Changes in Social and Emotional Competencies and Academic Efficacy Beliefs Among Lower Secondary School Students

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

Interventions to enhance social and emotional competencies (SEC) have shown to improve students' motivation for schoolwork (Durlak et al., 2011; Sklad et al., 2012; Wiglesworth et al., 2016; Taylor et al., 2017). However, the research on the role of SEC in motivation for schoolwork in adolescence is scarce (Tolan & Ross, 2019; Jager et al., 2015). Motivation towards school also tends to decrease during adolescence (Gnambs & Hanfstingl, 2016). As adolescence is an essential period in life, laying the foundation for the present life and adulthood, there is a need for more knowledge about how developments in SECs, such as emotional regulation and relationship skills may influence motivation for schoolwork among adolescents.
This two-wave longitudinal study of eighth-grade lower secondary school students (N = 1094) aims to provide more insight into the assumed relations between changes in the social and emotional competencies (SEC) relationship skills and emotional regulation, and how these changes are related to changes in students' academic efficacy beliefs (AEB). Moreover, the effects of changes in the SECs are assumed to be mediated through a change in perceived collaborative relations with peers and perceived teacher relationships.
The interindividual differences in true intraindividual change and the change-change associations were analyzed using latent change scores in structural equation modeling. Data were collected from student self-reports by a digital questionnaire completed during a school hour at baseline at the beginning of eight grade and with corresponding follow-up data collected at a second time-point, seven months later, at the end of the school year in the spring of 2019.
Interestingly, an improvement in emotional regulation was associated with positive changes in AEB. The strong associations of change in the relationship skills and collaborative relations with peers may very well concern the importance of establishing constructive, collaborative, and supportive relationships with peers for educational purposes. Overall, changes in the SECs relationship skills and emotional regulation among young adolescents may play an important role in enhanced motivation in an educational setting. Study results suggest that improvements in relationship skills and emotional regulation may contribute to improved academic efficacy beliefs among adolescents’ students. The possible influence was partly mediated by improvements of better relationships with peers and teachers in the classroom, and with changes in motivational beliefs in an academic context.

Author

• Lene Vestad, Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioural Research in Education
  Presenting Author