Article

School Psychology International

2015, Vol. 36(4) 393–409
It feels good to learn ! The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0143034315589649

belonging, academic spi.sagepub.com

emotions, and academic

achievement in
adolescents
Un Fong Lam
University of Macau, China

Wei-Wen Chen
University of Macau, China

Jingqi Zhang
University of Macau, China

Ting Liang
University of Macau, China

Abstract
This study examined the relationships between school belonging, academic emotions,
and academic achievement in Macau adolescents. A survey of 406 junior high school
students in Macau was used to collect information on the extent to which these stu-
dents felt accepted and respected in their schools (school belonging), the emotions they
experienced in learning (academic emotions), and their grade point averages. Path
analysis indicated that academic emotions mediated the relation between school
belonging and academic achievement. Students with a greater sense of school belonging
experienced more positive emotions (both activating and deactivating) and less negative
deactivating emotions, which in turn contributed to their academic success. A sense of
being rejected in school can affect academic achievement negatively through facilitating
negative deactivating emotions and inhibiting positive deactivating emotions.

Keywords
Academic achievement, academic emotions, school belonging

Corresponding author:
Wei-Wen Chen, Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Av. Padre Tomás Pereira Taipa, Macau, China.
Email: weiwenchen@umac.mo

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394 School Psychology International 36(4)

The growing literature on academic achievement has focused on how social and
environmental factors, including family, school, and peers, can enhance academic
performance in school. Compared to the abundance of data on the impact of
family and peers on student behavior and academic achievement, the impact of
school factors has been relatively underexplored. A small number of studies have
suggested that a sense of belonging to one’s school, the subjective sense of being
accepted, respected, and supported by other members of the school community
(Goodenow, 1993), may be a critical factor in school achievement (Anderman,
2003; Degelsmith, 2001; Goodenow, 1993; Pittman & Richmond, 2007).
However, little research has been done on how and why school belonging is related
to academic performance. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate
the underlying processes by which school belonging contributes to academic
achievement.

Belonging at school and academic achievement

A sense of belonging may be derived from an inner need to develop connections
with other people and a sense of group identity. Self-determination theory (Deci &
Ryan, 2000) posits that satisfying students’ needs for relatedness and connections
in the school context may help to maximize their motivation, engagement, and
learning (Osterman, 2000). A series of studies have shown that school belonging
may be of particular educational significance for middle-school adolescents
(Osterman, 2000). Battistich, Solomon, Watson, and Schaps (1997) suggested
that a sense of belonging was associated with a variety of positive outcomes
for students in the United States, including better social skills, motivation, and
achievement. More recent studies have also indicated that school belonging can be
linked to academic achievement (Anderman, 2002, 2003; Degelsmith, 2001;
Goodenow, 1993; Pittman & Richmond, 2007), academic attitudes and intrinsic
motivation (Anderman, 2003; Freeman, Anderman, & Jensen, 2007), self-concepts
and self-efficacy (Anderman, 2002; Pittman & Richmond, 2007), school adaptation
and satisfaction (McMahon, Parnes, Keys, & Viola, 2008; Pittman & Richmond,
2007), and academic emotions (Anderman, 2002). In a longitudinal study of US
adolescents, school belonging was also found to act as a protective factor against
risk-taking behaviors and associated outcomes, such as suicidal ideation, teen
pregnancy, and violence (Resnick et al., 1997). Adolescents who feel excluded in
school and in their peer groups and have no sense of school belonging may be more
likely to display maladaptive behaviors such as anxiety, depression, and withdra-
wal from school (Finn, 1989; Newman, Lohman, & Newman, 2007).
While findings have generally been consistent, a particularly strong association
has been found between the sense of school belonging and academic performance
(Anderman, 2003; Degelsmith, 2001; Pittman & Richmond, 2007). Conceptually,
the association between school belonging and academic performance can be under-
stood in terms of a social cognitive account of motivation. This theoretical
framework posits that the characteristics of the social context help determine the

