Senior High School Students’ Academic Delay Of Gratification: Influencing Factors And Impact

Academic delay of gratification(ADOG)is defined as the postponement of immediately available wards in order to pursue temporally remote but more valuable academic goals(Bembenutty & Karabenick,1998).The nature of academic delay of gratification is the ability of self-control and self-regulation.The students who has high academic delay of gratification are also have high self-regulation,and academic delay of gratification could also predict learning behavior and academic achievement.In reviewing previous researches,we found that,there were many problems in this area.Firstly,there were little the researches about the influencing factor and the function of academic delay of gratification.Secondly,research methods were monotonous.Thirdly,there were many conflicts in the conclusions.Finally,considering the developmental particularity of senior high school students,there were some structural problems in the scales to measure this group’s academic delay of gratification.This study first reviewed the theory and empirical researches of academic delay of gratification,and then systematically and deeply investigated the influencing factor and the function of senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification,through 3 studies.The aim of study 1 was to develop an academic delay of gratification situation scale which was applicable for Chinese senior high school students’ academic situation,and to test reliability and validity of this scale.Furthermore,we investigate the structural feature which affected academic delay of gratification,and the effect of different time,value,expectations situation on academic delay of gratification,in order to provide the basis for uncovering the essential of academic delay of gratification.The results showed that,the situations included in the scale of senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification was appropriate to the features of examination of Chinese high school.Three situation features(time,expectations,and value)which constituted the scale had significant effect on senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification.As the time got closed to examination,the expectations of results of examination became higher,the value of examination became bigger,and tendency of academic delay of gratification became stronger.Inversely,when there was a long time from examination,the expectations of results of examination was lower,the value of examination was smaller,and tendency of academic delay of gratification was weaker.Therefore,the reliability and validity of scale of senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification could meet the standard of psychometrics,and could be used as the tools to measure senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification.In study 2,we conducted semi-structural qualitative interview on 15 senior high school students having high academic delay of gratification,and 16 senior high school students having low academic delay of gratification,using qualitative method,to induce senior high school students who had different level of academic delay of gratification to talk about the questions about academic delay of gratification from multiple viewpoints and multiple aspects.The aim of it is preliminary obtaining the essential information about the influencing factor and the function of senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification.The results showed that,compared to the students with low academic delay of gratification,the students with high academic delay of gratification had the characteristics as follows: having higher sense of self-efficacy;being good at using motivation and emotion self-regulation strategy;having higher performance goal orientations and mastery goal orientations;feeling more caring and less requirements from teachers;feeling more supports and less control from parents;being good at using self-regulated learning strategies to enhance academic achievement.The results preliminary showed that,individual factors,such as sense of self-efficacy,achievement goal,and motivation and emotion regulation strategy,and external factor,such support from teachers and parents,significantly affected senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification;academic delay of gratification significantly affected the use of self-regulated learning strategies and the enhancement of academic achievement.On the basis of study 2,study 3 used questionnaire survey and structural equation model(SEM)to conduct quantitative analysis about and to construct a model of the influencing factor and the function of senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification.There were 4 researches in this study(A,B,C,D).The aims of research A were to investigate the predictive effect of individual factor,such as achievement goal orientation,self-efficiency,motivation,and emotion regulation strategy,on senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification.The results showed that,4 achievement goal orientations(performance-approach,performance-avoidance,mastery-approach,and mastery-avoidance)affected academic delay of gratification,through self-efficiency and emotion regulation strategy.Among them,the predictive effect of motivation and emotion regulation strategy on senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification had the biggest effect size.The aim of research B was to investigate the effects of external factors,such as parents’ autonomy support,teachers’ autonomy support,and individual factors,such as motivation,emotion regulation strategy,on senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification.The results showed that,parent’s and teachers’ autonomy support indirectly affected academic delay of gratification,through students’ motivation and emotion regulation strategy.The aim of research C was to investigate the effects of academic delay of gratification on the use of senior high school students’ self-regulated learning strategy and academic achievement,and the mediating effect of self-regulated learning strategy between academic delay of gratification and academic achievement.On the basis of 3 previous researches,in research D,we put teachers’ and parents’ autonomy support,motivation and emotion regulation strategy,academic delay of gratification,self-regulated learning strategy,academic achievement into structural equation model together,and try to build and test a more integrate model of the influencing factor and the function of senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification.The results showed that,both of teachers’ and parents’ autonomy support indirectly predicted senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification,through individual motivation and emotional regulation strategy;academic delay of gratification indirectly predicted academic achievement,through the use of self-regulated learning strategy;teachers’ and parents’ autonomy support indirectly predicted academic achievement,through the multiple mediating effect of motivation and emotional regulation strategy,academic delay of gratification,and self-regulated learning strategy.According to the results of study 1 to 3,we could came to some conclusions as follows:(1)Our scale of senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification had satisfactory reliability and validity,and could reflect the effects of situational factors about examination,such as time,value,anticipation,on academic delay of gratification.(2)4 achievement goal orientations(performance-approach,performance-avoidance,mastery-approach,and mastery-avoidance),sense of selfefficacy,motivation and emotional regulation strategy were the individual factors which affected senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification;teachers’ and parents’ autonomy support were the external factors which affected senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification;the external factors,such as teachers’ and parents’ autonomy support,affected senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification,through the mediating effect of individual factors,such as motivation and emotional regulation strategy.(3)Senior high school students’ academic delay of gratification indirectly enhanced the academic achievement,through the mediating effect of self-regulated learning strategy.(4)Individual factors,such as motivation and emotional regulation strategy,academic delay of gratification,self-regulated learning strategy,played a role as mediating variables,in the effects of external factors,such as teachers’ and parents’ autonomy support on the academic achievement.