Dynamic Associations Between Academic Achievement And Externalizing And Internalizing Symptoms From Early To Middle Adolescence And The Role Of Peer Context

Academic and psychosocial adjustment are two major aspects of child and adolescent development in the school context.There are concurrent associations between academic achievement and psychopathology symptoms such as externalizing problems and depressive symptoms;besides,achievement and symptoms may influence each other transactionally over development.Early and middle adolescents experience the transition from childhood to adolescence,as well as the school transition from elementary school to middle school.To the extent that a series of individual and contextual factors related with achievement and symptoms are changing during the transitions,the magnitudes of associations between achievement and symptom may also likely to change through development;however,little extant literature has investigated it.Therefore,the Research One of this dissertation focused on the presence of,and systematic development changes in,the longitudinal reciprocal influences between achievement and symptoms during the developmental period of early to middle adolescence.Development happens in and is supported by certain contexts.Peer relationship constitutes a crucial developmental context for the development processes of child and adolescent academic achievement and psychosocial adjustment,as well as the association between them.Prior literature has revealed the associations between achievement or symptoms and multiple peer relationship variables;besides,there would be longitudinal predictions from achievement or symptoms to peer relationships,and vice versa.However,the role of peer relationship in the association between achievement and symptoms in the school context was still inadequately investigated.Therefore,the Research Two of this dissertation focused on examining the mediational effect of peer relationship in the in the associations between achievement and symptoms.The data used in this study were derived from the Longitudinal Study of Chinese Children and Adolescents(LSCCA).Participants were 648 Chinese children(347 males)who were followed from Grade 5(mean age: 11.18 years)to Grade 9.Academic achievement,two types of symptoms(i.e.,externalizing,depressive),and an array of peer relationship predictors were assessed annually.Achievement was the scores of final examinations.Externalizing and depressive symptoms were rated by teachers of participated children and the children themselves,respectively.Peer nomination process was used to measure peer status and to identify reciprocal friends,based on which the number of friends was counted.On basis of the identification of friends,friends' achievement and friends' aggression(measured by peer-rating)were calculated.Participant children reported their experience of peer victimization.In addition,socioeconomic status,attention problems,and negative maternal parenting were measured prior to Grade 5 as covariates.Two modeling approaches were used: the cross-lagged panel model(CLPM)and the random intercepts cross cross-lagged panel model(RI-CLPM).The major findings of this study are as following:(1)There were longitudinal reciprocal associations between achievement and symptoms.Besides,the magnitudes of predictive effects changed systematically: the association between prior achievement with later externalizing problems increased with age;there was also evidence support the magnitude of the association between prior symptoms to later achievement was decreasing.Results were similar for both genders and unaffected by inclusion of common risk factors as covariates.(2)The mediational effect of peer relationship was supported.The peer relationship variables differed in their mediational roles,but to some extent they also coordinated in the function mediating the longitudinal associations between achievement and symptoms.Peer status,friends' characteristics,and peer victimization played a longitudinal mediational role in the prediction from prior achievement to later symptoms.Peer rejection,number friends,and friends' characteristics mediated the longitudinal effects from prior symptoms to later achievement.The longitidunal mediational effects of peer relationship tended to be stronger during adolescence than childhood,and stronger among boys than among girls.Finding of this study indicated the longitudinal reciprocal associations between achievement and symptoms.Importantly,the magnitude of the associations changed in a systematic manner during the transition from childhood toward adolescence.Peer relationship matters in the associations as it longitudinally mediated the predictions between achievement and symptoms of both ways.With regard to the associations between academic and psychosocial adjustments in school context,this study revealed its temporal characteristics,and the roles of peer relationship may plays wherein.The findings also highlighted the necessity of using a developmental perspective and considering contextual factors in examining the associations between competence and symptoms.