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Lam et al. 395

extent to which an individual’s psychological needs are satisfied, which affects

subsequent perceptions and behavior. Experiencing a sense of belonging is an
important psychological process that boosts one’s inner resources. Adolescents in
the US who feel a sense of belonging in school may feel more competent, sup-
ported, and accepted in school and enjoy school more (Osterman, 2000). They may
also have more positive attitudes toward school, be more willing to participate in
school activities, and invest more in the learning process. All of these factors may
contribute to better academic performance.
However, there is still a lack of empirical research into the mechanisms
by which a sense of belonging in one’s school promotes academic achievement.
It is still unclear how a positive view of one’s school membership is related to
academic performance. Lazarus (1993) suggested that emotions make
individuals aware of important features of their environments and direct cogni-
tive processes that result in adaptive behavior. According to cognitive-motiva-
tional relational theory (Lazarus, 1993), the emotions that direct actions
and behaviors are derived from their relational meanings. An individual’s inter-
pretation of the relational meaning of a specific encounter is based on an
appraisal of the personal consequences (positive and negative) of that self-envir-
onment conjunction. It is possible that school belonging, which can be seen as a
student’s appraisal of the positive and negative aspects of his or her school
membership, may influence learning-related behavior through learning-related
emotions.

The role of academic emotions

In a study of German students, academic emotions can be defined as emotions that
are directly related to learning, classes, and academic achievement (Pekrun, Goetz,
Titz, & Perry, 2002). The concept of academic emotions is relatively new but
increasingly attracting attention in education and psychology research. However,
a review of studies on emotions related to learning and achievement revealed an
excessive focus on anxiety in this field of research (Pekrun et al., 2002). In a study
using samples of undergraduate students from both Germany and Canada, Pekrun
et al. (2002) also identified other academic emotions, including enjoyment, hope-
lessness, relief, pride, anger, anxiety, disappointment, shame, and boredom. The
full range of emotions experienced by students at school needs to be explored
further to understand the emotional diversity of academic settings.
Academic emotions can be associated with students’ thoughts, motivations, and
actions (Pekrun et al., 2002). Different emotions can influence students’ learning
and performance in different ways. According to Pekrun et al. (2002), emotions can
be classified according to valence (positive or negative) and arousal (activating or
deactivating). Four categories of academic emotion can be distinguished: Positive
activating emotions (e.g. enjoyment of learning, hope of success, pride), positive
deactivating emotions (e.g. relief, contentment, relaxation after success), negative
activating emotions (e.g. anger, anxiety, shame), and negative deactivating

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396 School Psychology International 36(4)

emotions (e.g. boredom, hopelessness). There is empirical evidence that with the
exception of relief, positive emotions such as enjoyment, hope, and pride have a
positive correlation with academic achievement. The negative deactivating emo-
tions of hopelessness and boredom have a more detrimental effect on academic
achievement than did negative activating emotions such as anxiety, anger, and
shame (Pekrun et al., 2002). Positive emotions enhance motivation and flexible
learning and thus promote academic achievement. Negative deactivating emotions
are generally harmful as they reduce motivation, distract students from learning,
and reduce the depth of task-relevant information processing. However, negative
activating emotions can be a double-edged sword. Reduced intrinsic motivation
and increases in task-irrelevant thinking as a result of negative activating emotions
may lead to low achievement. In contrast, extrinsic motivation triggered by nega-
tive activating emotions can improve academic performance, particularly when the
learning task requires relatively little cognitive flexibility and students have positive
expectations (Pekrun et al., 2002).
In line with the social cognitive perspective on human development, Pekrun
et al. (2002) proposed that students’ cognitive appraisals of academic emotions
are shaped by social and environmental factors. Empirical research into the
social and environmental antecedents of academic emotion has indicated that class-
room factors, including the quality of instruction and social affiliations in the class,
and other social factors, including support from teachers, can affect students’ aca-
demic emotions (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994; Pekrun et al., 2002; Sutton
& Wheatley, 2003; Turner, Meyer, Midgley, & Patrick, 2003). However, research
into the environmental bases of academic emotions has mostly focused on test
anxiety and been limited to the classroom context instead of considering the
school context, that is, the broader environmental context. Furthermore, the the-
oretical framework of Pekrun et al. (2002) suggested that students’ appraisals of
their social environment induce academic emotions, which in turn influence learn-
ing and achievement; in other words, Pekrun et al. (2002) proposed that academic
emotions may mediate the impact of environmental factors on students’ learning
and achievement.
Studies have shown that school belonging may be positively associated with
positive academic emotions (e.g. pride, calmness, and interest) and negatively asso-
ciated with negative academic emotions. In a study of American adolescents,
Roeser, Midgley, and Urdan (1996) found that a strong sense of school belonging
was related to greater positive school-related affect. The results of a longitudinal
study conducted in United States also indicated students who have a greater sense
of belonging to their school tend to be more optimistic and emotionally stable in
examinations, while those with less sense of belonging are more depressed and
anxious (Anderman, 2002). In sum, previous empirical studies have supported
the existence of a chain of direct relations between school belonging, academic
emotions, and academic achievement. However, little research has been done to
empirically examine the process by which students’ appraisals of their social

