Abstract: Previous literature has indicated that parent-child communication, e.g. parents’ communication ability, and the quality or style of the communication, potentially brought children different statuses in academic achievement. However, there was not a clear distinction among these different levels or aspects of the communication in the existing research, which might lead to confusions of findings. Therefore, in the present study, we adopted a comprehensive Three-Level Model of Parent-Child Communication as a framework to measure and compare the parent-child communication of high, middle and low achieving students. In the model, the family is regarded as a system consisting of all family members, their relations and the interaction of the relations. Concretely the model describes the parent-child communication on the following three levels: (1) component-level, measuring the communication ability of each family member, such as father, mother, and child; (2) relationship-level, examining the quality of dyadic communication occurred between father and child or mother and child; (3) system-level, emphasizing the relationship of mother-child and father-child communications. A “parent-child communication scale” designed to measure the above three levels was applied in the present study to examine the parent-child communication of students with high, middle and low achievements. The result showed that: (1) high-achieving students’ communication abilities in terms of initiative, clarity and sensitivity were better than those of low-achieving students; high-achieving students’ fathers were also excel low-achieving students’ fathers in the clarity and openness of communication; (2) high-achieving students owned a higher level than low-achieving students in the quality of both relationship-oriented and problem-solving-oriented communication with their parents; (3) for high-achieving students, their mothers’ and fathers’ statuses were balanced in communication with children, and the two dyadic communications performed a consistent function to children, while they were neither balanced nor consistent for low-achieving students. In sum, there were significant differences in communication abilities, the quality of parent-child communication, and the relationship (balance and consistency) of the two dyadic communications between the high- and low-achieving students. Lastly, the differences were discussed under the framework of the Three-Level Model of Parent-Child Communication.

Key words: parent-child communication, academic achievement, high-achieving students, low-achieving students.

摘要： 以往研究表明亲子沟通可能影响儿童认知发展和学业成绩。本研究基于亲子沟通的三层次模型比较了学业成绩优秀、中等和较差儿童的亲子沟通状况。结果发现：（1）优生的表达主动性、清晰性、敏感性得分显著高于差生，其父母的清晰性、开放性得分也高于差生父母；（2）差生父子和母子沟通质量均显著低于优生；（3）优生父子沟通和母子沟通作用相对均衡，且两种沟通较一致，而差生母子沟通的地位显著高于父子沟通，且两种沟通不一致。

关键词: 亲子沟通, 学业成绩, 优生, 差生