Examination of the Relationship Among Different Dimensions of Trait Anxiety, Demographic Variables, and Self-Reported School Adjustment in Elementary and Secondary School Students

Abstract

The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the relationship among different dimensions of trait anxiety (social concerns, physiological anxiety, and worry/oversensitivity), demographic variables (age and gender), and school adjustment (attitude to school and attitude to teachers) in children and adolescents. The study participants, consisting of 206 children and adolescents (100 males and 106 females), ages 9 to 19, in grades 4 through 12, completed several self-report measures of anxiety and school adaptation. Results of two multiple-regression analyses revealed that (a) the social concerns dimension of trait anxiety and age were significant predictors of attitude to teachers and (b) the dimensions of social concerns and physiological anxiety, and gender were significant predictors of attitude to school. Implications of the findings for school personnel are discussed. KEYWORDS anxiety, school adjustment, elementary and secondary studentsSpielberger and Rickman (1990) define anxiety as "an unpleasant emotional state or reaction that can be distinguished from others, such as anger or grief,

Relationships Between Trait Anxiety, Demographic Variables, and School Adjustment in Students with Specific Learning Disabilities

“…Similar to Witteborg et al (2009) findings with a sample of students without SLD, the present study's findings indicate that the RCMAS-2 Physiological Anxiety and Social Anxiety scores were significant predictors of the BASC-2-SRP Attitude to School scores, such that those Unstandardized regression coefficients (b), standardized (b) beta weights, and the standard error of the unstandardized beta weights (SE b) are displayed for each variable. DR 2 represents the amount of the variance accounted for by the variables within that step of the analysis * p \ .05; ** p \ .01 Unstandardized regression coefficients (b), standardized (b) beta weights, and the standard error of the unstandardized beta weights (SE b) are displayed for each variable.…”

“…Kirkpatrick-Johnson et al (2006) suggested that older students have poorer school adjustment than younger ones, which could be due to junior high and high school students having more compartmentalized classes or spending less time connecting with a single teacher or peer group. However, Witteborg et al (2009) found that younger students and those with more social anxiety tended to have poorer attitudes toward their teachers. Despite the fact that students with SLD tend to have lower school adjustment (Tur-Kaspa and Bryan 1995) and higher levels of self-reported anxiety (Greenham 1999;Margalit and Raviv 1984;Nelson and Harwood 2011;Wilson et al 2009) than peers without SLD, to date, no study has examined school adjustment and dimensions of anxiety within the SLD population.…”

“…Several authors report that, in general, males have poorer school adjustment or attitude toward school than females (Santa Lucia et al 2000;Witteborg et al 2009;Zhou et al 2003). Among a sample of 3rd through 5th grade students, Santa Lucia and colleagues found that males reported poorer school adjustment, and they reported receiving less encouragement and more negative feedback at school and home, than female students.…”

“…However, some research suggests that anxiety may be inversely related to the development of school adjustment: anxious children have reported less positive attitudes toward school and more school avoidance (Weeks et al 2009), and are less likely to do well in school (Muris and Meesters 2002). Witteborg et al (2009) examined different dimensions of anxiety in relation to students' attitudes toward school and attitudes toward teachers. Different dimensions of anxiety in relation to school adjustment had not been previously examined.…”

La relation temporelle entre l’anxiété et la dépression dans le contexte de la transition primaire-secondaire

“…La présence d'anxiété peut avoir de nombreuses conséquences chez les jeunes en milieu scolaire : conflits avec les pairs, problèmes de concentration, ainsi qu'un taux d'absentéisme plus élevé, ce qui peut mener à des difficultés d'apprentissage et à un risque de décrochage scolaire (Essau, Conradt et Petermann, 2000 ;Kim-Cohen et al, 2003 ;Witteborg, Lowe, Lee et Steven, 2009). Une étude de la National Comorbidity Survey (Merikangas et al, 2010) évalue la présence d'anxiété globale à 31,4 % chez les 13-14 ans.…”