Research On The Influencing Factors And Mechanism Of Academic Anxiety Of Postgraduate

In recent years,with the scale of education in China expanding continuously and the number of graduate students increasing sharply,the mental health problems of postgraduates have come along,with the research anxiety being particularly prominent.At present,the focus on graduate students is relatively broad,with more research concentrated on the mental health status and educational countermeasures from a macro perspective,causing a lack of in-depth research.Besides,the research related to graduate students’ scientific research learning mostly focuses on the objective behavior indicators such as scientific research creativity,scientific research performance and so on,but only few studies on anxiety in the process of scientific research.In addition,previous studies were mostly carried out from a positive perspective.For example,they explored the impact of tutor support behavior on graduate students’ scientific research performance,while ignoring the tutor’s negative impact to a certain extent;meanwhile,the interaction among supervisors,graduate students,and their peers is not fully considered,resulting in the relative lack of systematic research.Firstly,in study 1,we investigated the current situation of 119 graduate students’ scientific research anxiety,gaining a comprehensive understanding of the research anxiety of graduate students at the current stage,including its content and main influencing factors.Secondly,in Study 2,according to the survey results of study 1,some of the main influencing factors were selected as the research variables of study 2and the effective data of 572 graduate students were used to construct a hypothetical model to explore the specific mechanism of various factors on the research anxiety of graduate students.Through the empirical analysis,this study draws the following conclusions:(1)There are many contents of research anxiety,including both the macroscopic aspects,such as course examinations and graduation defense,etc.,and the microscopic aspects of the specific process of scientific research learning.The main influencing factors include professional ability,nature of research,peer comparison,mentor training,etc.(2)The research anxiety of postgraduates is common and above medium level.The anxiety level of postgraduates varies significantly in the type of postgraduates,age of tutors,gender consistency of mentors and mentees,and whether regular group meetings are held.Among them,professional/on-the-job postgraduates,whose supervisors are over 60 years old or are of the opposite sex,or have group meetings or academic exchange meetings on an irregular basis,have higher research anxiety levels.(3)Mentor support influences research anxiety negatively through the complete mediating effects of research self-efficacy and research learning engagement.The mentor support can influence research anxiety through the mediating effect of research self-efficacy and research learning input separately,or through the chain mediating effect of research self-efficacy and research learning input.(4)Mentor ostracism affects research anxiety through the complete mediating effects of upward social comparison,scientific research self-efficacy,and research learning input.Among them,there are not only the separate mediating effects of upward social comparison,self-efficacy,and research learning input,but also the chain mediating effect of upward social comparison-research self-efficacy,upward social comparison-research learning input,self-efficacy-research learning investment.In addition,the research anxiety level was also affected by the multiple chain mediating effects of upward social comparison,research self-efficacy,and research learning input.According to the above research conclusions,the study puts forward relevant educational suggestions for postgraduate training units,tutors and graduate students respectively,in order to provide some reference for alleviating graduate students’ research anxiety.