CORRELATIONS BETWEEN ENGLISH PERFORMANCE AND MENTAL HEALTH OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°1, 931-936

DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.128 931

C

ORRELATIONS BETWEEN

E

NGLISH

P

ERFORMANCE AND

M

ENTAL

H

EALTH OF

C

OLLEGE

S

TUDENTS

Hang Guo

Abstract

The mental health education is fundamental to the healthy development of college students. This paper aims to identify the correlations between English performance and mental health of college students. First, the basic theories on mental health were reviewed and a five-factor model was introduced to measure the English performance. Then, a questionnaire survey was carried out to assess mental health of college students and identify its influencing factors. After that, the English performance of the respondents were evaluated based

on the scores from the school’s education administration system. The results on mental health were compared with those on English performance to reveal the correlations between English performance and mental health. The results show that more than 80% of college students recognize the importance of concentrating on their studies; the mental health of college students are generally resilient and on the medium level; the mental health is directly proportional to resilience; English performance has a significant correlation with each factor of mental health; the mental health is responsible for a 5% change in English scores. The research results help to promote the mental health and English learning of college students.

Key words: Mental Health, English Learning, Academic Emotion, English Performance. Received: 14-01-19 | Accepted: 07-08-19

INTRODUCTION

Individual development in all-around way and academic performance are interdependent, interpenetrative and build on one another. They are not substantive but supplement each other in the education and learning process (Masillo, Brandizzi, Nelson et al., 2016). Mental health can promote the cerebral development, so that it lays a sound material foundation for humans to engage in intellectual activities. Improving mental health can also stimulate the development of intellectual factors such as individual outsight, memory, imagination and thinking ability (Saraceno & Barbui, 2016). Students who develop a good mental health have a diverse range of hobbies, strong curiosity,

1_{School of Educational Science, South China Normal}

University, Guangzhou 510631, China. 2_{Guangzhou College}

of Commerce, Guangzhou 510631, China. E-Mail: [email protected]

and desire for knowledge, can continue to absorb new knowledge, discover new problems, take the initiative to absorb new information, and be creative and try new learning areas and methods of interest. Further, unhealthystudents lack positive interest in new knowledge and information, and are accustomed to getting in a groove, not good at absorbing new knowledge and learning methods (Fuligni, Arruda, Krull et al., 2017; Brannlund, Strandh, & Nilsson, 2017). Students' English learning and mental fitness are intertwined. English learning requires students to have keen interests, correct motivation and strong will, represented by the interests, motivation, emotion, will, morality and personality in English learning (Sabia & Rees, 2015).

The English examinations for college students in our country are constantly changing in content, form, scoring manner and standard. Now English learning holds a status that cannot be ignored. It is required to make full use of

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school resources to facilitate students' English learning, further encourage students to reach the international development level by English

learning, and strengthen the students’ education

system (Henderson & Battams, 2011; Desilva, Samele, Saxena et al., 2014). If students have no good mental health, English learning is not good since sound mental health can resist the English learning pressure. It is self-evident to improve English learning (Besier & Goldbeck, 2012). This paper introduces a comparison based on the psychological health test and the English learning scores of college students to analyze how English academic performance is subjected to change with students' mental health.

STUDENTS' MENTAL HEALTH AND ENGLISH LEARNING SCALE

Figure 1

.

Survey on the development field of

college students

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Field of college students'development

Peer relationship Adaptability Personality Mental

health Behavior School

work

Imp

o

rt

a

n

c

e

in

d

e

x

The mental health status of students is subject to the psychological environment, including internal quality and explicit behaviors. It is possible to check the development of students' autonomy and psychological environment by means of questionnaire survey (Nezhad & Besharat, 2010). The mental fitness of students is inseparable from their psychological environment since the latter factor has a positive

effect on personality development, academic development, behavioral habits, adaptability, mental health and peer relations of students (Bickman, Lyon, & Wolpert, 2016; Bentley, Hartley, & Bucci, 2019). The survey on students' fields of interest is shown in Figure 1. More than 80% of students still think that they should concentrate on academics, while more than 25% believe that they should develop healthy psychological conditions.

Figure 2

.

Five-factor model of college

students' learning autonomy scale

Learning

autonomy

Self-willingness

self-plan

Self-control

Self-reflection

Learning creativity

The mental health status of students is significant for students to learn knowledge and skills, enrich their emotions, create good attitudes and values, and develop good behavior habits (Ishii, Tachikawa, Shiratori et al., 2018). Figure 2 is a five-factor model of students' autonomy scale, i.e. independent will, self-plan, self-monitoring, self-reflection and learning creativity used to assess students' learning.

