The relationship between students’ cognitive and social and emotional development has been the subject of intensive research in recent decades. Empirical evidence has shown that social and emotional skill is an individual characteristic that is critical for counteracting the negative effects of exposure to adversity or risk (Domitrovich et al., 2017). Children who grow up in a disadvantaged background, relative to their more affluent peers, are at heightened risk for exhibiting poorer social and emotional skills (McCoy et al., 2018; Sibley et al., 2019). And they are disproportionately at risk of poor academic performance (Murry et al., 2011). Most studies have focused on how social–emotional skills affect academic attainment, however, far less is known about the reciprocal effect of academic performance on socioemotional skills.

Our analysis mainly builds on two strands of research. First, prior empirical evidence suggested that social–emotional skills and academic performance are not separable, as they mutually influence each other. One type of skill can help foster the other skills over time (Cunha and Heckman, 2007; Cunha et al., 2010). A second strand of research considers the influence mechanism among attitude, skill and behavior (Sitzmann and Yeo, 2013).

The associations between students’ academic success and their socioemotional skills have been understudied, and little is understood about the underlying mechanisms. The current study sought to test a theoretically derived structural equation model with a sample of students from low socioeconomic areas of China. The combination of the selected independent and mediational variables offered a powerful explanation for the variance in students’ social emotional outcomes in this sample. Overall, these findings extend the evidence of skill cross-productivity, whereby one type of skill can help foster other skills over time (Cunha et al., 2010). This study documents that cognitive skill is a salient predictor of non-cognitive skill in schoolchildren. Students who experienced higher academic achievement are more prone to positive socioemotional developmental outcomes is consonant with the findings of other investigations (OECD, 2015).

The findings also indicate that self-efficacy plays a significant role in mediating the positive relationship between academic achievement and socioemotional skills. This finding is consistent with social cognitive theory, which indicates that when individuals receive affirmative feedback, they may feel more competent (Bandura, 1986). Furthermore, students with high self-efficacy tend to feel motivated to engage in a task, and exhibit positive emotions in their school life (Bandura, 1997). Academic performance may be the primary source of positive feedback in schools for students from less-developed areas of China. Consequently, academic performance becomes a prominent and positive predictor of self-efficacy, which sequentially predicts socioemotional skills.

In addition, the analysis reveals that the positive effect of academic achievement on socioemotional skills is partially mediated by teacher-student relationships. This is in line with prior studies, which concluded that students who demonstrated stronger motivation and engagement received more involvement and support from their teachers (Skinner and Belmont, 1993), that the student’s academic performance influenced teacher’s perceptions of their students (Aluja-Fabregat et al., 1999) and that the teacher preferred students with higher performance (Wentzel and Asher, 1995; Kuklinski and Weinstein, 2000; Davis, 2006). This may have different implications when viewed through the lens of Chinese culture. Confucianism permeates many aspects of Chinese society, including to “produce” academically excellent students. These concepts are rooted in a cultural heritage, Chinese parents and school teachers value students’ academic performance; as a result, students who excel academically always maintain a good relationship with their parents and teachers (Dhingra and Manhas, 2009). Simultaneously, children’s interactions with their teachers can influence children’s social and emotional outcomes. The results were congruent with some previous studies in different scenarios. Harter (1999) found that children’s connections with their teachers can influence children’s self-concept, and that when teachers are affectionate, emotionally available, involved and supportive, children will acquire positive self-evaluations. Therefore, when dealing with students, teachers should instill greater self-consciousness of equity, care, non-discrimination.

Furthermore, the whole pattern of the results extends the existing interpretation of the interaction among family background, school environment, and students’ skills in general. Family environment and parents play a prominent role in shaping children’s skills is a consensus (Heckman and Kautz, 2013). School’s and teacher’s efforts might prevent children’s skills from being hampered by disadvantaged family backgrounds. Over the past half-century, western notions of education along with novel socialization goals have taken root inside urban and middle-class Chinese families, including respect for student’s curiosities and desires, highlighting individual differences, and fostering self-autonomy, while these notions do not appear to be widespread in rural and lower-class families (Kong, 2015).

To conclude, this study adds to a growing body of research concerning the linkages between academic performance and social and emotional skills, as well as the development of children from disadvantaged families.

First, a positive relationship between academic achievement and socioemotional skills was found. Increased academic performance was associated with higher self-efficacy, a better teacher-student relationship, and positive socioemotional developmental outcomes. Second, self-efficacy and teacher-student relationship partially mediated the association between academic achievement and socioemotional skills of elementary students, which will add to the literature as eastern evidence of the relationships of the existing theories. The overall pattern of the results suggests that schoolteachers play vital roles in restraining the inherent but negative influence of adverse family environments on children’s development. Hence, it appears important to encourage schools and teachers to provide students, particularly students with poor academic performance, with more comprehensive support in order to enrich social and emotional competence in primary school students in underdeveloped areas of China to bridge the gap in children’s outcomes between urban and rural areas. Because students with poor academic performance tend to have a lower level of self-efficacy and poorer relationships with teachers, they have inferior social–emotional competences. From a long-term perspective, institutions and policymakers should pay attention to both cognitive and non-cognitive skills in students with poor performance or low self-efficacy, which might buffer the loss of human capital.

Our results indicate two clear channels between academic performance and social–emotional skills. The first is through an intrapersonal characteristic--self-efficacy, the second is through an interpersonal factor--teacher-student relationship. This has implications for the design of future policies in disadvantaged regions. Improvement of students’ learning contexts means not just improving students’ performance, but also building favorable environments and teacher-student relationships, which are conducive to children’s social and emotional development for its long-lasting impact on life outcomes. Professional development and training programs can provides teachers with the necessary knowledge and skills to improve their communication, social and emotional skills, and better understand how to build positive relationships with their students (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017).

In China, for example, the governments and NGOs have implemented several teacher training programs to enhance teachers’ social–emotional learning skills. However, it is important to note that there are significant differences in educational resources across different regions, and one important aspect is the ability and effectiveness of teachers (Yang et al., 2014). And in rural areas of China, cultural expectations prioritize academic performance, which may hinder teachers’ attention to non-cognitive development of students. Therefore, training programs should be targeted at improving rural teachers’ awareness of the importance of students’ social and emotional development and enhancing their professional skills in guiding students’ social and emotional learning. This requires support from the education department, especially local education departments, to provide more assistance. At the same time, cooperation between schools and NGOs should be strengthened to provide more customized and personalized social and emotional skill learning support for schools, teachers and students.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Beijing Normal University. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin.

CH: formal analysis, data curation, writing—original draft, and writing—review and editing. XZ: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, writing—review and editing, and funding acquisition. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This study was supported by the Beijing Cihong Charity Foundation (SKHX2019491) to XZ.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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