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Lam et al. 397

environment, such as their sense of school belonging, induce academic emotions,

which in turn influence learning and achievement. It is thus of interest to explore
how school belonging and academic emotions interact to influence academic
achievement. Based on previous literature, the present study aimed to investigate
the following research question: Do academic emotions work as a mediator in the
relation between school belonging and academic achievement in adolescents?
Students with a greater sense of school belongings were hypothesized to have
more positive academic emotions and fewer negative academic emotions, which
in turn contribute to their academic success. Furthermore, students with a greater
sense of school rejection were hypothesized to have more negative academic emo-
tions and fewer positive academic emotions, which in turn contribute to their
academic success.

Method
Participants
The present study originally recruited 513 students from 15 junior high schools in
Macau. The education system in Macau follows the 3–6–3–3–4 pattern, consisting
of three years of kindergarten, six years of primary school, three years of junior
high school, three year of senior high school, and four years of college education.
Most schools in Macau are private or subsidized. Participants were recruited from
all the main types of middle schools in Macau: Standard middle schools, girls’
middle schools, missionary schools, and non-missionary schools. The study utilized
a convenience sample. A total of 443 students completed and returned the ques-
tionnaire. The response rate was approximately 85.69%. The majority of the par-
ticipating students were selected because of the researchers’ contacts with school
teachers in eight schools. In addition, a small number of students (about 11 stu-
dents) from seven other schools participated in the study because of their personal
relationships with the researchers. All 15 schools represented in the sample are
middle-ranking or high-ranking schools in Macau. Most students in these schools
come from middle-class families. There are no differences in average parental
educational level or student age across schools. Three of the schools (home to 59
participating students) are girls’ schools.
Thirty-seven returned questionnaires were excluded as invalid (no response on
GPA or the same response to every question), leaving 406 valid completed ques-
tionnaires. The sample consisted of 229 (56.4%) female students and 177 (43.6%)
male students, with an overall mean age of 13.92 years (SD ¼ 1.32 years). All
participants signed a consent form before proceeding to complete a 15-minute
self-report questionnaire, which was administered during a regular school class.
Participation was voluntary, and participants’ anonymity was guaranteed. The
research was reviewed by an institutional review board from the University of
Macau prior to data gathering.

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398 School Psychology International 36(4)

Measures
Background information. As background, the survey requested information on age,
school, school year, gender, and maternal and paternal educational level.

