A Longitudinal Analysis Of Developmental Assets,intentional Self-regulation And Adolescents' Academic Adaptation

Developmental assets are defined as a set of interrelated experiences,relationships,skills,and values that are known to enhance a broad range of youth outcomes,and are assumed to operate similarly for youth.Developmental assets as an important framework of the Positive Youth Development,a number of studies have demonstrated that it is an important factor can promote adolescents attainment positive developmental outcomes.Early adolescence is the important period of individual development,the arrival of puberty and the transition from primary school to middle school,individuals both in physical or mental experiencing sharp changes,facing to a great challenge.Academic adaptation is not only the main activity of early adolescents,but also one of the stages of development in the process of growth,good academic adaptation can help young people to achieve a good transition at this stage.Existing researches mostly examined which specific asset or ability influence academic adaptation,few researches investigate to the interaction between individual and ecological background,this difficult to reveal the psychological mechanism of the healthy development of child and adolescent.However,the developmental assets frameworks consider the comprehensive factors that affect the healthy growth of adolescent base on holistic or relationship perspective,and the integration of the multiple assets is more correspond to with the reality of individual life and development.In addition,research showed that changes in developmental assets over time,and adolescents with different change trends of developmental assets have different developmental outcomes.Meanwhile,much research discovered that adolescents' developmental assets influence their current developmental outcomesand their developmental outcomes several years later.But those longitudinal studies about developmental assets were mainly based on western cultural context,so it was an important issue to explore the development trend of developmental assets and how it influences adolescents' current and future academic adaptation,and whether intentional self-regulation mediated the relation between developmental assets and academic adaptation by longitudinal design in our contemporary context.Based on cluster sampling,1228 middle school students from 2 rural schools and1 urban school in Jinan,Zhangqiu were selected to participate in this one-year longitudinal study.Assessments of developmental assets,school attitude,academic engagement and academic achievement were obtained from self-reported questionnaire and school records.Among them,only the intentional self-regulation was measured at Time1,other variables were collected at Time1 and Time2.The indicators of academic adaptation include: school attitude,academic engagement,and academic achievement.The main results of the research are as follows:1.In this longitudinal study,which interval is one year,early adolescents' developmental assets and the indicators of academic adaptation had different development patterns.More specifically,on the whole,developmental assets level remained stable from Time1 to Time2,and as the indicators of academic adaptation,the levels of school attitude and academic engagement dropped significantly after a year,academic achievement showed a certain stability.2.There were significantly difference in development patterns of developmental assets and academic adaptation indicators between boys and girls,rural and urban early adolescents.And specifically,in gender difference,the school attitude decline of boys was significantly higher than girls;for the three academic adaptation indicators,both at Time1 and at Time2,girls scored higher than boys,but there was no significant gender difference on developmental assets level.In urban and rural difference,urban students' developmental assets level increased over time,but rural student' developmental assets level decreased over time;for two measurements,developmental assets level and academic engagement level of urban students weresignificantly higher than rural students,but the differences in school attitude and academic achievement between urban and rural early adolescents were not significant.3.There was a phenomenon of differentiation for adolescents' change trends of developmental assets level and the indicators' levels of academic adaptation,among them,had “up” “maintain” “down” three trends.After controlling for the impact of places and gender on academic adaptation,adolescents,whose developmental assets level presented an upward trend after a year,were more likely to get better at the indicators of academic adaptation than those who had a downward trend.4.Both developmental assets level and academic adaptation of early adolescents showed certain stability across time.There were significantly positively correlations between developmental assets level and school attitude,academic engagement,academic achievement of interval of a year of early adolescents.Time1 developmental assets of early adolescents significantly predicted the current and future school attitude,academic engagement and academic achievement,moreover,there was urban and rural difference in the impact of early adolescents' developmental assets on the current academic adaptation,specifically,compared with urban early adolescents,developmental assets had more influence on rural early adolescents' current academic achievement.5.Intentional self-regulation was a partial mediator between early adolescents' developmental assets and the current and future school attitude,academic engagement and academic achievement,in addition,the differences in the current and future mediation model between boys and girls,urban and rural early adolescents were not significant.