Abstract
Perception of friendship quality has been shown to be a key ingredient for children’s mental health, however, less is known about how the learning environment might impact these relations. This study investigated how children’s perceptions of friendship quality are related to their mental health (i.e., satisfaction with life and depressive symptoms) and whether school goal structures are potential moderators for these relations in a sample of elementary school children. A sample of 423 fourth-grade students (Mage = 10.85, 46.33% boys) and their teachers (N = 24) participated in the study. Children filled out questionnaires assessing friendship quality, satisfaction with life, and depressive symptoms. Teachers completed a scale evaluating their perception of the school goal structures. Results indicated that children who reported high positive friendship quality were more satisfied with their lives, whereas children who reported high levels of negative friendship quality experienced lower levels of life satisfaction and higher levels of depressive symptoms. School mastery goal structures reported by teachers moderated the relation between children’s perception of friendship quality and their depressive symptoms and life satisfaction. Further, school performance goal structures reported by teachers moderated the relation between children’s perception of negative friendship quality and their depressive symptoms. The results seem to suggest that the effects of mastery goal structure are not always positive, whereas a performance goal structure might sometimes be beneficial for students’ mental health.
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Data Availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on request.
Notes
Children could nominate any colleague from their class, including children who did not consent to participate in the study, which calls into question the utility of computing whether children’s best friendship nomination was reciprocated by their peers. Thus, in this study we focused on children’s perception of friendship, regardless of whether the friendship was reciprocated or not. Our decision is also grounded in previous literature revealing that the relation between children’s perception of unilateral friendship and their mental health is as strong as the relation between peer’s reciprocal nominations and children’s mental health (Schwarz-Mette et al., 2020).
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This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research, CNCS - UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2020-2963, within PNCDI III.
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This work was funded by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research (CNCS-UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2020-2963, within PNCDI III).
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Diaconu-Gherasim, L.R., Nicuță, E.G., Crumpei-Tanasă, I. et al. Perception of Friendship Quality and Mental Health: School Goal Structures as Moderators. School Mental Health 15, 1003–1016 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-023-09601-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-023-09601-1