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

Factors influencing psychological fitness of students

There are many factors that influence the mental health of students, but the most important thing is the psychological environment the students hold, including teacher-student relationship, classmate relation, family ties, competition, academic burden and order discipline (Marino, Vieno, Lenzi et al., 2016). To reveal these factors, this questionnaire survey is conducted among sophomore students in a university for the purpose of exposing the disparities in the mental health dimension between students of different genders and in

CORRELATIONS BETWEEN ENGLISH PERFORMANCE AND MENTAL HEALTH OF COLLEGE STUDENTS 933

different family backgrounds. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed and 455 were available. The descriptive statistics in the dimensions of students' mental health are given in Table 1. It is known that the average score of the mental health scale of students is 3.37, which means that overall mental health is at a medium level; the average score of the hope dimension in the mental health is the maximum, followed by the self-efficacy, optimism dimensions, and the dimension with the minimum score is resilience. Table 2 shows the differences in the dimensions of mental health among students of different genders. It is obvious that there is no difference between men and women in the optimism dimension, but obvious difference in the self-efficacy, resilience and hope dimensions. The scores of boys are significantly higher than that of girls. Table 3 shows the disparities in the different dimensions of mental health among students who have different economic positions. There are disparities in the self-efficacy dimension between boys and girls, where the self-efficacy of boys is stronger. However, there is no significant disparities in the resilience, hope and optimism dimensions.

There are many factors that influence the mental health of students. It is allowed to evaluated from negative dimensions such as coercion, paranoia, hostility and interpersonal relationship of mental health. The mental health

scale of students in each dimension is given in Figure 3. It is observed that the coercion and emotional lability has a significantly negative influence on the mental health of students.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics of various

dimensions of college students' mental health

Questionnaire dimension Min Max M SD

Self-efficacy 1.09 5.09 3.46 0.72

Toughness 1.42 4.76 3.13 0.66

Hope 1.76 5.09 3.48 0.67

Optimistic 1.59 5.09 3.41 0.67

Aggregate table 1.72 4.55 3.37 0.52

Figure 3

.

Survey on the development field of

college students

1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 2.0

Psychological imbalance Emotional instability Maladjustment Learning pressure Anxious Depressed Interpersonal relationship Hostile Paranoia Force

Average mental health

Table 2.

Differences in the dimensions of mental health among college students of different

genders

Questionnaire dimension Male Female t p

M SD M SD

Self-efficacy 3.52 0.73 3.42 0.71 2.00 0.066

Toughness 3.20 0.68 3.08 0.64 2.45 0.028

Hope 3.62 0.64 3.39 0.68 4.81 0.009

Optimistic 3.41 0.65 3.40 0.68 0.32 0.828

Aggregate table 3.44 0.51 3.32 0.52 3.24 0.011

Table 3.

Difference analysis of different economic conditions of college students in different

dimensions of mental health

Questionnaire dimension Not good General Better F p

M SD M SD M SD

Self-efficacy 3.52 0.70 3.44 0.73 3.56 0.67 1.42 0.273

Toughness 3.48 0.58 3.47 0.68 3.52 0.65 0.31 0.81

Hope 3.08 0.74 3.11 0.66 3.25 0.63 2.08 0.147

Optimistic 3.44 0.66 3.39 0.66 3.52 0.70 1.79 0.192

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Statistical results of mental health resilience and academic performance

Figure 4

.

Analysis of college students'

mental health toughness

2.8 3.0 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4.0 Mental toughness Positive cognition Emotional control Family support Interpersonal assistance Target focus A v er ag e 0.55 0.60 0.65 0.70 0.75 0.80 0.85 0.90 S ta n d ar d d ev ia ti o n

The mental health status of students is resilient. The mental fitness is directly proportional to the mental health resilience. There is a significant correlation between students' English performance and psychological resilience, positive and negative academic emotions. For the mental health resilience of students, the questionnaire survey in Section 3.1 should be used. As shown in Figure 4, students' mental health resilience is analyzed. There are several dimensions for mental health resilience of students including target focusing, interpersonal assistance, family support, emotional control and positive cognition. The mean value of all scores is 3.44, which means the psychological resilience is at the upper-middle level. On the whole, the psychological resilience level is higher. In addition, in the resilience dimension, the positive cognition and target focusing dimensions have the maximum mean scores, followed by the emotional control and interpersonal assistance dimensions, but the family support dimension has the minimum score. The students' current emotions in English learning are shown in Figure 5. In this dimension, there are positive-high arousal, positive-low arousal, negative-high arousal and negative-low arousal. It can be clearly seen that the average score of positive academic emotion is significantly higher than that of the opposite

side. Students’ current inputs in English learning

are shown in Table 4. Their inputs should be measured by three variables: vitality, dedication and focus. The mean value of learning inputs by

the three variables are different a little, the maximum is by the dedication, followed by the focus and vitality.

