Reappraising Adversity Improves Students' Academic Achievement, Behavior, and Well-Being

• In Event: Different Routes to the Similar Outcomes: Improving Students' Well-Being in Addition to Achievement in School

Abstract

Objectives

Most people experience occasional threats to their sense of social belonging. This study examined how an intervention designed to help students to reappraise academic and social concerns might alleviate the negative effects of the transition from elementary to middle school on students’ grades, behavior, and well-being.

Theoretical Framework

Social belonging is defined as a sense of having positive relationships with others (Walton and Cohen, 2011) and is theorized to be an essential human need (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). When students transition from school to school, they may experience a perceived threat to their sense of fitting in, called belonging uncertainty (Walton & Cohen, 2007). In this psychological state, students associate ambiguous or negative cues in their environments (e.g., getting one bad grade, having an argument with a friend) with the idea that they do not belong, and often attribute the cause of this non-belonging to internal and permanent characteristics instead of changeable conditions (Sekaquaptewa, 2011; Murphy et al., 2007). This attribution error cultivates a negative feedback loop; as students vigilantly assess all available information in order to figure out if they are capable of making it academically and socially in their new environment, negative or ambiguous information confirms their interpretation that they do not belong academically and socially, which leads to diminished academic motivation and effort (Thoman et al., 2013).

Social belonging interventions can mitigate such attribution errors by normalizing the fears of failure about academic achievement (Walton & Cohen, 2007). This intervention alters students’ mindsets by helping them to reappraise academic and social adversity. The intervention (a) provides reassurance that difficulties occur for everyone, and not just particular students or groups, and (b) suggests that the situation will naturally resolve with time. This normalization process can change how students interpret stress (i.e., from unchangeable to changeable) in school during difficult transitions.

Methods/Data Sources

During the 2013-14 school year, all sixth-graders in a racial diverse school district were involved in a randomized controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of a social belonging intervention (see Table 1 for experimental balance). Study outcomes of interest included students’ sixth-grade GPA, failing grades, behavioral referrals, absences, and four measures of student academic well-being, including school trust, social belonging, evaluation anxiety, and identification with school, which were measured pre- and post-intervention.

Results/Scientific Significance

Controlling for pre-treatment performance and several demographic factors (e.g., free/reduced lunch status), we found significant intent-to-treat effects for all outcomes in the expected directions (Figure 1).

While students entering middle school are at an increased risk of belonging uncertainty, and typically experience a downward trajectory in academics and well-being, the results of this study show that a social belonging intervention can substantially mitigate this phenomenon and improve students’ academic outcomes. The practical implications of such an intervention are far-reaching. In addition to immediate academic, behavioral, and social and psychological improvements, reaching students at such a critical juncture has the potential to prepare students for longer-term success, including preparation for college and the workforce.

Authors

• Geoffrey D. Borman, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Chris Rozek, University of Chicago

• Jaymes Ray Pyne, University of Wisconsin

• Paul Hanselman, University of California - Irvine

• Rachel Feldman, University of Wisconsin - Madison