Student Academic Engagement As a Mediator of the Relationships between Positive Peer Affiliation, Deviant Peer Affiliation, and Academic Performance in China

Background and Purpose: Peer affiliation has been considered an important determinant of student academic performance, which is one of the most significant concerns for students, especially in a Chinese context. However, most studies only focused on one type of peer affiliation. Little has been known about how positive peer affiliation and deviant peer affiliation contribute differently to academic achievement. In addition, the psychosocial mechanism between peer affiliation and student academic performance is largely unknown. Existing literature suggests that student academic engagement could be a potential mediator. Therefore, this study aims at exploring the direct effects of positive and deviant peer affiliation on academic performance among Chinese middle school students. More importantly, it examines the mediating role of student academic engagement in the abovementioned relationships.

Methods: Data were derived from the second wave of China Education Panel Studies (CEPS), which is a nationally representative survey. A random sampling strategy was used in which 438 classes were randomly selected from 112 schools in 28 county-level units in Mainland China. A total of 10096 students were included in this study. Mplus 8.0 was employed to examine the proposed theoretical model. The structural equation modeling (SEM) with maximum likelihood (ML) estimation was conducted, using the bootstrapping approach (n = 2,000).

Results: The structural equation modeling analysis results showed a good fit to the data (CFI =.977, TLI = 0.968, SRMR = 0.033, and RMSEA =.049). Both positive peer affiliation and negative peer affiliation were directly associated with student academic performance (β = .224 and β = -.089, respectively). The indirect effects of positive and negative peer affiliation on academic performance through student academic engagement were, respectively, 0.032 (SE = 0.005, CI = [0.023, 0.043], P<0.001) and -0.064 (SE = 0.011, CI = [-0.088, -0.045], P < 0.001). Taken together, positive peer affiliation, negative peer affiliation, and academic engagement accounted for 12.3% of the explained variance in student academic performance (R2 = .123).

Conclusions and Implications: This study empirically supports that positive and negative peer affiliation have both direct and indirect effects on student academic performance. Specificly, positive peer affiliation has stronger direct impacts on students academic performance, while negative peer affiliation affects academic performance through decreasing engagement. Hence, school social workers, educators, and policymakers who aim at improving student academic performance may consider developing prevention and intervention programs on creating a healthy school climate and prohibiting delinquency behaviors in school. In addition, academic engagement programs should be designed especially for those affiliated with deviant peers.