Moving into middle school: individual differences in the transition experience

Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, Apr 1998 by McDougall, Patricia, Hymel, Shelley

Other researchers have demonstrated that self-perceptions and indices, of social adjustment consistently predict students adjustment to the transition across different types of outcomes (e.g., self-esteem, school liking, parent and teacher ratings of adjustment, etc.). Lord et al. (1994) and Simmons et al. (1987) found that students who reported lower self-esteem and students who perceived themselves to be less socially competent and less popular were more likely to adjust poorly to middle school. Academic ability only emerged as a significant predictor of adjustment in grade 7 when teacher and parent ratings, rather than self-perceptions, were considered (Lord et al., 1994). Thus, it is not necessarily students experiencing academic problems who have difficulty during transition; rather, it is students who do not feel good about themselves and who perceive themselves as having difficulties socially who are most likely to have problems adjusting to middle school. Students with supportive peer relationships appear to make a more positive transition to middle school.

We agree that an "individual difference" approach has contributed significantly to our understanding of middle school transition by identifying students who do/do not adjust positively in middle school. However, there is an implicit assumption in these studies that students who adjust well in grade 7 have had little problem with the transition, whereas students who do not adjust well have experienced difficulty with the transition to middle school. By only examining markers of adjustment across the transition year, researchers have failed to directly assess the transition experience itself. Student's adjustment in grade 7 may be affected by a number of factors, including, but not limited to the transition experience. The period during which middle school transition typically occurs is marked by a number of life changes, including the onset of formal operations, early dating relationships, and puberty, any of which may contribute to variations in adjustment outcomes in grade 7. Simmons and Blyth (e.g., Simmons, Burgeson, & Blyth, 1987, Simmons, Burgeson, Carlton-Ford, & Blyth, 1987) have found that increasing numbers of simultaneous life changes are predictive of greater risk of declines in adjustment. Without assessing the impact of each of these multiple life changes, it becomes difficult to determine whether the positive versus negative adjustment observed among some grade 7 students can be attributed solely to transition problems or to the effects of other life changes. Assessing the impact of other life changes, however, may be quite difficult. For example, Lord et al. (1994) found that puberty level did not emerge as a significant predictor of adjustment following transition, but they acknowledged that their assessment of pubertal development was not a good discriminator among boys. We propose that, when it is not possible to adequately assess other concurrent life changes, individual differences in the transition to middle school may be better examined by asking students directly about their reactions to the transition experience. Instead of predicting variations in adjustment outcomes across the transition period, which may be influenced by multiple factors, it may be more advantageous to start with a direct evaluation of students' perceptions of the transition experience. In effect, this requires consideration of the "voice of the consumer", asking students directly about their reactions to the shift from the elementary to the middle school environment.