School Adjustment – Child – Revised
Abstract: The School Adjustment - Child (Revised) questionnaire was created for the Fast Track project and contains two sets of items: A 20-item scored scale that evaluates children's perceptions of their current adjustment to school, and a set of 13 questions that elicit detailed information from respondents who dropped out of school and respondents who did not drop out. Each item on the 20-item scale is a statement about a school experience. 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). Detailed-information items ask if the respondent attended school for at least part of the year, whether the school was a new school (i.e., a change of schools), the name of the school, and the type of school: Private, Public, Religious, Technical/Vocational, Alternative, or Other (with a fill-in answer for Other). Items also ask for the respondent's grade level for the coming school year, and overall grades in the previous year. For respondents who are not in school, items ask when the respondents were last enrolled, their reasons for leaving school, if they plan to go back, and if they are in a program that leads to a GED. Several questions also inquire if respondents have ever participated in a special program such as Mentoring, Job Shadowing, Apprenticeships, and others; which program the student participated in most recently, and how long (number of days) the student was a participant. 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 (Revised).) The parent version and the child version have 12 of the scored 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. All three scored subscales have moderate internal consistency and are correlated with each other, although the correlations are modest. T-tests of means for the Academic / Disciplinary Difficulties subscales shows significant differences between the normative and control groups. The distribution of the Relationships with Other Students subscale shows a ceiling effect in the normative group. Among the detailed-information items, chi-square tests for Items 5, 27, 28, 32, 33, and 40 through 46 do not allow rejection of the null hypothesis of independence between the type of response and the risk category of the respondent (normative or control.) However, frequency counts of responses to Item 35 ("What kind of school was it?") for Year 11 indicates a larger percentage of normative than control respondents attending all types of schools, except for "Alternative" schools, with significant chi-square results (c2 = 4.61, p = .03). For Item 38 ("What grades did you receive?"), a t-test of mean grades (on a 8-point scale) for Year 11 students indicates no significant difference between normative and control students. Among the detailed-information items, Item 35 (type of school) may provide a useful point of comparison for groups sampled, depending on the construct of interest.
Who Completed this Measure?: Target Child/Youth (now in adulthood)
Cohort 1 - Administrative History
- Year 11 | grade 10 | age 16
- Year 12 | grade 11 | age 17
Cohort 2 - Administrative History
- Year 11 | grade 10 | age 16
- Year 12 | grade 11 | age 17
Cohort 3 - Administrative History
- Year 11 | grade 10 | age 16
- Year 12 | grade 11 | age 17
Technical Reports:
Raw Dataset Name: CyAY
Scored Dataset Name: SARySCc
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:
| C11AY31 | Specify other reason you left at that time? |
| C11AY34 | What is the name of the school? |
| C11AY36 | Specify other kind of school |
| C11AY39 | Specify other grades you received last year |
| C11AY48 | Specify other program you most recently participated? |
| cohort | Cohort |
| site | Site Name |
| tcid | Child ID Number |
| C11AY29 | When were you last enrolled in school? (mm/yyyy) |
| C11AY5 | First of all, did you enter a new school this past year? |
| C11AY6 | What kind of school were you in this past year? |
| C11AY7 | This past school year was especially difficult for me |
| C11AY8 | I had an easy time handling the new academic demands made on me |
| C11AY9 | My school friends and I got along well this past year |
| C11AY10 | Other kids tried to hit me or make fun of me this past year |
| C11AY11 | I stayed out of trouble with teachers and the disciplinarians at school |
| C11AY12 | I had a good year at school |
| C11AY13 | School work was really hard this past year |
| C11AY14 | I had a hard time making friends at school this past year |
| C11AY15 | Other kids tried to make me do things that I should not do (like drugs or breaking rules) |
| C11AY16 | I got into some trouble this year by breaking school rules |
| C11AY17 | I liked the new things about school this past year |
| C11AY18 | I did not do as well as I should have in academics this past year |
| C11AY19 | I did not have many friends at my school this past year |
| C11AY20 | Other kids bothered me this past year |
| C11AY21 | Teachers were on me because I broke some rules |
| C11AY22 | My school is a place where people treat me well |
| C11AY23 | Most teachers were on me because I broke some rules |
| C11AY24 | My school is a place where kids will succeed |
| C11AY25 | Bad things happen to me at school |
| C11AY26 | School is fun |
| C11AY27 | Did you attend school during at least a part of the last school year? |
| C11AY28 | Did you quit school last year? |
| C11AY30 | What is the MAIN reason you left at that time? |
| C11AY32 | Are you planning to go back to school next year? |
| C11AY33 | Are you in a program outside of regular school that will help you get a GED? |
| C11AY35 | What kind of school is it? |
| C11AY37 | What grade of school will you be in this coming school year? |
| C11AY38 | Overall, what grades did you receive last year in school? |
| C11AY40 | Have your ever participated through your school in-A.Job shadowing, which is to spend time following workers at a work site |
| C11AY41 | Have your ever participated through your school in-B.Mentoring, which involves being matched with an individual in an occupation |
| C11AY42 | Have your ever participated through your school in-C.Cooperative education, which combines academic and vocational studies with a job in a related field |
| C11AY43 | Have your ever participated through your school in-D.School-sponsored enterprise, which involves the production of goods or services by students for sale to or use by others |
| C11AY44 | Have your ever participated through your school in-E.Tech prep, which is a planned program of study with defined career focus that links secondary and post-secondary education |
| C11AY45 | Have your ever participated through your school in-F.Internship or apprenticeship, which is to work for an employer to learn about a particular occupation or industry |
| C11AY46 | Have your ever participated through your school in-None |
| C11AY47 | In which program did you most recently participate? |
| C11AY49 | Altogether, how many days did you spend at a work site that was part of this program? |
| TREATMNT | Treatment Group (Interv/Cntl) |
| NORM | Members of Normative Sample |
| rc11ay7 | rc11ay7 |
| rc11ay10 | rc11ay10 |
| rc11ay13 | rc11ay13 |
| rc11ay14 | rc11ay14 |
| rc11ay15 | rc11ay15 |
| rc11ay16 | rc11ay16 |
| rc11ay18 | rc11ay18 |
| rc11ay19 | rc11ay19 |
| rc11ay20 | rc11ay20 |
| rc11ay21 | rc11ay21 |
| rc11ay23 | rc11ay23 |
| rc11ay25 | rc11ay25 |
| sac11frd | School adj child: Friends Problems Yr 11 |
| sac11dif | School adj child: Acad. and Discip. Difficulties Yr 11 |
| sac11gen | School adj child: General Aspects Yr 11 |