2-186 - Supporting the Whole Student: Multiple Pathways to Academic Achievement

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Changes in the U.S. economy have raised the stakes for education. Test-based accountability measures have been enacted to hold schools accountable for raising standards of achievement, which often pushes teachers to “teach for the test” and reduces or eliminates extracurricular material to focus on subject-specific topics. However, school success is a complex phenomenon, shaped by diverse factors. Thus, it is important to examine unique pathways to academic achievement. This symposium will explore four such “whole student” influences on school success in youth: civic engagement, social support, physical fitness, and sleep.

Paper 1 is a quasi-experimental, longitudinal analysis of the impact of an action civics program on classroom engagement, attendance, and college aspirations among 500 diverse middle and high school students in four different metropolitan areas across the U.S.

Paper 2 explores parent and peer support in a sample of 608 African American high school students from the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study; testing whether supportive relationships buffer the negative effects of racial discrimination on educational attainment.

Paper 3 examines how longitudinal patterns of physical fitness from 4th to 8th grade predict mathematics and English language arts scores using a diverse sample of 61,669 urban public school students.

Paper 4 examines bi-directional associations between academic functioning (i.e., procrastination, conscientiousness, and academically-based basic psychological needs) and several sleep behaviors among a sample of 154 college students, across two semesters.

Together, this research can inform how we might best support key social and behavioral promoters of student success.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chair

• Lindsay Till Hoyt, Fordham University

Individual Presentations

• Youth Civic Engagement and Academic Outcomes: Evaluating the Impact of Generation Citizen - Presenting Author: Alison K. Cohen, Department of Public and Nonprofit Administration, School of Management, University of San Francisco; Non-Presenting Author: Parissa J Ballard, Wake Forest School of Medicine

• The Roles of Racial Discrimination and Social Support in Educational Attainment among African American Youth - Presenting Author: Fatima varner, University of Texas at Austin

• Examining the Influence of Physical Fitness Growth Trajectories on Academic Achievement across the Transition to Adolescence - Presenting Author: Natasha Chaku, Fordham University; Non-Presenting Author: Katie Brohawn, ExpandED Schools

• University Students’ Academic Functioning and Sleep Behaviors: An Examination of Directionality of Effects across Two Semesters - Presenting Author: Royette Tavernier, Wesleyan University