THE DYNAMIC INTERPLAY OF SOCIO-EMOTIONAL AND ACADEMIC FUNCTIONING FROM ELEMENTARY THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL: AN ANALYSIS OF CASCADE EFFECTS

socio-emotional;achievement;development;cascade;adolescent;not listed

Okano, LaurenLeaf, Philip ;

Johns Hopkins University

关键词: socio-emotional;    achievement;    development;    cascade;    adolescent;    not listed;   

Others  :  https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/bitstream/handle/1774.2/60977/OKANO-DISSERTATION-2018.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: JOHNS HOPKINS DSpace Repository

【 摘 要 】

Background: Academic functioning is often examined in relation to children’s socio-emotional functioning, as these areas of functioning are interrelated and predict educational, economic and health outcomes. To date, few studies have examined the processes by which problems in one domain of functioning lead to problems in the other, known as a ;;cascade effect.”A better understanding of the emergence and long-term impact of these dynamic and interactive processes may help guide the focus, scope, timing and nature of interventions. Methods: Data from 1,048 children participants in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development study at first, third, fifth, sixth, and ninth grades was analyzed using longitudinal structural equation modeling.Mothers reported their children’s social competence and externalizing/internalizing problems and teachers provided ratings of children’s school achievement.Their cognitive achievement was individually assessed via the Woodcock Johnson Achievement Test-Revised for passage comprehension and applied mathematics.Statistical adjustments were made for gender, maternal education, early family income, race, the timing of transition to middle school, clinician-assessed age of pubertal onset, and parenting quality.Results: Aim one identified positive cascade effects such that social competence in grades three and five directly and indirectly influenced school achievement in grades five and six among boys and girls.In aim two, inverse cascade effects from externalizing behaviors in grades three, five, and six directly and indirectly influenced school achievement in grades five, six, and nine; one cascade effect from school achievement in grade six inversely affected externalizing behaviors in grade nine among boys and girls.Aim three identified an inverse direct and indirect cascade effects from girls’ internalizing behaviors to their school achievement in high school.Additional results revealed: 1) significant cascade effects between school and cognitive achievement across all assessment points, and increases in the relative magnitudes of these effects as students entered high school; and 2) the magnitude of cascade effects involving each socio-emotional function with school achievement exceeded those involving socio-emotional functions with cognitive achievement; and 3) demographic characteristics, parenting quality, and social and maturational processes associated with the transition to secondary school account for variation in these functions but do not alter the processes by which these functions interact. Conclusions: Findings confirm the persistent and repeated influence of socio-emotional functioning in elementary school on the emergence of later academic problems, and underscore that academic difficulties are both risk factors and consequences of adolescent delinquent and aggressive behaviors.Implications of these findings suggest that promoting social competence in elementary school and identifying and intervening upon children’s externalizing behaviors and girls’ internalizing behaviors in elementary and middle school may attenuate the increasing risk posed for achievement in secondary school, and it may also help prevent subsequent externalizing problems brought on by low school achievement.Taken together, these studies suggest that developmentally targeted, evidence-based interventions to promote socio-emotional and academic development of children in late elementary and middle school represent promising strategies for promoting effective adolescent development and achievement. In sum, the late elementary school years as well as early adolescence have promise for adjusting and promoting the health and functioning trajectories into late adolescence and adult life.