A Study On The Relationship Between Basic Psychological Needs,Psychological Capital And Academic Engagement In High School Students And Intervention

Students’ academic engagement is a key indicator of the quality of education,and thus the study of high school students’ academic engagement has become an important topic for a wide range of scholars.With the emergence of positive education that focuses on both traditional skills training and well-being development,it has become possible to put some concepts from positive psychology(psychological capital)into the realm of educational research.Within the framework of positive psychology,this study explores the relationship between basic psychological needs,psychological capital,and academic engagement of high school students based on self-determination theory and the conservation of resources theory.In addition,this study will draw on previous research related to group counseling for developing psychological capital to design a group counseling program for high school students,in the hope of enhancing students’psychological capital levels and learning engagement levels.To address the above questions,two sub-studies were conducted in this study.In the first study,719 students from a high school in Wuhan were selected as subjects with a mean age of 15.56 years(SD=0.65),and then surveyed using the Basic Need Satisfaction Scale,Positive Psycap Questionnaire,and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale-Student to understand the basic psychological needs,psychological capital,and academic engagement levels of high school students,and to explore the relationship between them.The second study was based on the first study and combined with the principle of autonomy,24 students with below-average psychological capital levels were selected as the study subjects.Then they were randomly divided into an intervention group(12 students)and a control group(12 students).After signing an informed consent form,the intervention group received eight group intervention activities on the theme of psychological capital,while the control group did not receive any intervention.After the group intervention,a post-test was administered to the intervention and control groups to test the results of the intervention.The results of the study showed that(1)There was a significant positive correlation between basic psychological needs,psychological capital and academic engagement of high school students.(2)Psychological capital partially mediated the relationship between basic psychological needs and academic engagement.(3)The group counseling program developed in this study was effective in enhancing the psychological capital of high school students and improving their academic engagement.Finally,the theoretical and practical values of this study are further discussed,and the shortcomings of this study as well as possible directions for future research are discussed.