Article Title: Emotional Behaviour and Academic Achievement in Middle School Children
Author(s): Nazar Hussain Soomro and Jane Clarbour
Institute(s): Department of Psychology, University of York, USA
Journal: Pakistan Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 2012, Vol. 10, No, 1, 10-16
Correspondence Address: Nazar Hussain Soomro, Department of Psychology, University of York, USA. E-mail: nazar.soomro@gmail.com
Abstract
The present study investigates the relationship between emotional behaviour and academic achievement in middle school children in Hyderabad, Pakistan. One hundred and forty-six students of grade 8 completed the Emotional Behavioural Scale for Pakistani Adolescents (EBS-PA; Soomro, 2010), and rendered measures of their social anxiety, malevolent aggression, and social self-esteem scores. These measures cumulatively represented emotional behaviour in these children, based upon Clarbour and Roger’s (2004) model of emotional style, on which the EBS-PA scale is based. We then ascertained academic grades of these students from their school records and ran correlation between academic achievement (grades) and emotional behaviour measures. Results revealed academic achievement to be negatively associated with malevolent aggression, but positively related to social self-esteem. In addition, mediator analysis indicated social self-esteem to partially mediate the relationship between malevolent aggression and academic achievement.
Keywords: emotional behaviour, academic achievement, adolescents, Pakistani
