts and a total of7 sub-studies,as follows:Part 1: To investigate the classification and development characteristics of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi,including Study 1.Study 1 conducted a12-month long-term tracking of 889 junior middle school students,and used the person-centered latent class growth model to investigate the subgroup classification of the development trajectories of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi,namely,to explore whether there are individual differences in the development of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi,which is manifested in the classified development characteristics of Matthew effect of ‘‘the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker’’.Part 2: To investigate the predictive effect of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi on aggressive behavior,including Study 2 and Study 3.In Study 2,3896 junior middle school students were measured based on a cross-sectional survey to explore the relationship between junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi and aggressive behavior.Study 3 investigated the longitudinal predictive effect of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi on aggressive behavior.Firstly,based on the long-term tracking data,Study 3A continued to explore the relationship between junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi and aggressive behavior at the development level by using the variable-centered cross-lagged analysis;Based on the findings of Study 1,Study 3B further adopted the variable-centered latent variable growth model to investigate the effect of long-term development trajectories classification of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi on aggressive behavior,namely,to explore the changing relationship between psychological suzhi and aggressive behavior in the corresponding subgroup of long-term development trajectories of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi.Part 3: On the basis of the findings in the first and second parts,this study continue to deeply explore the causes of the Matthew effect of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi development.After analysis,it is assumed that the difference of teacher support is an important factor leading to the formation of the Matthew effect of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi development,this hypothesis was verified by investigating the mediating role of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi between teacher support and aggressive behavior,including Study 4and Study 5.In Study 4,3252 junior middle school students were measured based on a cross-sectional survey to explore the mediating role of psychological suzhi on the relationship between teacher support and aggressive behavior.Study 5 was based on the reality of education,considering that in the transition period of enrollment,teacher support will have a process of formation and development from nothing to stability.Tracking this process could more scientifically and effectively reveal the formation,development and change of teacher support and its impact on psychological suzhi and aggressive behavior.Therefore,Study 5 conducted short-term longitudinal survey on907 junior middle school freshmen for 4 months.Firstly,the person-centered latent class growth model was used to explore the short-term development trajectories and subgroup classification of junior middle school freshmen’s teacher support,psychological suzhi and aggressive behavior,respectively(Study 5A).Next,the variable-centered latent variable growth model was used to explore the changing relationship between teacher support,psychological suzhi,and aggressive behavior within the corresponding short-term development trajectories subgroups of junior middle school freshmen’s psychological suzhi,namely,the mediating role of psychological suzhi on the relationship between teacher support and aggressive behavior(Study 5B).Part 4: Based on the findings of the third part,this study examines the effect of systematic teacher support intervention on junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi and aggressive behavior from the perspective of teacher and student,respectively,including Study 6 and Study 7.In Study 6,the intervention method of directly enhancing teachers’ external support for students was adopted based on the perspective of teachers.42 students in the experimental group and 42 students in the control group were selected from 15 second grade classes of a junior middle school(the selected subjects were all individuals with low psychological suzhi,as well as individuals with low teacher support and high aggressive behavior),and 1-4 students in each class were selected to form the experimental group.The head teacher started a supportive conversation with the experimental group participants in their respective classes once a week for 8 consecutive weeks,and increased teachers’ positive interaction behaviors such as expectation and support for the subjects in the experimental group.Each conversation was 30-60 minutes,and the control group did not conduct any intervention.Before and after the intervention,the 15 classes in the second grade were measured for teacher support,psychological suzhi,and aggressive behavior,and the data of the experimental group and the control group were analyzed by repeated measurement ANOVA.In Study 7,the group psychological counseling intervention was carried out by directly enhancing the perceived teacher support of students based on the perspective of students.40 students in the experimental group and 40 students in the control group were selected from 14 third grade classes of a junior middle school(the selected subjects were all individuals with low psychological suzhi,as well as individuals with low teacher support and high aggressive behavior),and 1-4 students in each class were selected to form the experimental group,and the experimental group was divided into four groups(10 students in each group,from different classes).Every week,the same leader