A Comparative Study Between 4 And 8 Graders' Needs And Construct Of Friendship

The present study chooses Grade 4 and Grade 8 students as participants, discusses the need and construct of friendship through interview and questionnaires and analyses the characteristics of different types of peer relationships, aiming to offer some referential suggestions of school education and promote adolescents'healthy development.First, the "Friendship Need Questionnaires" and "Friendship Construction Questionnaires" are developed based on earlier interview. The "Friendship Construction Questionnaires" contains five parts:"Friend Selection Preference", "Strategy of Establishing Friendship", "Conflicts Coping", "Reaction of Friends' difficulty" and "Evaluation Strategy of Different Relationships". According to the analysis and comparison of 200 Grade 4 and Grade 8 students'questionnaires, results show that:Grade 4 students wish to gain "explicit help and company" and "identification and supports", whereas Grade 8 students hope to obtain "close communication" and "self-enhancement".The need of friendship influences students'friend selection preference. Grade 4 students tend to choose "high-score" students as friends to obtain a high self-position. Grade 8 students tend to choose friends having good communication skills or having both ability and integrity to exchange feelings and enhance oneself. Considering to the strategies to make friends, Grade 8 students attach more importance on interaction on equal terms with each other but not submission. Comparing to Grade 4 students try to make their relationship closer by practical activities or exchange things, Grade 8 students see the "mental share" as an important strategy of making friends. Grade 4 students think the conflict between friends will damage friendship, so they often choose to compromise. However, when Grade 8 students face the conflicts, they seem to more calm and will seek the negotiations to solve the problems, which means Grade 8 students begin to find the balance of relationship and independence in the friendship. Next, based on the popular extent and election among students, some case studies have been conducted to examine the characteristics of different types of peer relationship, thus to find out some measures to improve students'interaction quality. Results show that:Students with good peer relationship have multi-layers of relation network, of which the function of interaction differs in each layer. To enhance the quality of peer interaction, Grade 4 students should be guided to reinforce their emotional experience in the friendship, whereas Grade 8 students could broaden their networks of peer relationship.