Psychological sense of school membership. The study used the Chinese version of the
Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM) scale to measure students’
subjective sense of belonging to their school community. PSSM was originally
developed by Goodenow (1993) and translated into Chinese by Cheung and Hui
(2003). The Chinese version of the PSSM scale has shown good validity in Hong
Kong students (Cheung & Hui, 2003). The scale consists of 18 items rated on a five-
point Likert scale (from 1 ¼ strongly disagree to 5 ¼ strongly agree). Thirteen items
assess students’ sense of belonging to their school community; an example item is ‘I
feel like a real part of this school’. High scores indicate a higher level of school
belonging. The other five items assess students’ sense of being rejected by their
school; an example item is ‘It is hard for people like me to be accepted’. High scores
on these items indicate a higher level of school rejection. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.85
for sense of belonging and 0.65 for sense of rejection in this study. A factor analysis
was conducted to further examine the validity of the Chinese version of the PSSM
scale. A principle-components factor analysis of the 18 items, using varimax rota-
tions was conducted, with the two factors explaining 52% of the variance. All items
had primary loadings over 0.5.

Academic emotions. The Adolescent Academic Emotions Scale was used to measure
students’ emotional experiences in academic situations. The Adolescent Academic
Emotions Scale was developed in China by Dong and Yu (2007) and has shown
good validity in Chinese students (Dong & Yu, 2007). The scale includes 72 items
rated on a five-point Likert scale (from 1 ¼ strongly disagree to 5 ¼ strongly agree)
and covering two dimensions: Arousal and valence. These two dimensions give
four categories of academic emotion: Positive activating emotions (sample item:
‘I am proud of working faster than other students’), positive deactivating emotions
(sample item: ‘My academic performance is relatively stable. I feel comfortable and
relaxed’), negative activating emotions (sample item: ‘I feel anxious before exam-
inations’), and negative deactivating emotions (sample item: ‘I feel helpless about
study’). The scale covers 13 academic emotions: Pride, happiness, hope, satisfac-
tion, calmness, relief, anxiety, shame, anger, boredom, hopelessness, depression,
and fatigue. High scores indicate a higher level of emotion. Cronbach’s alphas
for the four types of academic emotion examined in the present study ranged
from 0.82 to 0.91.

Academic achievement. Students’ self-reported grade point averages (GPAs) were

used as the index of academic achievement in junior high school. GPA values in
junior high school in Macau range from 0–100 and are calculated by taking the
sum of grade points for all the courses a student has completed and dividing it

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Lam et al. 399

by the number of courses the student has completed. High scores indicate a higher
level of academic achievement.

Data analysis
The relationships between school belonging, academic emotions, and academic
achievement were examined using path analysis. Analysis was carried out using
SPSS 16.0 and Amos 17.0 (Arbuckle, 2008). With a total of 84 parameters in the
model, the subjects-to-parameter ratio was approximately 13:10. The path analysis
was examined using maximum likelihood estimation. Measures of the model’s
goodness of fit included 2, NNFI, CFI, RMSEA, and SRMR. According to
Bentler and colleagues (Bentler, 1990; Bentler & Bonett, 1980), CFI and NNFI
values larger than 0.90 and RMSEA and SRMR values lower than 0.08 (Byrne,
2010; Hu & Bentler, 1999) indicate an acceptable fit between the model and the
sample. All values were standardized before the models were evaluated.
The bootstrapping method was utilized to examine the mediating effects in the
present study. Compared to Baron and Kenny’s (1986) method, the bootstrapping
method is more reliable in small samples and when the sample data are not nor-
mally distributed (Hayes & Preacher, 2010; Preacher & Hayes, 2004). The boot-
strapping method is a non-parametric method using numerous resampling with
replacement (e.g. 1000 times). From each resampling, the indirect effect can be
computed and other statistics including a distribution, a confidence interval, or a
p value can be obtained (Preacher & Hayes, 2004). Indirect effects using bootstrap-
ping are significant if the 95% Confidence Interval (CI) does not include zero.

