School Absenteeism and In-Class Avoidant Behaviors Mediate the Link Between Peer Victimization and Academic Outcomes

• In Event: Peers and Academic Settings

Abstract

Decades of research link peer victimization with poor academic performance (Olweus, 1978). However, there is much to learn about how this process operates (see Espelage et al., 2013). Behavioral school avoidance—efforts to leave the classroom or not attend school—may serve as an intermediary step explaining the link between peer victimization and academic performance (Torres et al., 2020). Victimized youth may attempt to escape future victimization by avoiding the classroom, thereby disrupting the flow of education. The goal of the current study was to examine the potential mediating role of two types of school avoidance (absenteeism, in-class avoidant behaviors such as asking to leave the classroom) on the relations between peer victimization and two academic outcomes (standardized test scores, grade point average [GPA]).

Participants included 1815 diverse 4th- and 5th-grade children (Mage = 10.19; 49% female). Near the beginning of the school year (September-October), peers completed the nomination item “Who gets hit by other kids or has mean things said to them by other kids?” to assess peer victimization. Near the end of the school year (April-May), teachers reported on in-class avoidant behaviors using the School Avoidance Subscale of the Teacher Rating Scale of School Adjustment (Ladd et al., 1996). The school district provided end-of-year administrative data on students’ absences, GPA, and test scores.

We used multilevel mediation analysis to evaluate whether absences and in-class avoidant behaviors mediated the relation between victimization and both test scores and GPA (see Figure 1). We calculated six direct effects, four specific indirect effects, and two summative indirect effects (see Table 1).

Victimization significantly positively predicted absences and in-class avoidant behaviors, and both mediators negatively predicted both GPA and test scores. All four specific indirect effects yielded significant estimates; both absences and in-class avoidant behaviors mediated the relations between victimization and both GPA and test scores. The strength of specific indirect effects did not differ across the two mediators with respect to the mediation of either GPA (z = 0.53, p = .59) or test scores (z = 1.11, p = .27). Finally, the summative indirect effects, which aggregated mediation across absences and in-class avoidant behaviors, yielded significant estimates when predicting both GPA and standardized test scores. These summative indirect effects did not significantly differ across outcomes (z = -0.45, p = .65).

These findings support the hypothesis that both absences and in-class avoidant behaviors may mediate the association between peer victimization and both GPA and standardized test scores. Attempting to escape the academic environment either through leaving the classroom or through staying at home altogether may have equally deleterious effects on two valued metrics of academic achievement. The robust nature of these findings provides compelling evidence that school avoidance is an important process explaining how peer victimization leads to poor academic performance. Implications of these findings in the context of practice and policy efforts will be discussed.

Authors

• Zachary Mark Meehan, University of Delaware
  Presenting Author

• Julie Ann Hubbard, University of Delaware

• Megan Bookhout, University of Richmond

• Lauren Elizabeth Swift, University of Delaware

• Marissa A. Docimo, Core Human Factors

• Stevie N Grassetti