The Influencing Factors And Mechanism Of High School Students’ Academic Fear

Academic fear is the conscious or unconscious fear of learning,and people or things related to learning,which is caused by the threatening stimuli in the process of learning.Academic fear triggers avoidance and escape psychology,and leads to academic cheating,self-obstruction and other negative behaviors.At present,academic fear is confused with academic anxiety.It needs to clarify the concept of academic fear.This study differentiated academic fear from academic anxiety.Also,this study completed the academic fear scale of high school students,analyzed the current situation of high school students’ academic fear,found the influencing factors and mechanism of high school students’ academic fear and did a intervention study.The main methods were survey research,delphi method,statistical analysis and experimentation.Study 1 demonstrated the multidimensional structure of high school students’ academic fear and completed the academic fear scale of high school students.The study showed that the academic fear of high school students can be divided into seven dimensions: parents and teachers,peer relationship,test fear,schoolwork pressure,fear of failure,fear of success,health and life factors,27 items.The scale has good reliability(Klonbach α=0.935;half-fold coefficient=0.895;retest reliability=0.680,P < 0.001)and good validity(CMIN/DF=2.004,RMSEA=0.055,GFI=0.879,CFI=0.938,IFI=0.939,TLI=0.928,criterion validity r=0.515,P<0.01).It meets the standards of measurement.It can be used to measure the academic fear of high school students.Also,this study completed the fear culture perception scale of high school students.The scale has one dimension with 6 items.The scale has good reliability(Klonbach α=0.902;retest reliability=0.604,P < 0.001)and good validity(CMIN/DF=1.044,RMSEA=0.019,GFI=0.978,CFI=0.999,IFI=0.999,TLI=0.998).It meets the standards of measurement.It can be used to measure the fear cultural perception of high school students.Study 2 analyzed the current situation of high school students’ academic fear.It confirmed that high school students do have academic fear.High school students’ academic fear has a a significant difference in gender and grade,and is significantly correlated with achievement and mother’s education background.Study 3 explored the influencing factors and formation mechanism of high school students’ academic fear from an ecosystem perspective.It is suggested that academic fear is influenced by social,school,family and individual factors.At the social level,the cultural perception of fear is mainly considered.At the school level,sense of school belonging is the main factor,parenting style is considered at the family level,and positive psychological capital is mainly considered at the individual level.The results show that:(1)High school students’ academic fear is significantly correlated with cultural perception of fear,sense of school belonging,parenting style and positive psychological capital.Parental protection and rejection were significantly correlated with academic fear,and individual resilience was significantly correlated with academic fear.(2)Cultural perception of fear and parenting style can positively predict high school students’ academic fear;sense of school belonging can significantly negatively predict high school students’ academic fear.Positive psychological capital could not significantly predict academic fear,but resilience could significantly negatively predict academic fear.(3)Parenting style positively predicted cultural perception of fear;positive psychological capital plays a complete mediating role between fear culture perception and sense of school belonging;the sense of school belonging plays a partial mediating role between cultural perception of fear and academic fear of high school students.Study 4 adopted an experimental method to intervene with the academic fear of high school students.The results show that academic fear can be effectively alleviated by psychological intervention activities.Finally,this study puts forward countermeasures and suggestions based on the ecosystem theory.On the social level,the government should play a leading role in balancing educational resources,reform the evaluation system,improve the status of higher vocational education,so as to eliminate the cultural factors of academic fear.On the school level,schools should attach importance to mental health and career planning,practice the affective teaching mode,improve teachers’ psychological literacy,create new modes of parent-school,so as to help students relieve their academic fear.On the family level,parents should establish a scientific educational concept,master scientific educational methods,seek personal psychological growth,and help children overcome their academic fear.On the individual level,students should establish positive cognitive patterns,enhance self-efficacy,build positive relationships,and carry out personal psychological growth planning,so as to enhance positive psychological capital and effectively regulate academic fear.