Post-1990s College Students Academic Sustainability: The Role of Negative Emotions, Achievement Goals, and Self-efficacy on Academic Performance

Abstract

In 1982, the “one-child policy” was implemented by China’s Constitution, which led to the majority of post-1990s college students in China being the only child in their family. Unique characteristics have been demonstrated in psychological development of post-1990s Chinese college students due to the lack of sibling companionship, and the relationship between their psychological state and academic performance can affect their future academic sustainability. This paper used Beijing College Students Panel Survey (BCSPS) data to study the role of negative emotions, achievement goals, and academic self-efficacy on academic performance and gives a panoramic description of the China’s post-1990s college students’ psychological states based on the four-year data of more than 2000 college students who enrolled in 2008. We then used regression analysis and a two-way fixed effect model to study the effects of the psychological state on academic performance. The research conclusions of the study are as follows: (1) The levels of negative emotions, achievement goals, and academic self-efficacy vary according to the grade and gender of college students; (2) among all negative emotions discussed, only anxiety presents a significant predictive effect on academic performance, while the effect of stress and depression is not significant; (3) the presence of level of mastery–approach goals is higher than the other three achievement goals, and college students’ academic self-efficacy keeps decreasing from freshman to junior year; (4) performance–approach goals and academic self-efficacy are identified as having a significant promoting effect on academic performance; (5) mastery–avoidance goals and performance–avoidance goals are proven to have a negative effect on academic performance. This paper discusses the contribution of the psychological sustainability and sustainable development to college students’ academic performance from a primary intervention perspective. We believe that it is feasible to improve academic achievement by improving noncognitive factors, such as mental state, to achieve academic sustainability.

Changes in Undergraduate Students’ Psychological Well-Being as They Experience University Life

“…Participants of the survey were randomly chosen from students admitted to 15 universities in the years of 2006 and 2008, and these two cohorts were tracked for four consecutive years from June 2009 to June 2012. The first three rounds were carried out on-site with the cooperation of Beijing Municipal Commission of Education and the Office of Student Affairs of the universities; thereafter, in year four, the participants were invited via text messages and e-mails to log in to the questionnaire website with a unique code, and this round of investigation was conducted entirely online [41]. In order to explore changes in students’ mental health states across years during college, the 2008 cohort was selected and analyzed in our study.…”

“…In order to explore changes in students’ mental health states across years during college, the 2008 cohort was selected and analyzed in our study. The initial numbers of participants from different universities in the first round have been listed in Table 1, and the follow-up rate of the latter three rounds was 95.27%, 94.66%, and 90.58%, respectively, with very few sample losses [41]. After removing invalid questionnaires, the effective sample size of this panel study was 1401, including 650 females and 751 males.…”

High Academic Self-Efficacy and Dispositional Empathy in Future Teachers

“…Self-efficacy and empathy are two constructs that directly influence academic performance and social interaction [4][5][6][7]. Self-efficacy, in the academic field, is understood as the student's belief in their abilities to undertake those activities that are required of them in the educational context [8,9].…”

Time use in out-of-class activities and its association with self-efficacy and perceived stress: data from second-year medical students in China

“…Previous studies have suggested that high selfefficacy may be associated with better academic performance [45][46][47][48]. For example, a study of undergraduates at Cornell University by Ballen et al found that self-efficacy could drive their performance gains with active learning [45].…”