Predictors of children’s classroom engagement and educational resilience across the preschool-school transition.

Abstract

The aim of this thesis was to determine how three key preschool factors - children’s relationships with adults, self-concept and mental health problems - predicted their classroom engagement during their first year of school. The preschool-school transition represents a ‘window of opportunity’ where appropriate intervention efforts may help enhance children’s engagement, a critical aspect of adjusting to school. However, a major barrier in developing effective interventions is that little is known regarding the mechanisms by which key factors predict engagement in the early school years. To address this limitation, this thesis tested a social-motivational model which specifies that parentchild and teacher-child relationships indirectly promote children’s engagement, by first strengthening their self-concept and mental health. Engagement was also examined from a resilience perspective, conceptualised as ‘better than expected’ engagement given children’s experience of cumulative risk. Participants were 575 young children recruited from the 27 preschools within one South Australian school district. Data were collected from their parents and teachers across three waves at yearly intervals, using a longitudinal prospective design. In preschool, both parents and preschool teachers completed questionnaires assessing the quality of children’s parent-child and teacher-child relationships, self-concept and mental health problems. Parents also reported on several family risk factors (e.g., parental psychological distress and unemployment, single parent households). One year later, teachers rated children’s classroom engagement levels in their first year of school. Additionally, a randomly selected sub-sample of children were interviewed and observed regarding their engagement during a normal school day. Finally, in the third study year, teachers reported on children’s school progress, disciplinary action, absences and lateness. A range of path analytic techniques were used to test the hypothesised associations between these variables. Results showed that good quality relationships with parents and teachers during preschool were indirectly associated with children’s subsequent classroom engagement, through their associations with preschool self-concept and mental health problems. With all predictor variables included in the model, only preschool mental health problems was uniquely related to children’s engagement. Associations between mental health problems and engagement were similar for boys and girls. However, boys showed significantly higher levels of externalising problems and lower levels of engagement. Similar mediating mechanisms operated in contexts of risk, by predicting children’s resilience (i.e., ‘better than expected’ engagement). Children’s relationships with parents and teachers, and their self-concept and mental health problems are important predictors of their subsequent classroom engagement. These preschool markers could be used to identify groups of children at risk of developing low engagement. Furthermore, interventions that target these factors may boost children’s engagement, helping them start school ready and eager to learn. Although these interventions may benefit boys and girls equally, boys may need more intensive support to help them start school on more equal footing with girls. Furthermore, the same intervention efforts may help both high- and low-risk children. Such interventions may disrupt pathways leading to poor engagement among at-risk children, while also equipping other children with the strengths they need to cope with adverse circumstances before any such risk is experienced.