Effects Of Academic Stress On Mental Health Of Junior High School Students:The Mediating Role Of Psychological Resilience And Interpersonal Skills

Academic stress is a subjective psychological feeling that arises when learners are unable to cope with setbacks in the learning process.In a sociocultural context where educational concepts are constantly being updated,academic stress has become one of the core stressors for junior high school students,and it is an important factor affecting students’ psychological well-being.Previous studies have explored the negative effects of academic stress on psychological health,but have not examined both personality traits,psychological resilience and interpersonal skills,in conjunction with each other.Therefore,this study was conducted to examine whether psychological resilience and interpersonal skills have multiple mediating effects between academic stress and psychological health of junior high school students based on the current situation of academic stress,psychological resilience,interpersonal skills,and psychological health of junior high school students through difference-in-difference tests,in order to provide scientific basis for families and schools to maintain and promote the psychological health of junior high school students.In this study,1215 middle school students from two middle schools in Zhoukou,Henan Province and one middle school in Haikou,Hainan Province were surveyed using the Middle School Academic Stress Questionnaire,the Mental Toughness Scale for Adolescents,the Comprehensive Interpersonal Relationship Diagnostic Scale,and the Mental Health Questionnaire for Middle School Students.Among them,there were1100 valid questionnaires,566 male students and 534 female students.The survey data were analyzed using SPSS 26.0 with SPSS macro program PROCESS 4.0,including four variables in the comparison of differences in demographic variables,correlation analysis,regression analysis and mediating effect test.The results showed that:(1)There were significant gender differences in psychological resilience and psychological health of junior high school students,and the level of psychological resilience and psychological health of male students were significantly higher than that of female students;there were no significant differences in academic stress and interpersonal skills by gender.(2)There were significant grade differences in academic stress,psychological resilience,interpersonal skills and psychological health among junior high school students,and the academic stress of junior high school students was significantly higher than that of junior high school students,and the psychological resilience,interpersonal skills and psychological health of junior high school students were significantly higher than that of junior high school students.(3)The academic stress,psychological resilience,interpersonal skills and psychological health of junior high school students differed significantly by family location,with rural students having significantly higher academic stress than urban junior high school students,and urban students having higher psychological resilience,interpersonal skills and psychological health than rural junior high school students.(4)Academic stress negatively predicted mental health and negatively predicted mental health through psychological resilience and interpersonal skills respectively;academic stress also negatively predicted mental health through the chain mediation of psychological resilience and interpersonal skills.Synthesizing the above results and previous studies,this study concludes that excessive academic stress can lead to mental health problems such as anxiety and depression in junior high school students,but when junior high school students have high levels of psychological resilience and interpersonal skills,the negative effects of academic stress on their mental health tend to be smaller.Therefore,in order to improve the mental health of middle school,we suggest that on the one hand,we should reduce the excessive academic stress of middle school students,and on the other hand,we can enhance and improve the psychological resilience level and interpersonal skills of middle school students through training.