The Relationship Between Adolescents' Personal Planning And Peer Characters, And Academic Adaptation

Future orientation is how people see their own future. It is a complicated process composed by multi-stages. Jari-Erik Nurmi, a Finland psychologist, put forward individual future orientation process model from the approach of cognition-motivation, among which planning is an important process. During the whole life, individuals are constantly thinking about and planning for their own futures, which is particularly important for adolescents. This study, in the Chinese cultural context, has a survey on developmental characteristics of adolescents'future orientation through the inspection of personal planning process. Future orientation, as an important aspect in individual self development, is effected by multi-factors, including individual cognition, and social-cultural background. In recent years, researchers have paid more attention to construction and development of future orientation from the perspective of adolescents'interpersonal background i.e. family and peer relationship. At the same time, some researchers think that the positive development of adolescents'future orientation can promote personal current psychosocial adaptation. And some studies on peer indicate that peer group also has an important impact on adolescents'psychosocial adaptation. On the basis of previous studies, this paper gives an introduction of adolescents'personal planning into the relationship between peer group characters and academic adaptation, and further explores the relationship of individual development environment, self and behavior.This thesis starts with a relatively detailed description about research on adolescents'future orientation both at home and abroad and about theories and important works on adolescents'future orientation, peer and academic adaptation; at the same time it gives an analysis of the current research situation and existing problems. On this basis, the author makes an investigation among 1,892 middle school students both in urban and rural areas, confirms the structure of the adolescents'personal planning scale, and used the adolescents'peer group characters and utility of education to collect students'academic achievements. The main methods used in this study are ANOVA, collection analysis and SEM. On the base of the methods, the characteristics of adolescents'personal planning according to age, gender and location, the relationship among adolescents'personal planning, peer characters and academic adaptation were analyzed. The main conclusions are as follows:1. Among the personal planning, adolescents pay attention to commitment related to future education domain, with commitment related to future occupation, exploration related to future education and the exploration on occupation following.2. Significant grade differences are found in adolescents'personal planning development. Students in Grade Two, junior middle school and Grade Three, senior middle school show higher level of exploration related to future education than those in Grade One, senior middle school. Students in Grade Two, junior middle school explore and commit more in future occupation than those in Grade One and Three, senior middle school. No significant difference is found in commitment related to future education among students in the three grades.3. Significant sex differences are found in adolescents'exploration and commitment related to future education domain. The level of girls'exploration and commitment related to future education are higher than that of boys'.4. Significant location differences are found in adolescents'exploration and commitment related to future education domain. Adolescents in urban areas show higher level of exploration and commitment related to future education than those in rural areas and towns.5. Generally speaking, exploration related to future education is higher than that related to future occupation. It shows concretely: Students of the second year in junior middle school show no difference in exploration related to future education and occupation. Students of the first and third year in senior middle school show higher level of exploration related to future education than that related to occupation. Exploration related to future education is notably higher than that related to future occupation among girls; while boys show little difference in exploration related to future education and occupation.6. Generally speaking, adolescents commit more to future education than to future occupation. It shows concretely: All students in the three grades commit more to future education than to future occupation. Both boys and girls all show higher commitment to future education than that to future occupation domain. Adolescents in urban and rural areas all show higher commitment to future education than that to future occupation domain.7. Adolescents'peer characters, personal planning and academic adaptation are closely related. The peer group characters have not only direct effect on adolescents'academic adaptation, but also have indirect effect on academic adaptation through the personal planning.