Results
Preliminary analyses
The Means, Standard Deviations, and correlation matrix for all variables are pre-
sented in Table 1. Independent t-tests showed that there were no gender differences
in school belonging, school rejection, positive academic emotions, negative emo-
tions, and academic achievement. However, a one-way ANOVA showed that stu-
dents’ year in school had a significant effect on academic achievement. Students in
their first year of junior high school had a significantly higher GPA than did
students in their second year (F ¼ 5.50, p < 0.01). A one-way ANOVA indicated
that neither paternal nor maternal educational level had a significant effect on
students’ academic achievement.
The initial analyses examined the direct relationships among school belonging,
academic emotions, and academic achievement (Table 1). The correlations between
the main variables and potential mediators were consistent with the previous lit-
erature. School belonging was positively correlated with academic achievement
(r ¼ 0.18, p < 0.01), and a sense of rejection was negatively correlated with aca-
demic achievement (r ¼ 0.24, p < 0.01). Positive activating and positive

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400 School Psychology International 36(4)

Table 1. Means, Standard Deviations, and correlation matrix for variables.

Measure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1. School belonging –
2. School rejection 0.52** –
3. Positive activating emotions 0.38** 0.19** –
4. Positive deactivating emotions 0.45** 0.31** 0.46** –
5. Negative activating emotions 0.15** 0.25** 0.16** 0.46** –
6. Negative deactivating emotions 0.36** 0.42** 0.23** 0.61** 0.66** –
7. Academic achievement 0.18** 0.24** 0.29** 0.43** 0.21** 0.35** –
M 3.23 2.66 3.58 3.05 3.41 3.03 72.28
SD 0.64 0.72 0.59 0.69 0.71 0.73 10.40
**p < 0.01.

deactivating emotions were positively correlated with academic achievement

(r ¼ 0.28 and r ¼ 0.43, respectively, both p < 0.01). Negative activating and negative
deactivating emotions were negatively correlated with academic achievement
(r ¼ 0.21 and r ¼ 0.35, respectively, both p < 0.01). School belonging was posi-
tively correlated with positive activating and deactivating emotions (r ¼ 0.38 and
r ¼ 0.44, respectively, both p < 0.01) and negatively correlated with negative acti-
vating and deactivating emotions (r ¼ 0.15 and r ¼ 0.36, respectively, both
p < 0.01). A sense of rejection was positively correlated with negative activating
and deactivating emotions (r ¼ 0.25 and r ¼ 0.42, respectively, both p < 0.01) and
negatively correlated with positive activating and deactivating emotions(r ¼ 0.19
and r ¼ 0.31, respectively, both p < 0.01).

Testing the mediating effect of academic emotions

Path analysis was performed to investigate the mediating effect of academic emo-
tions on the relationship between school belonging and academic achievement. The
result of the path analysis is presented in Figure 1. The model demonstrated accep-
table fit: 2 ¼ 6.42; df ¼ 2; CFI ¼ 0.99; TLI ¼ 0.95; NFI ¼ 0.99; RMSEA ¼ 0.074
(90% CI [0.013, 0.141]); GFI ¼ 0.99; and SRMR ¼ 0.014. School belonging was
related to academic achievement through the mediators of positive activating emo-
tions and negative deactivating emotions. School rejection was related to academic
achievement through the mediators of negative deactivating emotions and positive
deactivating emotions. School belonging was positively associated with positive
activating emotions (b ¼ 0.38, p < 0.001) and positive deactivating emotions
(b ¼ 0.39, p < 0.001) and negatively associated with negative deactivating emotions
(b ¼ 0.20, p < 0.001). School rejection was positively associated with negative
activating emotions (b ¼ 0.23, p < 0.001) and negative deactivating emotions

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Lam et al. 401

Figure 1. Path analysis of the full mediation of the effects of school belonging and school
rejection on academic achievement by academic emotions (all coefficients are the standardized
solution).
*p < 0.05; ***p < 0.001; ns ¼ nonsignificant.

