OUR RESEARCH
PROCEDURE | MEASURES | FINDINGS | SOCIOGRAMS
HYPOTHESIS
Our task whilst on practicum was to test the hypothesis that children with low self-esteem will tend to have less positive peer interactions and do less well academically. This hypothesis was based on research done by Wenzel and Asher (1995) and using Barry and King's (1998) sociogram model.
METHOD
SUBJECTS
Data for this research is drawn from 57 children in years 2, 3 and 4. The majority of the children were Anglo-Saxon and came from a low to middle socioeconomic area.
The three measures of our research are:
a questionnaire to determine self-esteem
a sociogram to determine peer groups
our own observations of the children's academic ability
QUESTIONNAIRE
The following questionnaire was based on the HARE SELF-ESTEEM SCALE (cited in Corcoran and Fischer 1987) which is specifically designed to measure self-esteem in school age children. The original scale consisted of three, ten item subscales that measured self-esteem in the areas of peer, school and home. We felt this scale was too extensive for the age group so we selected five items from each subscale. Note that two questions of each five are reversed scored. The first five relate to peer interactions, the second five to home and the last five to school. The questionnaire was administered to small groups of four or five children because some children could not read. Also this allowed clarification for terms that the children had difficulty understanding.
The questionnaire was scored numerically using 1, 2 and 3: 1 is the lowest indicator of self-esteem; 2 is the middle indicator; 3 is the highest indicator. Therefore, the lowest possible score is 15 and the highest possible score is 45.
YES/ AGREE MAYBE/ SOMETIMES NO/ DISAGREE 1. I don't have
many friends at school. (R) 2. I often get
picked on. (R) 3. Other kids
like to play with me. 4. I am a person
people turn to for help when they are having
trouble. 5. If the class
was voting for SRC reps I'd get lots of
votes. 6. No one pays
much attention to me at home. (R) 7. I am a very
important person to my family. 8. My parents
feel that I can be depended on. 9. I often feel
unwanted at home. (R) 10. My parents
are proud of me. 11. I am an
important person in my class. 12. My teacher
expects to much of me (R) 13. I always try
my hardest with my schoolwork 14. Schoolwork
is harder for me than most people.
(R) 15. My teacher
is usually happy with the kind of work I
do.
RESULTS OF QUESTIONNAIRE
As we have said, the range of scores in the questionnaire are 15 to 45. Baumeister (1993) states that generally researchers tend to divide scores at the midpoint of the range of possible scores. He believes this is not a true rating of high or low self-esteem because most scores tend to cluster around the middle and upper ranges. Baumeister suggests that the mid-line of low and high self-esteem should be taken from the actual scores attained not the total range of possible scores. Thus the midpoint for our research questionnaire is 32. Based on this method of scoring 11 of the 57 students surveyed had low self-esteem.
SOCIOGRAM
The children were asked to nominate three children in their class they would most prefer to work with on any given task. The sociograms are included at the end of this page (to sociograms).
*Note that lines with one arrowhead indicate a one-way relationship and double-headed arrows indicate a reciprocal relationship.
OBSERVATIONS
The third measure in our research is our observations, during the two week practicum, of individual children's' academic abilities.
There was no definitive correlation between peer interactions and self-esteem. There were children who had relatively high self-esteem and no interactions and conversely there were children who rated low in terms of self-esteem but had many interactions. However, there was a stronger correlation between our observations of academic ability and self-esteem. Of the eleven low scoring self-esteem children, nine did less well academically in comparison to the rest of the class. Eight of these nine children were receiving intervention by the school's special education teacher. In addition these children were receiving literacy and mathematics assistance from LAP and LISP parents.
Whilst our findings did not show a correlation between peer interactions and low self-esteem, we believe that with a larger sample group and a more comprehensive self-esteem assessment scale our findings would be supported.
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