Children’s perspective on fears connected to school transition and intended coping strategies

Autor(en)

Katharina A. M. Stiehl, Ina Krammer, Beate Schrank, Isabella Pollak, Giorgia Silani, Kate A. Woodcock

Abstrakt

The transition from primary to secondary school comes with major changes in the lives of children. There is a shortage of in-depth analyses of young people’s perspectives concerning their fears and strategies to address these. This qualitative study aims to gain first-hand understanding of children’s fears and the intended coping strategies used during school transition. Data from 52 workshops were analysed, with a total of 896 students (M age = 10.40, SD = .839) in lower Austria. First, in the classroom setting, a vignette story about a child facing fears about school transition from primary to secondary school was developed with pupils in a brainstorming session. This was followed by self-selected small group discussions, where pupils proposed strategies to help cope with these fears. A thematic analysis was carried out. Major thematic clusters distinguished between four types of fears: peer victimisation, being alone, victimisation by authority figures, and academic failure. Three additional thematic clusters described strategies for countering the fears: enacting supportive networks, personal emotion regulation, and controlling behaviour. In addition to these connected clusters, two further themes were identified: strategy outcomes and consequences, i.e., personal experiences with using specific strategies, and the discussion of participants about contradictions and questionable usefulness of identified strategy outcomes. In conclusion, the children in our study reported more social fears as compared to academic fears. Children seem reasonably competent at naming and identifying strategies; however, maladaptive strategies, as well as controversies within the described strategies may indicate a lack of certainty and competence at engaging with these strategies on a practical level.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Klinische und Gesundheitspsychologie

Externe Organisation(en)

University of Birmingham, Karl Landsteiner Privatuniversität für Gesundheitswissenschaften, Universitätsklinikum Tulln

Journal

Social Psychology of Education: An International Journal

Band

26

Seiten

603-637

Anzahl der Seiten

35

ISSN

1381-2890

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-023-09759-1

Publikationsdatum

12-2021

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

501016 Pädagogische Psychologie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Education, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/e902ea99-19b6-476d-bbf1-90f077e9179d