High School Student Depression And Test Anxiety Factors

Depression and test anxiety are affective disorders that often occur in senior students in high school. It can prevent students from getting top marks seriously if treated improperly. As a special social group, senior students in high school have been paid more and more attention to their growing depression and test anxiety caused by individual and social factors. This thesis is to conduct a survey on senior students ' depression and test anxiety and make a integrated analysis and study relations among personality traits, coping ways, parent-adolescent communication, social support , depression, test anxiety. To explore the relationship between depression, test anxiety and some influential factors in senior students in high school, we adopted some instruments, including EPQ, Coping Ways Scale, Parent-Adolescent Communication Scale, PSSS Scale, CES-D Scale and Test Anxiety Scale. Based on correlative analyses, t-test analyses and path analyses, we drew some conclusions as follow: (1) There were no significant gender differences in depression and test anxiety in senior students in high school. (2) The depression and test anxiety of the senior students in high school were significantly correlated to their personality traits, coping ways, parent-adolescent communication and social support except between psychoticism, help-seeking and test anxiety. (3) On the influential factors of depression, path analyses revealed that four factors were directly significant predictors i.e. neuroticism, social support, problematic communication in family, positive coping (or negative coping or mixed coping). Neuroticism was the highest predictor among them. (4) On the influential factors of test anxiety, path analyses revealed that four factors were directly significant predictors i.e. neuroticism, psychoticism, problematic communication in family, negative coping (or mixed coping). Negative coping was the highest predictor among them. (5) In the influential factors of depression, neuroticism not only directly affected depression but also indirectly affected depression through negative coping or mixed coping, social support, problematic communication in family. Introversion-Extroversion indirectly affected depression through positive coping or social support. Social support not only directly affected depression but also indirectly afifected depression through positive coping or mixed coping. Problematic communication in family not only directly affected depression but also indirectly affected depression through negative coping or mixed coping. Positive coping or negative coping or mixed coping directly affected depression. (6) In the influential factors of test anxiety, neuroticism not only directly affected test anxiety but also indirectly affected test anxiety through negative coping or mixed coping, problematic communication in family. Psychoticism directly affected test anxiety. Problematic communication in family not only directly affected test anxiety but also indirectly affected test anxiety through negative coping or mixed coping. Negative coping or mixed coping directly affected test anxiety. (7) To compare with the influential factors of depression , those of test anxiety have some same and different work. The same was neuroticism, negative coping (or mixed coping) and problematic communication in family can all significant predicted depression and test anxiety. The difference lied in some points. For example, neuroticism was the highest predictor of depression, while negative coping was the highest predictor of test anxiety. Psychoticism could not significantly predict depression but did test anxiety. Social support and positive coping could not significantly predict test anxiety but did depression.