班主任心理健康培训对初中生心理健康状况的影响

The Impact of Mental Health Training for Class Headteachers on Middle School Students’ Mental Health

我国居民的心理健康问题日趋严重,居民心理健康问题不仅对自身生活有负面影响,并且还会给国家经济发展和社会进步带来沉重的负担。而大多数心理健康问题起始于青少年学生时代,因此关注学校心理健康教育,尤其是在学校与学生联系最密切的班主任心理健康培训情况,对于改善学生心理健康以及提高我国居民心理健康素质具有重要的意义。文章使用中国教育追踪调查数据,研究班主任心理健康培训对初中生心理健康状况的影响。通过利用初中生随机分班的样本克服内生性问题,文章研究发现,接受过心理健康培训的班主任,其所在班级内初中生的不良心理状况得分可降低0.22个标准差。基于分位数回归的结果显示,班主任心理健康培训更有利于帮助心理健康存在严重问题的初中生缓解心理健康问题。机制分析表明,班主任心理健康培训对初中生心理健康状况产生积极影响主要是通过改善师生关系的渠道,且师生关系的改善解释了大约39%-40%的影响效应。文章研究结果表明,学校应该积极组织班主任参加心理健康培训,担任班主任的教师也应该积极参与此类培训,以帮助减少初中生的心理健康问题。

In recent years, China has witnessed an increase in severe mental health problems among its citizens. Citizens’ mental health problems not only have an adverse impact on their own lives, but also impose a heavy burden on the country’s economic development and social progress. Most mental health problems begin in adolescence and may evolve into more serious psychological illnesses. Besides, many students’ mental health problems originate from schools. Therefore, paying attention to school mental health education, especially the mental health training for class headteachers who have the closest contact with students in the school, is of great importance for improving the mental health of students and even the mental health of residents.This paper uses the 2014-2015 Chinese Education Panel Survey(CEPS) data to investigate the effect of mental health training for class headteachers on middle students’ mental health. We overcome the endogenous problem by exploiting the random assignment of students to classrooms within middle schools. The results show that class headteachers with mental health training can reduce students’ negative mental health scores by0.22 standard deviations. Moreover, the results based on the quantile regressions suggest that mental health training for headteachers is more conducive to helping middle school students with severe mental health problems improve their mental health. Furthermore, mechanism analysis presents that mental health training for class headteachers has a positive effect on middle students’ mental health by improving the teacher-student relationship. About 39-40 percent of the impact of mental health training for middle school teachers can be attributed to the improvement of teacher-student relationship.This paper may have the following contributions: First, despite the growing literature on the role of teachers’ characteristics in shaping students’ human capital, there is still a lack of empirical research on the impact of mental health training for teachers, especially class headteachers, on the mental health of students. This paper contributes to previous literature by providing a novel perspective on whether mental health training for class headteachers benefits students’ mental health. Additionally, it identifies the causal effect of mental health training for class headteachers by exploiting the random assignment of students to classrooms. Second, this paper investigates the potential mechanism of mental health training for class headteachers on middle school students’ mental health from three aspects: class headteachers’ teaching method, teaching style, and teacher-student relationship. In summary, this paper fills in the gaps in the existing literature regarding teachers’ characteristics in shaping students’ human capital.This paper provides policy implications for school and class headteachers to reduce the mental health problems of middle school students. The results suggest that schools should actively organize class headteachers to participate in mental health training. Meanwhile, in addition to focusing on students’ test scores, class headteachers should take the initiative to receive mental health training, pay more attention to students’ mental health problems, and improve their relationships with students.