Abstract: In order to study the influence of junior middle school students’ gratitude status on academic achievement and to study the role performed by academic emotions, the research investigates the students of grade 1 and grade 2 from two junior middle schools with Junior Student Gratitude Questionnaire and Teenagers Academic Emotions Questionnaire, and makes a relevant analysis with their academic achievement on Chinese, English, and Mathematics. The results show that (1) Gratitude in junior middle school students show a pronounced positive tendency, and the scores of the girl students is significantly higher than that of the boy students, but no significant difference between the two grades. (2) The positive academic emotions in junior students are higher than the negative ones, without significant difference between the two grades. In terms of emotional experience of the positive and negative high arousals, the girl students are significantly better than the boy students. (3) The students’ academic achievement is positively related to gratitude and the positive academic emotions, but negatively related to the negative academic emotions. Human-oriented gratitude produces an indirect effect on academic achievement through academic emotions of positive and negative high arousals, while thing-oriented gratitude and morality-oriented gratitude have a more indirect effect on academic achievement through other factors. These results indicate that there is gender effect on gratitude and academic emotions of junior middle school students that tend to have positive experience on gratitude and academic emotions, and that gratitude has a generalizing effect on students’ academic achievement through academic emotions.

Key words: junior student, gratitude, academic achievement, academic emotions             [