Study On Relationship Between Self-esteem, And Other Psychological Factors And Academic Performance Of Rural Left-behind Students In Junior High School

The problems of left-behind students have gained concern from the academia and press in recent years. In existing research, scholars generally agreed poor performance of left-behind students. But they took research on the reason mainly from the point of family environment, seldom from the point of student's inner psychological characteristics such as mental health, self-esteem, interpersonal relations, and learning motivation. The left-behind junior high school students are during the age from teenager to adolescent. It is a transitional period from immature to maturity, during which students experience rapid physical and psychological change. They have highly unstable psychological characteristics and more prone to psychological and behavioral problems.Based on the current practical problems of left-behind students and deficiency of present study, by using psychological symptom checklist (SCL-90), Self-Esteem Scale (SES), interpersonal scale, learning motivation diagnostic test (MAAT), this study took research on 279 left-behind and 198 normal rural junior high school students of Fengyang county, Anhui Province. This paper intends to study the relationship between academic achievement of rural left-behind students and the status of their mental health, self-esteem, interpersonal relations, and learning motivation. The results are as follows:(1) The academic achievement of rural left-behind students is comparatively poor than other students. There is no significant difference in gender, but in grade. The third grade left-behind students perform the best, while the second grade the worst.(2) Mental health of rural left-behind junior high school students is significantly lower than other students. There is no difference between sex and grade in mental health status. But left-behind girls have much more psychological symptoms like force, anxiety, terror than boys. The overall state of their mental health is poor than boys. The third grade students are in the best mental health status, while the second grade in the worst.(3) Self-esteem of rural left-behind junior high school students is significantly lower than other students. There is no difference in gender, but in grade. The self-esteem of left-behind girls is slightly lower than boys. The third grade students are in the highest levels of self-esteem, while the second grade in the lowest.(4) Rural left-behind junior high school students have more interpersonal difficulties than other students. There is no significant difference in gender, but in grade. Interpersonal situation of left-behind girls is slightly better than boys. The first grade students have the best interpersonal relation, while the second grade the worst.(5) Learning motivation of rural left-behind junior high school students is significantly weaker than other students. There is gender difference in the sports scene and the promotion of tension in dimensions. There is no gender difference in academic study, skill, social interactions, failure avoidance, self reliance, and request standard. Except self reliance, strength of the other motivation dimensions for left-behind girls is slightly higher than the boys. There is significant difference in failure avoidance and standards of requirement for left-behind students of different grades. The first grade left- behind students have relatively stronger motivation in learning, but weaker in aspects of self promoting anxiety and are. The second grade left- behind students have strongest learning motivation in academic study, skill scene, and self promoting anxiety, but weakest in aspects of sports scene, Social interactions, failure avoidance, self reliance, and standard of request. The third grade left-behind students have strongest learning motivation in sports scene, Social interactions , skill scene, failure avoidance and self reliance,, but weakest in academic study.(6) The academic performance of rural left-behind junior high school students is significantly related to psychological symptoms including somatization, compulsion, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, and terror, but not significantly related to hostility, paranoia, and psychosis. The academic performance of rural left-behind junior high school students is significantly and positively related to self-esteem and interpersonal relation. The academic performance of rural left-behind junior high school students is significantly and positively related to academic study, skill scene, social interactions, self promoting anxiety, self reliance, standard of request, and negatively related to failure avoidance, but not significantly related to sports scene.(7) Interpersonal sensitivity of mental health and academic study, are, social interactions, failure avoidance of learning motivation directly affected the academic performance of rural left-behind junior high school students.(8) Self-esteem and interpersonal relation have positive impact on academic achievement respectively through academic study of learning motivation, and social interactions.