The Relationship Between Positive Emotion And Academic Achievement Of College Students: The Mediating Role Of Academic Input

Academic achievement is an important indicator to measure students’learn effects at school, and for higher education, it is even regarded as a barometer that can reflect the quality of talents in institutions of higher education. For the past few years, scholars have made plenty of researches on it in different aspects such as assessment, status survey, impact analysis and intervention study, among which the impact on academic achievement especially that of individual non-cognitive factor is the bulk of all the factors. In the meantime, with the thriving of positive psychology study, studies on positive emotion, one of the core contents of positive psychology, have drawn increasing attention of researchers. According to the early studies, positive emotion may activate general action tendency and may have priming and spread effect on cognition. Dose positive emotion have an positive effect on improving the academic achievement of college students? As a dependent variable, are the effects of emotion on academic achievement direct or indirect? Coincidentally, academic engagement has been gradually attached great importance by scholars at home and abroad. Research ranges and fields are enlarged and enriched by academic engagement, the reverse of academic burnout, from the aspect of positive psychology study, and a new point of view is created to help to understand and deal with academic burnout. It has been proved that academic engagement can promote academic achievement, reduce dropout rate, and academic engagement is positively correlated with academic performance while low academic engagement can not only affect students’study efficiency and achievements, but also waste learning resources. In conclusion, the relationships among positive emotion, academic engagement and academic achievements are explored from non-cognitive factors that impact on academic achievement. Moreover, the relationship model is built on the basis of the relationship, and some comments and suggestions are offered to improve the current situation and education equality of institution of higher education in the paper.Questionnaire methods are used in the research. Firstly, Questionnaire of Undergraduate’s Positive Emotion is compiled according to Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion. Academic Engagement Scale of Undergraduate is revised on the basic of relevant theory. The positive emotion and academic engagement of411undergraduates are measured in the light of Positive Emotions and Negative Emotions Scale edited by Wason(1988), Questionnaire of Undergraduate’s Positive Emotion and Academic Investment Scale of Undergraduate. Secondly, the current situation of undergraduates’positive emotions, academic engagement, and academic achievements are analyzed according to the average grades on required courses of the411students, and the interrelation is also explored. The research results prove that:1. Except female undergraduate in the gratitude emoting suprior notably than male undergraduate, other positive emotion had no difference in gender, major, grade and origin of students. The relative level of positive emotion of undergraduate is higher, the level of interest, peace and love is lower, the level of pleasure, gratitude and hope is higher, and the level of inspiration and revere is moderate.2. In the dimension of behavior engagement, males had higher score than females; There was significantly difference between different professional. Engineering students were significantly higher than the science students in the emotional engagement; Science students were significantly higher than liberal arts students. Rural students were significantly higher than students who were from city in behavior engagement; Students from rural areas were significantly lower than the city students in cognitive inputs. The overall academic engagement levels of college students is moderate, the analysis of variance showed that the highest level of college students was cognitive engagement, next level was emotional investment, and behavior level was the minimum one.3.The analysis of variance showed that, except for inspiration has no significant relationship with behavior engagement, other dimensions of positive emotion are significant positive related to the other two dimensions of academic engagement. Positive emotional dimension of interest, happiness, gratitude, hope and love are significant related to academic achievement; Inspiration, peace and fear has no significant relationship with academic achievement; Three dimensions of academic engagement are significant related to the academic achievement.4. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that, academic engagement is a partial mediator between the positive emotion and academic achievement. Among them, behavior engagement completely mediated the relationship of positive emotion and academic achievement, cognitive engagement played an partly intermediary role in the relationship between positive emotion and academic achievement; emotional involvement, which is an important part of the academic engagement, has no significant mediating effect between the positive emotion and academic achievement.