School Adjustment – Child
Abstract: The School Adjustment - Child questionnaire is a 20-item scale that evaluates children's perceptions of their current adjustment to school. The questionnaire also asks if the child has changed schools. This measure was created for the Fast Track Project. Each item on the questionnaire contains a statement about a school experience; for example, "I stayed out of trouble with teachers and disciplinarians at school." The child selects the response that estimates how true each statement is for the past school year. Questionnaire items include statements about academic performance, discipline problems, and interactions with other students and staff. Response choices include: "Never True" (1), "Seldom True" (2), "Sometimes True" (3), "Usually True" (4), and "Always True" (5). A parent version of this measure was also administered to parents of children involved in the Fast Track Project. (See the separate technical report for School Adjustment - Parent.) The parent version and the child version have 12 items in common. A previous study of this meaure (Maumary-Gremaud, 2000) identified three subscales: Relationships with Other Students, Academic and Disciplinary Difficulties, and General Aspects about the School and Teachers. The ordering of responses in some items was reversed before scoring to provide consistency among all the item responses. Higher scores indicate better school adjustment; lower scores indicate poorer adjustment. The Relationships with Other Students subscale has a ceiling effect in the normative sample, with 51% of scores at or above 4.66. In the control group, Relationships with Other Students has a slight negative skew, with 41% of the scores at or above 4.66. T-tests of means for all subscales on this measure show significant differences between the normative and control groups. Correlations among subscales are moderate and all three subscales also have moderate internal consistency. Depending on the construct of interest, these subscales should be useful to analysts.
Who Completed this Measure?: select one
Cohort 1 - Administrative History
- Year 07 | grade 6 | age 12
- Year 08 | grade 7 | age 13
- Year 09 | grade 8 | age 14
- Year 10 | grade 9 | age 15
Cohort 2 - Administrative History
- Year 07 | grade 6 | age 12
- Year 08 | grade 7 | age 13
- Year 09 | grade 8 | age 14
- Year 10 | grade 9 | age 15
Cohort 3 - Administrative History
- Year 07 | grade 6 | age 12
- Year 08 | grade 7 | age 13
- Year 09 | grade 8 | age 14
- Year 10 | grade 9 | age 15
Technical Reports:
Raw Dataset Name: CyY
Scored Dataset Name: SACySCc
Keywords:
Academic Performance, Peer Relationships, School Discipline, School Satisfaction, School Transition
Is this Measure Available for Public Use?: Yes
Obtain Measure:
Download the measure here
SAS Code for Scale Creation:
Download the code here
Measure Items and Scales:
| COHORT | Cohort |
| SITE | Site Name |
| TCID | Child ID Number |
| C8Y1 | School year difficult |
| C8Y2 | Easy time handling academic demands |
| C8Y3 | Got along with friends |
| C8Y4 | Other kids hit/made fun of me |
| C8Y5 | Stayed out of trouble |
| C8Y6 | I had a good year at school |
| C8Y7 | School work was really hard |
| C8Y8 | I had a hard time making friends |
| C8Y9 | Other kids tried to make me do bad thing |
| C8Y10 | I got into trouble this year |
| C8Y11 | I liked the new things about school |
| C8Y12 | I did not do well in academics |
| C8Y13 | I did not have many friends |
| C8Y14 | Other kids bothered my this year |
| C8Y15 | Teachers were on me because I broke rule |
| C8Y16 | People treat me well at my school |
| C8Y17 | Teachers do not care about kids |
| C8Y18 | Kids will succeed at my school |
| C8Y19 | Bad things happen to me at school |
| C8Y20 | School is fun |
| sac8frd | School adj child: friends problems Yr 8 |
| sac8dif | School adj child: difficulties Yr 8 |
| sac8gen | School adj child: general facts Yr 8 |