Evaluating and Promoting Positive School Attitude in Adolescents

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction: How Teens Feel About School and Why We Should Care

   • Mandy Stern

   Pages 1-17

3. Review of Research Exploring School Attitude and Related Constructs

   • Mandy Stern

   Pages 19-28

4. Methods

   • Mandy Stern

   Pages 29-34

5. Results

   • Mandy Stern

   Pages 35-39

6. Discussion

   • Mandy Stern

   Pages 41-46

7. Back Matter

   Pages 47-52

   PDF

​​At a time when rates of depression and other mental health problems are increasing significantly among high school students, measures of school attitude and well-being are of central importance to school practitioners. Students with positive attitudes about school experience more beneficial outcomes and are also less likely to engage in maladaptive, risky behaviors. Therefore, monitoring how students feel about their experiences at school is important, and a novel, fresh approach to examining school attitude is sorely needed. 

Past studies of school attitude have generally focused on internal, psychological correlates of school attitude, such as individual and subjective reports of students’ attitude toward school and their motivation levels. Evaluating  and Promoting Positive School Attitude in Adolescents goes beyond these traditional measurements and explores less psychologically focused indicators, including ecological factors and observable behaviors. This study provides school psychologists with a new, comprehensive, and ecologically based approach with which to evaluate the school attitude of high school students.​

• Academic achievement
• Adolescent identity
• High school students
• Positive psychology
• School attitude
• Teacher expectations

• California State University, Northridge, USA

  Mandy Stern

Mandy Stern is a school psychologist and freelance writer who lives in Beverly Hills, California. She has worked in both private and public schools, on both the East and West Coasts. She earned her master’s degree in Human Development from Harvard University as well her elementary teaching certification before teaching sixth grade and then becoming an academic director of a private school near Malibu, California. More recently, as a school psychologist, she has worked in the schools performing and reporting on psycho-educational evaluations conducted among high school and elementary school students. As a writer, Ms. Stern writes online seminars for practitioners concerning such matters as interventions and treatments for attention disorders. Additionally, Mandy is a certified Spanish interpreter for the Los Angeles public schools.

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