The unintended academic and social consequences for students experiencing the transition from elementary to middle school have been well documented. A mixed method study was conducted to examine the perceptions and attitudes of 6th grade students, parents, and teachers from four middle schools in a large suburban school district in Southeastern…

This study will examine factors that contribute to the decline in achievement scores in reading and mathematics when students transition from elementary to their first year in middle school or junior high school. It will test the hypothesis that motivation is not a function of mentors, academic support, teams, parental involvement, transition…

Students become increasingly disconnected from their schools across the middle school years, but little is known about the factors contributing to changes in school connectedness. This study examined the time-invariant and time-varying roles of depressive symptoms and externalizing problems in trajectories of student-perceived school connectedness…