Table 4.

The status quo of college students'

English learning investment

Variable Average value Standard deviation

Vitality 3.40 0.81

Dedication 3.72 0.79

Concentration 3.59 0.87

Figure 5

.

Current situation of college

students' English learning emotion

2.4 2.6 2.8 3.0 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4.0

Negative high wake up Negative low wake up Actively low wake up

Actively high wake up

English learning emotions

A v er ag e v al u e 0.64 0.66 0.68 0.70 0.72 0.74 S ta n d ar d d ev ia ti o n

CORRELATION ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS' ENGLISH PERFORMANCE AND MENTAL HEALTH

The English scores of students are taken from students' English test scores available from the school's educational administration system. The mental health level of students is taken from questionnaire survey. Figure 6 is a correlation analysis between mental health indicators and English scores. It can be seen that there is a significant correlation between English scores and each dimension of mental health. The regression analysis of mental health indicators and English scores is shown in Figure 5. Students’

English scores are subjected to their mental health. In the regression model, R2 _{is 0.05, which} means that the mental health of students can respond to 5% change of students' English scores.

Figure 7 is the relationship between students' mental health and their English learning, including students' English learning autonomy, psychological environment features and mental health. Mental fitness can lead students to learn

CORRELATIONS BETWEEN ENGLISH PERFORMANCE AND MENTAL HEALTH OF COLLEGE STUDENTS 935

independently, autonomic behavior, autonomous atmosphere, self-monitoring to develop their learning interest. In order to improve students' English performance, we can enhance the mental health resilience of

students, concern their psychological education to create a good atmosphere for their psychological development.

Table 5.

Regression analysis of mental health indicators and English achievements

Dependent variable

Independent variable

Non-standardized coefficient

Standardized coefficient

R2 _{p F}

B Standard error Beta

Total score Mental health index -0.55 0.22 0.17 0.05 0.01 7.62

Figure 6

.

Correlation analysis between mental health indicators and English scores

0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.20 0.22 0.24 0.26 0.28

Peer intimacy

Honest

Joint activity

Attachment

Trust loyalty

Understanding sensitivity

Share giving

Correlation

Figure 7

.

The relationship between college students' mental health and college students' English

learning

The relationship between college students' mental

health and college students' English learning

College students' autonomy in English learning

Psychological environment characteristics

The effect of mental health on English learning

Learning autonomy dimension

Influencing factors of learning autonomy

Teacher-student relationship, classmate relationship, order and discipline, competition, academic burden

Teacher-student relationship

Classmate relationship

Order and discipline

Competition

Academic burden

Self-willingness, self-plan, self-control, self-reflection, Learning creativity

Family, social, individual and class factors

Leading factors of autonomous learning

Driving factors of autonomous behavior

Creative factors of autonomous atmosphere

Motivation factors of autonomous monitoring

Inhibitory factors of learning interest

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CONCLUSION

This paper makes a comparison based on the mental health test and English learning scores of students to analyze how the English academic performance is subjected to students' mental health. Here come specific conclusions:

(1) The questionnaire survey shows that the overall mental health of students falls into a medium level, and the dimension of hope in the mental health gets the maximum mean score. There are significant gaps in the self-efficacy, resilience and hope dimensions between boys and girls, and the scores of boys are significantly higher than those of girls.

(2) The mental health level of students is directly proportional to the mental health resilience. There is a significant correlation between students' English learning scores and psychological resilience, positive and negative academic emotions. The questionnaire survey shows that the psychological resilience of students is at the upper-middle level, and the overall level of psychological resilience is higher. In addition, in the resilience dimension, the average scores of positive cognition and target concentration dimensions are the maximum, followed by the emotional control and interpersonal assistance dimensions, but in family support dimension, the score is the minimum.

(3) There is a significant correlation between English performance and each dimension of

mental fitness. It is certain that students’ English

scores are subjected to their mental health level which can responds to 5% change in students' English scores.

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