(b ¼ 0.32, p < 0.001) and negatively associated with positive deactivating emotions
(b ¼ 0.10, p < 0.05). Positive activating emotions (b ¼ 0.13, p < 0.05) and positive
deactivating emotions (b ¼ .27, p < 0.001) were positively associated with academic
achievement, whereas negative deactivating emotions were negatively associated
with academic achievement (b ¼ 0.17, p < 0.05). The structural model accounted
for 21% of the variance in academic achievement.
Next, the mediating effects were examined using the bootstrapping approach
(Hayes & Preacher, 2010) (Table 2). The indirect effect (3.03) of school belonging
on academic achievement through positive activating emotions, positive deactivat-
ing emotions, and negative deactivating emotions was significant at the p < 0.001
level using the bootstrapped estimate (90% CI with 1,000 resamples [2.329, 3.931]).
The bootstrapped estimate of the indirect effect (1.138) of school rejection on
academic achievement through positive deactivating emotions and negative deac-
tivating emotions was also significant at the p < 0.01 level (90% CI with 1,000
resamples [1.828, 0.478]).

Discussion
The existing body of research has mostly focused on the chain of direct relation-
ships between school belonging, academic emotions, and academic performance.

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402 School Psychology International 36(4)

Table 2. Indices in the Bootstrapping.

Causal Indirect Lower Upper Two-tailed

variable Mediators Outcome effect bounds bounds Significance

School Positive Academic 3.03 2.329 3.931 p < 0.001

belonging activating emotions Achievement
Positive
deactivating emotions
Negative
deactivating emotions
School Positive Academic 1.138 1.828 0.478 p < 0.01
rejection deactivating emotions Achievement
Negative
deactivating emotion

No previous studies have investigated how school belonging and academic emo-
tions interact to improve students’ academic performance or sought to identify
potential mediating effects involving these three variables. This study has extended
previous research by looking at school belonging together with the four types of
academic emotions to explore how they contribute to academic success. Our find-
ings fill a gap in the literature by examining the mediating effects of academic
emotions in the relation between school belonging and academic achievement
among junior high school students. The findings can be also situated within a
self-determination framework and reveal how several socio-cognitive factors (e.g.
self-efficacy, student engagement, need for psychological relatedness) can be linked
to the variables of interest and contribute to students’ academic outcomes.
The results showed that the relationship between school belonging and academic
achievement was mediated by academic emotions. According to Pekrun and
Linnenbrink-Garcia (2012), academic emotions were found to profoundly influence
academic engagement and performance in Germany. Academic emotions
have been shown to impact academic achievement and various types of student
engagement, including cognitive (attention and memory processes), motivational
(intrinsic and extrinsic motivation), behavioral (effort and persistence), and cogni-
tive-behavioral (strategy use and self-regulation) engagement (Pekrun &
Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012). The results of the present study further argue that
school belongingness can be one of the important sources of students’ academic
emotions, which subsequently exert influences on various types of academic
engagement and performance.
Students with a greater sense of school belonging have more positive emotions
(both activating and deactivating) and fewer negative deactivating emotions, which
in turn contribute to their academic success. Research conducted by Roeser et al.
(1996) in the United States is consistent with this result. Although they did not

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Lam et al. 403

examine academic emotions empirically, they argued that greater school belonging
may make students feel more positive about school life and give them greater
emotional stability, such that they can relax and enjoy learning and thus improve
their academic performance. As shown in the present study, students who feel more
accepted and connected in school are more likely to experience positive academic
emotions, including pride, happiness, hope, satisfaction, calmness, and relaxation.
According to Pekrun, Elliot, and Maier (2009), positive learning-related emotions
can stimulate deeper cognitive processing as well as creative thinking and motivate
students to attempt difficult academic challenges, which in turn may enhance aca-
demic performance.
In addition, according to self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2002), indi-
viduals can be self-motivated and initiate their behaviors without any external
influence when three psychological needs are satisfied, including the need for com-
petence, the need for autonomy, and the need for relatedness. The positive activat-
ing and deactivating emotions derived from a greater sense of school belonging can
satisfy students’ needs for competence and boost individuals’ self-efficacy.
Kavanagh and Bower (1985) examined the relation between mood and self-efficacy
in Australia and found that those who are in a joyful mood are more likely to have
a positive efficacy judgment about themselves in interpersonal and athletic
domains. A greater sense of school belonging and positive academic emotions
may work together to create a positive appraisal of their own learning abilities,
which consequently contribute to student academic success. Future research may
consider exploring how self-efficacy may interact with school belonging and emo-
tions experienced in school and subsequently influence students’ academic and non-
academic outcomes.
In addition, students who feel connected and accepted in school are also less
likely to experience negative deactivating emotions, including helplessness, fatigue,
boredom, and depression, the lack of which may also enhance their academic
success. Goodenow and Grady (1993) showed that students’ sense of school
belonging was correlated with both their friends’ academic values and their own
academic motivation. Students who feel they belong in their schools may tend to be
acquainted mostly with peers who support mainstream values related to motivation
and achievement. Learning with peers who share the same sense of membership
may not only make students less likely to experience negative deactivating emo-
tions (e.g. it may shield them from feeling bored, helpless, or tired), but also
reinforce positive attitudes toward learning, which subsequently lead to better
academic achievement. In addition, the lower level of negative deactivating emo-
tions derived from a greater sense of school belonging can also be linked to stu-
dents’ need for relatedness in self-determination theory. The subjective sense of
being accepted and supported by other members of the school community strength-
ens the membership students share with their peers and satisfies their need for
relatedness. Similar to the mechanism of attachment theory, such feeling of con-
nectedness in school may create an emotional bonding and subsequently leads to
optimal functions and growth. The emotional bonding between students and their

