2.2. The middle school student mental health test

The Middle School Student Mental Health Diagnostic Test (MHT) is a tool designed to assess students’ mental health status. They were majored in by Professor Zhou Bucheng (1991) from the Department of Psychology at East China Normal University. The MHT comprises of 100 questions, categorized into 8 subscales along with a lie detection scale, using a 0-1 scoring system. The eight content scales are as follows: academic anxiety, Anxiety about People, Loneliness Tendency, Self-blame Tendency, Allergy Tendency, somatic symptoms, Horror Tendency and Impulsive Tendency. A score of 8 or above indicates a clear tendency towards psychological problems. No tendency towards psychological problems with a score of 3 or less. The scale categorizes the level of mental health into three grades: a score of 1-55 is considered normal; 56-64 is considered poor mental health and a moderate tendency to psychological problems; and a score of more than 65 is considered a severe tendency to psychological problems. The half reliability of this test tool ranges from 0.84 to 0.88, and the retest reliability is between 0.667 and 0.86, with a validity greater than 0.71.

For the data collected, incomplete data are first eliminated. Secondly, If the score of the lie detection subscale falls between 7 and 10, the test is deemed unreliable, this part of the data should also be excluded.