Young children's feelings about school.

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Child Development

Background:

• Understanding children's early school experiences is crucial for academic success.
• Existing measures may not fully capture young children's multifaceted feelings about school.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and validate the Feelings about School (FAS) scale for kindergartners and first graders.
• To examine factors influencing young children's feelings about school, including classroom structure, academic performance, and teacher relationships.
• To investigate the relationship between children's feelings about school and their academic engagement.

Main Methods:

• Developed and validated the Feelings about School (FAS) scale.
• Administered the FAS to 225 kindergartners and 127 first graders.
• Used correlational analyses to examine associations between FAS scores, classroom structure, academic skills, teacher ratings, and academic engagement.

Main Results:

• The FAS demonstrated reliability and validity for both age groups.
• Children's feelings about school were associated with their academic skills.
• Classroom structure influenced feelings differently: highly structured classrooms negatively impacted kindergartners' attitudes, while unstructured classrooms negatively impacted first graders' competence perceptions.
• First graders' perceptions of competence were linked to academic engagement, unlike kindergartners'.

Conclusions:

• The FAS is a reliable tool for assessing young children's school-related feelings.
• Classroom environment and academic performance significantly influence early school attitudes.
• Findings highlight age-specific relationships between classroom structure, self-perception, and academic engagement in early elementary school.