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404 School Psychology International 36(4)

peers enables students to feel less helpless, bored, and depressed, which conse-
quently motivates them to have greater academic engagement and have better
academic achievement.
A sense of being rejected in school can contribute to academic achievement
negatively through facilitating negative deactivating emotions and inhibiting posi-
tive deactivating emotions. In other words, students who feel rejected in school are
more likely to feel tired, helpless, bored, and depressed and less likely to feel
satisfied, calm, and relaxed while learning, tendencies that in turn may undermine
their academic performance. Consistent with our findings, research has shown that
students who feel rejected in school often feel depressed and helpless while learning
because of social isolation (Buhs & Ladd, 2001; Buhs, Ladd, & Herald, 2006),
and they tend to have low academic achievement (Bellmore, 2011; Coie, 1990;
Hinshaw, 1992; Masten et al., 2005). In addition, according to Pekrun’s (2000,
2006) control-value theory of achievement emotions, individuals’ appraisals of
the extent of their own control over achievement activities and their outcomes
are critical for the arousal of academic emotions. Feeling rejected in school
may undermine students’ cognitive appraisal of their control over learning-related
tasks because of their perception of a lack of support from their peers and
teachers in school, and this perceived lack of support may subsequently disturb
the positive and stable emotional states (e.g. calm or satisfied) that are helpful for
academic achievement.
From the perspective of self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2002), such
perceived lack of control and social isolation due to a greater sense of rejection in
school implies the failure to satisfy the psychological needs for relatedness and for
autonomy. Those who feel rejected in school fail to develop relatedness and con-
nectedness with their peers and school members, and they tend to have low perso-
nal agency due to the lack of care and support they received in school. Failure to
meet the needs for relatedness and autonomy can make students more likely to feel
bored, depressed, and helpless, and less likely to feel calm and satisfied
while learning, which in turn lead to lower engagement and academic performance.
Future studies may consider investigating the level of relatedness and autonomy
students perceived in school to further clarify the role of psychological needs in the
relation between school belonging (and also school rejection), academic emotions,
and academic achievement. It should be noted that although a sense of
school rejection can also be linked to students’ negative deactivating emotions,
including anxiety, shame, and anger, those emotions did not relate to their aca-
demic performance. This finding is consistent with the literature suggesting a
mixed effect of negative activating emotions on students’ learning and academic
achievement. Lack of belonging in school may make students feel anxious
(Anderman, 2002). However, such negative activating emotions can sometimes
trigger extrinsic motivation (e.g. to strive for progress with determination) and
improve academic performance (Pekrun et al., 2002), as indicated by the weak
but positive correlation between negative activating emotions and academic
achievement in our results.

