What Happens in Transition from Primary School to Lower Secondary School? Focusing on Students’ Psychological Well-Being and Engagement

Author(s):

Tuomo Virtanen(presenting / submitting)Kati Vasalampi Minna Torppa Jari-Erik Nurmi

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

05. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

05 SES 06,

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-23

15:30-17:00

Room:

W2.11

Chair:

Martha Mottelson

Contribution

School transitions are hazardous for some students (Vaz, Parsons, Falkmer, Passmore, & Falkmer, 2014), while others experience successful transitions (see Anderson, Jacobs, Schramm, & Splittgerber, 2000). Students’ psychological well-being and academic functioning are reciprocally related to each other over the course of a child's development (Roeser, Eccles, & Strobel, 1998). Therefore, in order to better understand the profiles of students with successful and unsuccessful school transitions, focusing on students’ psychological well-being and academic functioning simultaneously is needed (Roeser, Eccles, & Freedman-Doan, 1999). Person-centered methods (Bergman & Andersson, 2010) have the potential to unmask important variations and uncover the combinations of students’ psychological well-being and engagement (an indicator of psychological well-being) and their associations with successfulness of school transitions. Previous research has suggested that high levels of support from teachers (in terms of teacher-student relationships), families, and peers might be sources of resilience and protect students from potentially detrimental effects of primary to lower secondary school transition (Martínez, Aricak, Graves, Peters-Myszak, & Nellis, 2011; Waters, Lester, & Cross, 2014). The present study profiled students to homogenous profiles with respect to their psychological well-being and engagement during their primary to lower secondary school transition (Research question 1). We also examined how students’ psychological well-being and engagement changed across this school transition (Research question 2) and the effects of changes in student-perceived support from teachers, families, and peers on successful school transitions (improvement in self-esteem, school enjoyment and future aspirations and goals; and decrease in school-related burnout, externalizing problems, and internalizing problems) (Research question 3).

Method

Participants The present study is part of a longitudinal study (AUTHORS, 2006) that has followed approximately 2000 children from kindergarten to Grade 9. The data were collected from four municipalities in Finland in April 2013 and again in April 2014. Written consents for students’ participation in the study were required from parents. The percentage of students with parental consent to take part in the study was 76,2 %. Language of instruction in all schools was Finnish. The sample collected at Grade 6 consisted of 1,669 (missing 4.3%) students (48.1% girls) from 75 schools. The sample collected at Grade 7 consisted of 1,744 (47.5% girls) students from 34 schools. Measures Two measures were used as indicators of student engagement: School enjoyment (Aunola, Onatsu-Arvilommi, & Nurmi, 1999) and Future aspirations and goals (Appleton, Christenson, Kim, & Reschly, 2006). Students’ Self-esteem was assessed using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). School burnout was measured using six items taken from the Adolescents’ School Burnout Inventory (Salmela-Aro & Näätänen, 2005). Externalizing problems were measured by merging Conduct problems and Hyperactivity scales from Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire as suggested by Goodman, Lamping, and Ploubidis (2010) while Internalizing problems were measured by merging Emotional symptoms and Peer relationship problems scales from Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman et al., 2010). Support from teachers, families, and peers was measured using items taken from Student Engagement Instrument (Appleton et al., 2006). All the items were reverse-coded so that higher scores indicated a higher level of engagement and well-being. Composite mean scores were used in subsequent analyses. The Cronbach’s α’s for the scales were acceptable the lowest α being.71. Student background characteristics. Gender, family socioeconomic status, students’ grade point averages at (Grade 6 and Grade 7), and school type (unified comprehensive school, Grades 1-9 or separate lower secondary school, Grades 7-9) were entered into the analyses as statistical covariates. Data analysis strategy Profiles of students based on their psychological well-being and engagement during the transition from primary school to lower secondary school (Research question 1), was analyzed with two person-centered analyses: latent profile analysis (LPA: Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2015) and I-states-as-objects-analysis (ISOA: Bergman & Nurmi, 2010). In order to examine research question 2 and 3, cross-tabulation and path analysis were applied. All the analyses were conducted using Mplus statistical package (version 7.4: Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2015).

