Patrick Akos and John P.

¶ … Patrick Akos and John P. Galassi closely examines the challenges for students -- based on race and gender -- in making the transition from 5th grade to 6th grade and from 8th grade to 9th grade. The results of Akos' research have implications for teachers, parents, students and scholars that study the psychosocial dynamics of young people -- particularly Latino students -- as they move from one level of learning to a higher level.

Main purpose: One of the main purposes of the article is to carefully examine what issues related to transitions into higher grades are the most difficult for students -- some adjustments are more challenging for girls, some more challenging particularly for boys, and as to ethnicity there are some that Latinos struggle with, some African-Americans struggle more with, and Caucasian students have their particular issues as well. The research that Akos has done through his strategy is valuable information in terms of understanding young people and the educational process.

Other purposes of the research included these issues: a) what are the students' feelings and reactions to their transitions? b) how connected did students feel towards their new school environment? And c) what individuals provided the most help during the transition from one school to the next?

As to why this study was necessary, Akos suggests that "…only a modest number of researchers" have conducted research into the demographic variables regarding the very important transitions students must make (Akos, et al., 2004, p. 102). Having said that, Akos also delves into the existing research results, pointing out results from several research efforts that were previously published. The author admits that research already published (prior to this article) shows that indeed race and gender "influence perceptions and outcomes of school transitions" (p. 103). However, Akos goes on, the reason that race and gender have these varying influences "is unclear" (p. 103).

This study was also necessary because school administrators, counselors, teachers and board members in the community "…may need to consider the influence of race and gender as variables" in the important transition process, Akos explains, suggesting that those who run schools aren't paying close enough attention to these dynamics (p. 103).

How was this study designed? The researchers worked with students in a medium-sized southeastern school district, using 173 sixth grade students and 320 9th grade students. The district had 8 elementary schools, 4 middle schools and 2 high schools. So the elementary schools were feeder schools for the middle schools and likewise the middle schools moved students up to the two high schools. There were 83 boys and 86 girls in the middle school portion of the study (all from the same middle school); 19.7% were African-American; 8.7% were Asian-American; 8.1% were Latino; 52.2% were Caucasian; 4% were multiracial and 2.3% were "unspecified" (Akos, p. 103).

The high school breakdown included 320 9th graders in one high school: 47.8% were boys and 50.3% were girls; 76.3% were Caucasian; 10.3% were African-American; 5.6% were Asian-American; 3.4% were Latino; 2.2% were multiracial; and 1.9% were "unspecified" (p. 103).

The researchers used the School Transition Questionnaire (STQ) to solicit students' feelings about the difficulty of the transition. In responding to these STQ questions students had a choice of using 1 through 4 as indicators; (1) difficult; (2) somewhat difficult; (3) somewhat easy; and (4) easy. This questionnaire was given to both the 6th graders and 9th graders in the Fall semester; Akos mentions that about 72% of the entire 6th grade in the middle school took the questionnaire and 71% of the 9th grade in high school cooperated with the questionnaire. The students took the questionnaire during homeroom period in school and there were no incentives offered for those who did take the questionnaire.

As to the assessing the students' level of connectedness during their transition, the Akos team used National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (NLSAH). A five-point scale was employed: (1) strongly agree; (2) disagree; (3) neither agree nor disagree; and (4) agree.

The third major assessment -- how helpful were certain persons during the transition to a higher level of educational instruction -- students were given multiple choice options to rate: parents; peers; other family members; older students; counselors; other adults at school. In processing these choices the students were given a four-point Likert-type scale to rate the choices presented in the preceding sentence: (1) not helpful; (2) somewhat helpful; (3) helpful; and (4) very helpful. If none of the choices for persons that were helpful matched their own experiences, the students had the option of adding to that list.

The Akos team needed to know the gender and ethnicity of the students who responded so there was good cooperation with the counselors and teachers; hence, "each question was pre-coded so school personnel could not identify responses" (p. 104). However, the counselors collected the questionnaires and later the research team (through the codes on the questionnaires) worked with school administrators to gather "demographic data" and hence give the study value vis-a-vis gender and ethnicity (p. 104).

The overall results indicated to the Akos team that students "…did not perceive that the transition to middle school or to high school was particularly difficult" (p. 104). Also, students did indeed feel "strongly connected" during their arrival to middle school and high school, the results showed (p. 104), which is something of a surprise based on the previous research that the authors had reported.

As to who showed the greatest amount of helpfulness to students as they made the transition, on page 105 Akos reports that for middle school students, their parents were most helpful; second on the list of helpfulness were "other students"; third, "other family." The high school students reported their most helpful persons were "other students" first; parents were second on the list; older students were third most helpful.

Gender differences were not as great as one may have thought based on what references Akos presented in his introductory narrative. In the middle school research gender "was not a significant factor" in the students' perceptions of difficulties, but gender showed a significant difference when it comes to feeling more connected: girls felt more connected to school than boys in middle school.

In high school, the boys felt "significantly more connected" than girls, just the opposite of the dynamic in middle school, Akos reports (p. 105). Gender differences showed up too in the issue of who was the most helpful during the transition. High school boys, for example, reported that "family other than parents" along with "students" were most helpful to them during the transition (105). Girls did not report family other than parents or other students as being very helpful (implying girls depend more on parents during transition to high school).

The authors report that there were no "significant differences" with regards to race in the feelings of being connected to the new school (p. 105). However there were differences among ethnicies as to how difficult the transition was to middle school. The Latino students in middle school reported the transition "as more difficult" than did the African-Americans and the Caucasians. For the Latino students entering middle school, they reported that school counselors and family "other than parents" provided the most help to them -- more so than was reported by Caucasians, Asian-Americans and African-Americans reported as helpful. Latino students reported that "other family members" were more helpful than reported by African-American middle school students. And still on the middle school section, African-American students reported that their counselors were more helpful to them compared with the reports by Caucasian students in middle school (p. 106).

As regards high school, Latino students indicated that their high school counselors were more helpful than was reported by Caucasian students. In terms of ethnicity, there were no other dramatic differences discovered during the high school sampling (p. 106).

As mentioned earlier, the research presented by Akos and colleagues prior to discussing their own research reflected that there were negative outcomes when it comes to transitioning to another school. Those same results were not forthcoming from the Akos research. For example on page 102 Akos references studies that show that according to Eccles et al., "…girls suffer greater losses in self-esteem compared with boys" then students transition to middle school. However, the Akos research indicated that students perceived the transition "…as somewhat easy" (p. 106).

The reason for the disparity between earlier studies and the Akos research could be that the school Akos chose to study was a "high performing" school located in a suburban community, Akos writes (p. 106). Also, it is generally conceded among scholars that students transitioning in urban environments do in fact have more adjustments to make than those students in suburban school environments.

As to gender, again previous research doesn't match Akos' work; Eccles found that girls' self-esteem suffers during transitions but the Akos research shows girls are "more connected" to school than boys (as they transition into middle school). Like any competent researcher, Akos wants to know why this is true, so questions must be raised. For example, do middle school girls have a stronger connection because of the "presence of multiple female models" in elementary and middle school environments? He wonders too if the reason boys' lower feelings of connectedness in his study relate to findings in other studies that boys "suffer more distinct academic declines in the transition to middle school" (p. 106).