Negotiating the transition to middle school: The role of self-regulatory processes

The present research examined the role of maladaptive self-regulatory belie fs as vulnerability factors for academic and emotional difficulties during the transition to middle school. A short term longitudinal design was emplo yed to follow two groups of early adolescents: 187 adolescents who experien ced a school transition between the fifth and sixth grades, and 142 adolesc ents who did not experience a school transition between the fifth and sixth grades. Adolescents completed measures of perceptions of academic control and importance of academic success, experience of chronic academic strain, daily school hassles, and depressive symptoms. Teachers reported on student s' academic engagement, including levels of helpless behavior, effort, and academic performance. Consistent with the proposed model of self-regulation , maladaptive self-regulatory beliefs (i.e., decreased perceptions of acade mic control and importance) predicted individual differences in perceived s chool-related stress and depressive symptoms over the course of the middle school transition, but were not associated with academic and emotional diff iculties in adolescents who remained in a stable school environment. Moreov er, a self-regulatory sequence was identified proceeding from maladaptive s elf-regulatory beliefs, to academic disengagement, to enhanced perceptions of school-related stress, to depressive symptoms. This study bridges prior theory and research concerning the psychological impact of normative develo pmental transitions, the developmental context of depression, and the assoc iations among self-regulatory beliefs, achievement-related behavior, and em otional experience.