本文以「台灣教育長期追蹤資料庫」(Taiwan Education Panel Survey)高中職五專(二年級)學生及其父(母)第一波的資料,探討青少年學生的心理健康與教育成就的壓力之間的關係。結果發現,學習成就與心理健康問題的症狀之間呈現曲線相關(curvilinear relationship),但主要是線性部分在主導,學習成就愈高,心理健康愈不佳,至學習成就頗高時,兩者負相關的趨勢才漸平緩而幾乎停滯,僅於尾端稍稍上揚。而學生自己的高教育期望,對心理健康會有直接與間接的負面影響,且影響最大;家長本身的期望亦有些許直接影響,但影響力較弱。而青少年的學業自信,經排除成就本身所付出的代價,及期待所帶來的壓力後,顯現出對心理健康的正面影響。
This article investigated the relationship between adolescents' educational achievement pressure and their mental health, the stress and joy caused by the heightened value of educational achievement. I used the first wave senior high school student and parent data sets of Taiwan Education Panel Survey, which were collected in autumn of 2001 when the students were in the 11th grade. Analyses revealed a slightly curvilinear relationship (dominated most of the time by the linear term) between the mental health and the academic achievement, with higher achievement continuing to be associated with worse mental health until the achievement was high, where the downward trend stopped and curved up only very slightly. In addition, the data showed evidence of high expectation's negative effects on mental health, with effects of high expectation partially mediated by academic achievement. Specially, students' own high educational expectation had both direct and indirect negative effects on mental health, while the negative effect of parental high expectation was reduced but remained significant when academic achievement was controlled. Compared with parental expectation, students' own expectation had stronger effects. Finally, after controlling for academic achievement and self and parental expectations, high academic self-esteem was found positively related to mental health.