Title:
The moderation effects of social anxiety on the associations between relational victimization and class participation, academic achievement, and school avoidance
Author:
Maria Victoria Perez
Thesis Advisor:
Beth A. Kotchick
Committee Member:
Alison Papadakis
Committee Member:
James Miracky
Committee Member:
Rachel Grover
Degree Granting Institution:
Loyola University Maryland--College of Arts and Sciences
Place:
Baltimore (Md.)
Publisher:
Loyola University Maryland
Date Created:
2012
Type of Resource:
text
Genre:
thesis
Language:
eng
Format:
application/pdf
Physical Form:
electronic
Digital Source:
reformatted digital
Abstract:
Understanding the negative impact that relational aggression has on children's academic functioning in schools, as well the moderating factors that may exacerbate or mitigate that impact, can help to spur teachers to be more vigilant towards acts of relational aggression so that they may take actions to prevent it from occurring in their classrooms. Of particular importance to the current study, children who are socially anxious are at greater risk for being victimized by peers and having decreased academic engagement. The present study investigated the relations between relational victimization and academic engagement variables (academic achievement, class participation, and school avoidance), the moderation effect of social anxiety on these previously mentioned relations, and the moderated moderation effect of gender on these relations. One hundred and twenty-six 6th through 8th graders from 6 parochial schools within the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Maryland, and their homeroom teachers participated. Social anxiety was assessed using the Social Anxiety Scale for Children ' Revised Version. Relational victimization was assessed using the Social Experience Questionnaire, both self and teacher report versions. Academic achievement was assessed by teacher report of the student's average academic grade (e.g. A, B, C, etc.) and class participation was evaluated with a teacher report scale. The school avoidance subscale of the Teacher Rating Scale of School Adjustment was used to assess school avoidance. Pearson correlations were conducted to show that teacher-report relational victimization (RVT) was significantly associated with academic engagement variables in the directions that were hypothesized, but the associations were not significant for self-report relational victimization. The results indicated that social anxiety was significantly positively associated with school avoidance. Multiple regressions were run to test the moderation effects. The results indicated that with class participation as the criterion variable, the overall model was significant and a significant interaction was detected between RVT and class participation, such that teachers reported that those students with higher relational victimization levels, participated less in class. The interaction term was found to approach significance for this model. None of the gender moderated moderation relations were found to be significant. The findings of the study were discussed in the context of current theory about relational victimization, gender effects, and social anxiety's effects on academic engagement.
Subject:
Electronic dissertations
Degree:
Doctor of Clinical Psychology
Level:
Doctoral
Discipline:
Psychology
Restrictions on Access:
Author has given permission to make this work available online.
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Identifier:
PerezMV-12