Expected Outcomes

The general trend was a slight improvement in student-perceived engagement and well-being. In other words students’ post-transition engagement and psychological well-being were at slightly higher level in comparison to their pre-transition engagement and well-being: t(1646) = 4.18***, d = 0.09. The best fitting model to the data was the five-profile model (Research question 1). The profiles were as follows. Low engagement and well-being, average self-esteem profile (3.2% of the sample students), Average engagement and well-being, low future goals profile and it composed (29.7%), Low enjoyment and well-being, high future goals profile (12.9%), High engagement and well-being profile (44.5%), and Low engagement and well-being profile composed (9.7%). Albeit changing from one Grade 6 latent profile to another profile in Grade 7 was common (2 (16) = 684.48, p < .001, Cramer’s V = .32), the vast majority of shifts were from to the Grade 6 profile to Grade 7 profile that were qualitatively close to each other. The most stable profile was High engagement and well-being profile with 73% of the profile students remaining in this profile across the tranistion (Research question 2). After controlling students’ background characteristics, the most important variables predicting improvement in students’ self-esteem, school enjoyment and future aspirations and goals along with decrease in school-related burnout, externalizing problems, and internalizing problems were increases in student-perceived support from families (estimate of indirect effect = .44, p < .001), and peers (estimate of indirect effect = .21, p < .01) during the transition (Research question 3). The results showed that primary to secondary school transition is primarily positive experience for Finnish students. Successful transition can be enhanced by emphasizing support from family and peers.

References

References Anderson, L. W., Jacobs, J., Schramm, S., & Splittgerber, F. (2000). School transitions: Beginning of the end or a new beginning? International Journal of Educational Research, 33(4), 325-339. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0883-0355(00)00020-3 Appleton, J. J., Christenson, S. L., Kim, D., & Reschly, A. L. (2006). Measuring cognitive and psychological engagement: Validation of the student engagement instrument. Journal of School Psychology, 44(5), 427-445. Aunola, K., Onatsu-Arvilommi, T., & Nurmi, J. -. (1999). Strategy and attribution questionnaire for children (SAQ-C). unpublished questionnaire, university of jyväskylä, finland. . Bergman, L. R., & Andersson, H. (2010). The person and the variable in developmental psychology. Journal of Psychology, 218(3), 155-165. doi:https://doi.org/10.1027/0044-3409/a000025 Bergman, L. R., & Nurmi, J. (2010). Studying patterns of individual development by I-states as objects analysis (ISOA). International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development Bulletin, 57(1), 7-10. Goodman, A., Lamping, D. L., & Ploubidis, G. B. (2010). When to use broader internalising and externalising subscales instead of the hypothesised five subscales on the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ): Data from british parents, teachers and children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 38, 1179-1191. Martínez, R., Aricak, O., Graves, M., Peters-Myszak, J., & Nellis, L. (2011). Changes in perceived social support and socioemotional adjustment across the elementary to junior high school transition. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40(5), 519-530. Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (1998-2015). Mplus user’s guide. (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén. Roeser, R., Eccles, J. R., & Freedman-Doan, C. (1999). Academic functioning and mental health in adolescence: Patterns, progressions, and routes from childhood. Journal of Adolescent Research, 14(2), 135-174. Roeser, R., Eccles, J. S., & Strobel, K. R. (1998). Linking the study of schooling and mental health: Selected issues and empirical illustrations at the level of the individual. Educational Psychologist, 33(4), 153-176. Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton (N.J.): Salmela-Aro, K., & Näätänen, P. (2005). Nuorten koulu-uupumusmittari BBI-10 [adolescents' school burnout inventory]. Helsinki: Edita. Vaz, S., Parsons, R., Falkmer, T., Passmore, A., & Falkmer, M. (2014). The impact of personal background and school contextual factors on academic competence and mental health functioning across the primary-secondary school transition. PLoS One, 9(3). Waters, S., Lester, L., & Cross, D. (2014). How does support from peers compare with support from adults as students transition to secondary school? Journal of Adolescent Health, 54, 543-549.

Author Information

Tuomo Virtanen (presenting / submitting)

University of Stavanger, Norway

Centre for Learning Environment

Jyskä

Kati Vasalampi

University of Stavanger, Norway

Minna Torppa

University of Stavanger, Norway

Jari-Erik Nurmi

University of Stavanger, Norway

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