The Relationship Among Junior High School Students’ Developmental Assets,Study Engagement And Happiness

Happiness,as a positive experience of an individual after comprehensive evaluation of his or her quality of life according to his or her own criteria,provides an opportunity for an individual to create better interpersonal relationships and show greater productivity,which is conducive to the growth and development of an individual.At the same time,it is important to clarify the influencing factors of adolescent happiness and the complex mechanism among the influencing factors.Reviewing the relevant literature on happiness,we can see that the main factors affecting individual happiness are external factors and internal factors.From the dynamic perspective of the development process,how do these two factors affect individual happiness? Whether happiness will in turn affect the former is worth exploring.According to the Ecological Systems theory,Developmental Systems Theory,development action theory and Positive Youth Development Perspective,there may be a continuous dynamic interaction among developmental situation,individual initiative adaptive behavior and happiness.Therefore,this paper chooses three variables developmental assets,study engagement and happiness,and uses vertical design to investigate the complex interaction between developmental situation,individual initiative behavior and happiness over time.This complex mode of action may be manifested in the interaction among developmental assets,study engagement and happiness,as well as in the long-term indirect influence among them,which may include six main paths,developmental assets may affect their happiness indirectly through their study engagement,or may affect their study engagement indirectly through their happiness;adolescents’ study engagement may affect their happiness indirectly through developmental assets,or may affect their developmental assets indirectly through their happiness;adolescents’ happiness may affect their developmental assets indirectly through study engagement,or it may affect their study engagement indirectly through developmental assets.There are few studies on the indirect effects mentioned above,so this study intends to use the development cascade model to comprehensively examine the relationship between developmental assets,study engagement and happiness.In this study,1214 junior high school students were selected as subjects,and developmental assets were measured by the Development Assets Scale,study engagement were measured by Study Engagement scale,and happiness were measured by the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire.And developmental assets,study engagement and happiness were measured at three time points respectively.Finally,the development cascade model was used to comprehensively examine the relationship among developmental assets,study engagement and happiness.The following conclusions can be drawn from the developmental cascade effect:(1)There were no significant gender differences in total score of developmental assets,family assets,school assets,community assets and social assets in T1.In T2 and T3,the total score of girls’ developmental assets,family assets and school assets were significantly higher than that of boys’.Girls’ attention at T1 was significantly higher than boys’;at T2 and T3,girls’ total scores of vitality,dedication,concentration and study engagement were higher than boys’.The three-year happiness of boys was significantly higher than that of girls.(2)There was a significant positive correlation between developmental assets,study engagement and happiness at three time points.(3)Developmental assets,study engagement and happiness are stable across time.(4)The interaction among developmental assets,study engagement and happiness,the relationship between developmental assets and adolescents’ study engagement is that T1 adolescents’ study engagement can significantly predict the developmental assets one year later;the interaction between developmental assets and adolescents’ happiness,T1 developmental assets can positively predict adolescents’ happiness one year later,T2 developmental assets can not positively predict adolescents’ happiness one year later;the relationship between developmental assets and adolescents’ study engagement is that T1 adolescents’ study engagement significantly positively predicts their happiness one year later.(5)The long-term indirect relationship among developmental assets,study engagement and happiness: developmental assets can indirectly affect happiness after two years through happiness after one year.Study engagement can indirectly affect the developmental assets after two years through the developmental assets after one year;study engagement can indirectly affect the developmental assets after two years through the happiness after one year;study engagement can indirectly affect the happiness after two years through the happiness after one year.Happiness can indirectly affect the developmental assets after two years through one year’s happiness.