The Influence Of Boarding On The Mental Health And Academic Performance Of Middle School Students In Western Rural Areas

After nearly 40 years of rapid development,China has made significant achievements in economic construction and people’s living standard have been greatly improved.With the adjustment and upgrade of the industrial structure in the country,we have to face a problem:how to effectively improve human capital to maintain long-term and sustainable economic development.In order to solve the problem,the key is to improve the quality of human capital in rural areas.In recent years,with the integration of rural education resources and the rapid development urbanization in China,boarding schools have become an important way of operating schools in those rural areas,with the number of boarding students surging rapidly in those areas.Boarding students,away from the support from the family system and facing the enclosed environment and academic pressure all alone,have to confront more risk factors in mental health and academic performance.To narrow down the gap between urban and rural education and enhance human capital in rural areas of western China,we need to pay great attention to the mental health and academic performance of junior high school boarding students in those areas.In terms of changes of the boarding school,current research is limited to cross-sectional data in the existing literature,unable to track down the boarding situation and its dynamic development,and does not analyze the boarding school from the perspective of the dynamic change of the status and its influences on students’ development.As for the research content,current research mostly concentrates on some single indicators,a few of which involves multiple dimensional research that also lacks the support of large samples.Based on rich result variables and large sampling data,the research focuses on the influences boarding schools have on junior high school students’ mental health and academic performance.From the aspect of experimental economics and development economics,the paper adopts the statistical analysis method to explore the influences boarding schools have on junior high school students’ mental health and academic performance,provides suggestions for rational adjustment of school layout in rural areas in western China,and also evidence for educational decision-making for rural families.With the purpose,the study chose 6,807 students of grade seven and eight from 75 schools in a city in the northwest,and collected basic information of schools,and information of students’ basic characteristics,their mental health status and academic performance through sending out on-site questionnaire.The research first describes the mental health status,academic performance and the status quo of the boarding behaviour of junior high school students in rural areas.Second,differenccs-in-differenccs method is adopted to analyze the influences of boarding schools have on junior high school students’ mental health and academic performance.Through the description and correlation analysis,the research conclusions are as followsFirst,the mental health of junior high school students in rural areas of western China is not optimistic.Students in need of individualized psychological guidance take up 71.8%(4887/6807)and 70%(4765/6807)respectively in 2012and 2013,among which those with learning anxiety account for 63.3%(4309/6807)and 61.4%(4179/6807)respectively.In addition,learning anxiety is the only subscale above eight points on average,which means that learning anxiety is the most serious psychological problem rural junior high school students are confronted withSecond,boarding schools do have negative influences on rural junior high school students’mental health,and those negative influences cannot be eliminated in a very short time after leaving the school.After students attend boarding schools,the mental health score increases significantly 0.09 standard deviations(P<0.05).The anxiety subscale of facing people increases 0.19 standard deviations(P<0.05),the allergic tendency 0.21 standard deviations(P&1t;0.10),and the terror 0.34 standard deviations(P<0.01).After leaving boarding schools,every indicator did not have significant changesThirdly,attending boarding schools has no significant influence on students’ academic performance.But after leaving the school,their academic performance declines obviously.When students in rural areas change to boarding schools from day schools,their academic performance does not change significantly,but when they change to day schools from boarding schools,academic performance significantly drops 0.1 8 standard deviations(P<0.01)At last,according to the research conclusion as well as the existing literature and the status quo of boarding schools and students in rural areas in western China,the following suggestions are proposed.First,increasing investment in rural educational resources,and further effectively integrating rural educational resources taking into consideration of the influences of boarding schools on studcnts’ development.Second,enhancing the cultivation of mental health teachers and the curriculum construction in rural boarding schools to enrich the campus life.Thirdly,different educational methods should be adopted for different students,especially considering different growth characteristics of boys and girls to conduct mental and psychological health education.