The Relationship Between ADHD Symptoms And Academic Performance Of Junior High School Students

Objective: As the grade level of students increase,the academic work load,stress,and pressure also increases.Junior high is considered to be one of the challenging stages in scholastic year,and being able to grasp the daily lesson,adjust to different stressful situations,and maintain the motivation to efficiently and effectively study is important.However,Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder(ADHD)has been found in numerous previous studies does impair not only the learning ability of students,but also affects their social relation with other people,academic performance and behavior,and self-efficacy.The study aimed to explore and understand how Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder causes academic problem behavior to junior high school students,and to test whether the social support and general self-efficacy have a mediating role to the mentioned latter variables.Understanding the ADHD of junior middle school students and their impact on academic problem behavior can enrich the contents of abnormal psychology,educational psychology and developmental psychology.It can also improve the prevention and intervention of functioning impairment of students with ADHD.Method: A total of 442 junior high school of students Haikou City,Hainan Province were randomly selected to complete the self-evaluation questionnaires namely: Snoopy Assessment Scale(SNAP-IV),University Students’ Social Support Scale(USSSS),general self-efficacy scale(GSES)and adolescent academic problem behavior checklist(AAPBC),and the collected data were analyzed using the SPSS 26.0.Results: Using the confirmatory factor analysis to verify the validity of scale,the result shows that AVE values were greater than 0.5 and the CR values were greater than 0.7,indicating that the aggregation validity was high.The result also shows that(1)The overall performance of ADHD symptoms and academic problem behaviors of 442 subjects was relatively mild,with an average of 1.82 and 1.79,respectively.The level of general self-efficacy and social support were in the middle level,with an average of 2.64 and 3.76,respectively.(2)The results of correlation analysis showed that there was a significant positive correlation between academic problem behavior and ADHD symptoms(r = 0.76),a weak negative correlation between ADHD symptoms and general self-efficacy(r =-0.25)and social support(r =-0.32),and a weak negative correlation between academic problem behavior and general self-efficacy(r =-0.20)and social support(r =-0.26).(3)Multiple linear regression analysis showed that the explanatory ability of ADHD symptoms,social support and general self-efficacy was 60%,and the fitting degree was good(t=22.69,p<0.001;t=-3.67,p<0.01;t=-2.57,p<0.05).(4)Bootstrap method was used to investigate the mediating effects of social support and general self-efficacy on ADHD symptoms and academic problem behaviors of junior high school students.It was found that social support(Boot SE=0.01,Boot LLCI=0.01,Boot ULCI=0.06)and general self-efficacy(Boot SE=0.01,Boot LLCI=0.004,Boot ULCI=0.05)had partial mediating effects on the relationship between ADHD symptoms and academic problem behaviors.That is to say,when the independent variable increases by one unit,the impact of ADHD symptoms on the dependent variable’s academic problem behavior will increase units through mediating variable social support.Also,the impact of ADHD symptoms on academic problem behavior of junior high school students can be increased through the general self-efficacy variable.Conclusion: General self-efficacy and social support partially mediate the relationship between ADHD symptoms and academic problem performance.It suggests that it is very important for students to obtain social support and good self-efficacy in the process of learning.