Parent-child Relationship And Academic Emotions Among Chinese Adolescents

Academic emotions refer to the various emotional experiences and states directly related to academic learning,classroom instruction,and academic achievement.As a non-intelligent factor that play a pivotal role in students’ academic performance and achievement,academic emotions have received increasing research attention recently.The current research explores the non-additive,longitudinal effects of family context(i.e.parent-child relationship),school context(i.e.teacher-student relationships)and individual characteristics(i.e.achievement goal orientation)on adolescents’ academic emotions.In study 1,differences in academic emotions among adolescents,and whether parent-child relationship influence adolescents’ academic emotions a year later by shaping adolescents’ achievement goal orientation was examined.Effects of father-child and mother-child relationship on adolescents’ academic emotions were futher investigated in Study 1.In study 2,moderating role of teacher-student relationship in the association among parent-child relationship,achievement goal orientation,and academic emotions was investigated.Potential finding of the current study deepen our understanding of Chinese adolescents’ academic emotions and their relations to parent-child relationship,teacher-student relationship,and achievement goal orientation influence.Additionally,findings of the current research provide important implications for professionals and policy makers working with adolescents and aiming to promote adolescents’ academic achievement.In study 1,a total of 684 adolescents(M = 11.42,SD =3.42)from two primary and three middle school in Guangzhou were recruited and followed for a year.A 6-month data collection time lag was adopted.Parent-child relationship,achievement goal orientation,and academic emotions were measured at Time1,2,and 3 respectively.In study 2,I examined whether teacher-student relationship moderated the associations among parent-child relationship,adolescents’ achievement goal orientation,and academic emotions.Results showed that:(1)There was no gender difference in academic emotions;significant differences were found across grades.The younger adolescents had higher levels of positive academic emotions and lower levels on negative academic emotions as compared to older adolescents.(2)Parent-child relationship(T1)was positively correlated with adolescents’ positive academic emotions and negatively correlated with negative academic emotions(T3).Adolescents who had high-quality parent-child relationship reported high levels of positive academic emotions than did those reported lower levels of parent-child relationship.(3)adolescents’ mastery approach goal orientation,achievement avoidance goal orientation,and mastery avoidance orientation(T2)served as mediators in the associations between parent-child relationship(T1)and adolescents’ academic emotions(T3).That is,parent-child relationship influenced adolescents’ academic emotions via shaping their achievement goal orientation.(4)Teacher-student relationship(T2)moderated the association between achievement avoidance and mastery avoidance goal orientation and academic emotions.Specifically,high quality teacher-student relationship buffered the negative effects of avoidance orientation on adolescents’ academic emotions.The current research moves the field forward by examining the non-additive,longitudinal effects of family context,school context,and individual characteristics on adolescents’ academic emotions.Findings suggest that training parents to appropriately promote relationship with their children may yield benefits in the long run as it is a potential avenue to foster adolescents’ achievement goal orientation and may ultimately facilitate adolescents’ positive academic emotions and reduce their negative academic emotions.Limitations and directions for future studies were discussed.