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Lam et al. 405

Limitations and implications

Several limitations of the present study should be noted. First, academic achieve-
ment was an important variable in this research, but there may be variation among
schools. Although GPA is believed to be a good indicator of students’ overall
academic performance compared with single-subject test scores (Fan & Chen,
2001), it nonetheless has its flaws. The operation of GPA may vary as a result of
differences in educational policy or simply differences in evaluation standards. The
assessment of our dependent variable was not standardized, which may lead to an
inaccurate or invalid reflection of academic performance in this sample of Macau
students. In addition, the self-reported nature of the data may be also subject to
common method variance. Further studies should use more objective criteria, such
as scores on standardized tests, as an index of academic achievement.
Second, the convenience sampling method was another weakness in the design
of this study. Participants attended different schools, and the number of partici-
pants in each school varied. Unlike a study using random sampling, the present
study did not capture a representative set of schools and students across different
school backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. This unrepresentative sampling
method makes generalization of our findings problematic. For example, as a con-
sequence of the characteristics of the sample, the findings may apply primarily to
students from middle-class families who study in middle-ranking or high-ranking
junior high schools. However, our study was grounded in the international litera-
ture, and we discussed our findings based on research across national boundaries.
Therefore, we believe that the results derived from the present study can provide
several important insights for educators and school psychologists internationally. It
is also important to note that ours was a cross-sectional study, so the findings
support no conclusions about causality. The results demonstrate only that the
relationship between school belonging and academic achievement was mediated
by academic emotions. Further research using a longitudinal design or more rigid
statistical methods, such as structural equation modeling, is recommended to inves-
tigate the causal mechanism by which school belonging influences academic
achievement through its association with academic emotions.
The findings of the present study suggest some practical implications. Teachers
and school principals should try to create a school environment in which students
feel supported, respected, and accepted by other members of the school commu-
nity. A positive perception of their school environment may help students develop
positive emotions (e.g. happiness, pride, satisfaction) and reduce negative emotions
(e.g. helplessness, depression) while learning, which eventually contributes to their
academic performance. By fostering a more positive atmosphere in the school and
the learning environment, teachers may be able to help students experience more
positive emotions while learning, which in turn supports their academic success.
The relations between school belonging, academic emotions, and academic
achievement found in the present study can also be situated in the self-determina-
tion framework. School belonging and academic emotions can work together to

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406 School Psychology International 36(4)

meet individuals’ three important psychological needs, including the need for com-
petence, the need for relatedness, and the need for autonomy (Deci & Ryan, 2002).
Satisfying these three innate psychological needs can motivate individuals to initi-
ate behaviors voluntarily, and help to maximize their engagement and learning
(Osterman, 2000). As a result, when students feel accepted and connected in
school, they may experience more positive emotions while learning, and have
greater engagement and achievement, because the sense of school belonging
students perceived encourages them to engage into learning intrinsically and in a
self-driven way. Future research may further pinpoint the specific type of academic
emotions that may play a particularly important role in the relation between school
belonging and academic achievement. Moreover, research should examine how
school belonging and the emotions students experience in school work together
to impact their non-academic domains, such as their peer relationships and psy-
chological adjustment.

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Lam et al. 409

Author biographies
Lam Un Fong, MEd, is a Graduate of the School Counselling at the Faculty of
Education, University of China, Macau. Her research focuses on adolescents’ well-
being, emotional adaptability, and behavioural problems. She is now a Student
Counsellor in a high school in Macau.

Wei-Wen Chen, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Education,

University of Macau, China. Her research focuses on how cultural and familial
factors, such as filial piety beliefs, impact college students’ learning and adaptation.

Jing Q. Zhang is a Master Student in School Counselling within the Faculty of

Education, University of Macau, China. She is now an Intern Counsellor at
University of Macau, Macau. Her research focuses on the effect of young adults’
family relations on their social and romantic relationships, as well as the influence
of parenting quality on children’s developmental outcomes.

Ting Liang is a Master Student in School Counselling within the Faculty of

Education, University of Macau, China. Her research mainly focus on the relation
between career adaptability and the career identity. She is now an intern in the
Future Study and Placement Center at the University of Macau.

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