conducted teacher support interventions for the four group psychological counseling groups for 8 consecutive weeks,each intervention was 45-60 minutes,and the control group did not conduct any intervention.Before and after the intervention,teacher support,psychological suzhi and aggressive behavior were measured in 14 classes of the junior middle school,and the data of the experimental group and the control group were analyzed by repeated measurement ANOVA.The following main research conclusions are obtained through the above research:(1)Long-term longitudinal survey found that the development trajectories of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi was divided into three classes: low group(14.3%),middle group(60.7%)and high-increasing group(25.0%).There were individual differences in the development of the psychological suzhi of junior middle school students,which was manifested in the classified development characteristics of Matthew effect of ‘‘the strong get stronger,and the weak are always weak’’ specifically in the high-increasing group of ‘‘the strong get stronger’’ and the low group of ‘‘the weak are always weak’’.(2)There was a significant negative correlation between junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi and aggressive behavior,and there was a one-way relationship between junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi and aggressive behavior,namely,psychological suzhi could directly and negatively predict the development of aggressive behavior.At the same time,for the high-increasing group with significant developmental changes of psychological suzhi,the study found that the rising speed of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi significantly negatively predicted the decline speed of aggressive behavior,namely,the accelerated increase of psychological suzhi would accelerate the decline of aggressive behavior.(3)This study further assumed that the difference of teacher support is an important factor leading to the formation of the Matthew effect of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi development,and added teacher support variables to verify this hypothesis.First,the cross-sectional survey found that there was a significant positive correlation between teacher support and psychological suzhi,and both of them were significantly negatively correlated with aggressive behavior.The psychological suzhi of junior middle school students played a mediating role between teacher support and aggressive behavior.(4)The short-term longitudinal survey found that the classification of the short-term development trajectories of the psychological suzhi of junior middle school freshmen was the same as that of the long-term development trajectories of junior middle school students,which could be divided into low group(22.3%),middle group(53.7%)and high-increasing group(24.0%).The development trajectories of teacher support for the junior middle school freshmen could be divided into three classes: low group(11.9%),middle group(54.6%)and high-increasing group(33.5%).The development trajectories of aggressive behavior could also be divided into three classes:low-declining group(32.0%),middle group(48.0%)and high group(20.0%).For the high-increasing group with significant developmental changes of psychological suzhi,firstly,the coincidence rate analysis found that individuals in the psychological suzhi high-increasing group,the teacher support high-increasing group,and the aggressive behavior low-declining group had a high degree of coincidence.Next,the study found that the rising speed of teacher support significantly positively predicted the rising speed of psychological suzhi,while the rising speed of psychological suzhi significantly negatively predicted the declining speed of aggressive behavior,psychological suzhi played a mediating role between teacher support and aggressive behavior.(5)The results of the intervention study first found that teacher support intervention based on the perspective of teacher could improve the psychological suzhi of individuals with low psychological suzhi and reduce their level of aggressive behavior.Then,teacher support intervention based on the perspective of student could also improve the psychological suzhi of individuals with low psychological suzhi and could reduce the level of aggressive behavior.The main innovations of this study:(1)The study constructed and verified the relationship model of junior middle school students’ teacher support-psychological suzhi-aggressive behavior;(2)The study found that the individual differences in the development of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi,which is manifested in the classified development characteristics of Matthew effect of ‘‘the strong get stronger,and the weak are always weak’’.Specifically,individuals with high psychological suzhi show the development characteristics of “the strong get stronger”,the low psychological suzhi individuals show the development characteristics of “the weak are always weak”;(3)The study revealed the relationship between the classification and development characteristics of the Matthew effect junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi and teacher support and aggressive behavior.Specifically,the Matthew effect of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi will directly lead to the Matthew effect of aggressive behavior,and the difference of teacher support is an important factor leading to the formation of the Matthew effect of junior middle school students’ psychological suzhi;(4)By using teacher support educational psychological experimental interventions based on different perspectives of teacher and student,this study put forward and effectively verified a systematic solution to improve the psychological suzhi of individuals with low psychological suzhi and thereby reduce their aggressive behavior,which provides an empirical basis for carrying out psychological suzhi education according to the individual differences in the development of middle school students’ psychological suzhi.