Tradition to transition: A look at seventh grade female students' self-esteem and math scores.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to empirically investigate the transition process of a K-8 school vs. a 7-8 school as it relates to 7th grade females' attitudes, self-esteem and grades in the area of mathematics. The experimental hypotheses were designed to answer the following questions: (1) What are the transitional effects on female students' self-esteem? (2) Is there any difference in math attitudes between K-8 female students and middle school (7-8) female students regarding the importance of math for their future? (3) What are the transition effects on female students' math grades? The research design included the fall population of female 7th grade students from one 7-8 middle school (School A) and two K-8 schools (B-1 and B-2). A questionnaire composed of self-esteem measures and a math attitudes survey were administered five weeks after the start of the 1989-90 school year, and again, three weeks prior to the end of the 1989-90 semester. The findings of this study indicated that there are no transitional group differences relating to self-esteem. Transition effects, as reported by Occasion 1 and 2 data, yielded no visible effects of self-esteem by the transition, with Group A and Groups B-1 and B-2 reporting similar effects. For math attitudes, pre-transition effects were significant but the group differences were not. However, when looking at the K-8 separately it was noted that math attitudes had decreased significantly from pre-transition to post-transition whereas there were non-significant differences noted for middle school students on all four variables. It was noted that pre-transition math grades were related to post-transition math grades, however, the group effect (K-8 vs. middle school) evidenced no statistical differences on transitional effects as they relate to math grades. The results of this research concludes that there is no difference in 7th grade females regarding self-esteem, math attitudes and grades regardless of what type of school structure--K-8 or middle school.