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Psychology Department Brown Bag Series

When: Monday, September 28, 2015
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Where: > See description for location
Description: Monday, Sept. 28th, 3-4pm
LARTS 213

The Psychology Department's Brown Bag Series is a research-talk series supported by the Provost's Departmental Seminar Series. Please join us for the first talk of the 2015-2016 AY by our newest faculty member, Dr. Christina Crowe.

Investigating School Connectedness and Indicators of Academic and Psychological Adjustment in Early Adolescence

School connectedness has emerged in the educational and developmental literature as a protective factor during adolescence (Bond et al., 2007; Libbey, 2004; McNeely, Nonnemaker, & Blum, 2002). When students report feeling connected in school, they tend to demonstrate more positive educational and psychosocial outcomes, including better grades (Blum, 2005; McNeely et al., 2002), increased school engagement (Libbey, 2004) and adjustment (Battistich, Schaps, & Wilson, 2004; McNeely et al., 2002) and lower rates of health risk behaviors (Bond et al., 2007). Students who lack connection with school are less engaged (Blum, 2005), more likely to participate in socially maladaptive behaviors (such as using controlled substances or engaging in unprotected sex) (Bond et al., 2007; McNeely et al., 2002), and report diminished mental health states (Blum, 2005; Bond et al., 2007) and graduation rates (Blum, 2005). A more nuanced understanding of the relationship between school connectedness and student school adjustment will contribute to the descriptive typology of school connectedness during early adolescence and can inform researchers and practitioners interested in identifying students most in need of support. The present analyses build upon the aforementioned literature by investigating the relationships among early adolescent student levels of connectedness and academic and psychological indicators of school adjustment, specifically identifying critical levels of connectedness associated with these indicators. The sample is drawn from 3,343 5th and 6th grade students from one urban school district in the Northeast. School connectedness was operationalized in these data by student-report responses to the Classroom Supportiveness Scale (Developmental Studies Center, 2000; ??= .85), Bonds with School (Cook et al., 1995; ?? = .80, and Affiliation with Teacher Cook et al.,1995; ?? = .88) scales. Indicators of school adjustment included academic grades and self-report of academic engagement and dissatisfaction with school. Two comprehensive sets of analyses were conducted: a hierarchical cluster analyses to examine variance within constructs and sample, and multilevel modeling to examine the potential source of these differential composites. Results from a hierarchical cluster analyses divided students into low (n = 821), average (n = 1116), and high (n = 1406) connectedness group. Students in the highly connected group differed from students in the low connection group on all independent measures, and differed significantly from those in the average connectedness group on measures of engagement. Multilevel models further suggest that the context of predominantly low achieving classrooms leads to lower school connectedness, and this difference cannot be attributed simply to the propensity of the individual students to feel connected. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Topical Areas: Faculty, Staff and Administrators, Students, Students, Graduate, Students, Undergraduate, University Community, Psychology