Adolescent mental health and academic achievement: a correlational study of twelfth-grade students in a high-performing public senior high school in Jayapura city, Papua

Abstract

Adolescents' mental health generally influences academic accomplishment, but limited research about the eastern part of Indonesia and varying school environments are reported. Our research focused on adolescent psychological health and academic performance among twelve grade students in a top public senior high school located in Jayapura City, Papua, using a quantitative correlational approach. Cluster random sampling selected nine out of twelve whole classes of students from a 480-students cohort, resulting in 132 participants. Mental health was assessed by a 28-item, 4-point Likert type questionnaire including emotional health, psychological health, social health, and not having mental illness symptoms. Academic achievement was the average of grades recorded in report-cards. Data were normally checked and then correlation was done by Pearson product-moment (SPSS 23). The relationship was very weak and statistically insignificant, r = 0.025, p =.778. This means less that one percent variance is shared between two variables and the hypothesis was rejected. These results imply in a select population with high academic performance, such an association may have been diluted due to limitation of variance and also by some mediating processes that were not included in the model, and school counselling program could justify its existence on the student wellbeing basis alone rather than on the grades increase that are expected as a consequence of better mental health.