The purpose of this research is to study the relationship between the experience of puberty, school adjustment and stress levels of home room teachers. For this study two elementary grades were selected, grades 5 and 6. Both the students and their hom...
The purpose of this research is to study the relationship between the experience of puberty, school adjustment and stress levels of home room teachers. For this study two elementary grades were selected, grades 5 and 6. Both the students and their homeroom teachers participated. Information was gathered by using a questionnaire which was held in 4 schools, 26 classes (742 students total) and 26 home-room teachers in the regions of Seoul, and Gyeoung-gi Do, Incheon.
Tanner's Stage Measure Self-rating and SIQYA (translated by Chun-Jae Lee) where used as methods to measure the development of puberty and social psychology. To check the level of school adjustment and home-room teachers stress levels, reconstructed forms that were used in the research of Gue-Mi Lee and Jung-Hui Kim were applied, which measured the stress rate of teachers when giving guidance to individual students. These materials, along with Level 2HLM were used to analyze the data. The results are as follows:
First, by monitoring the elementary students' physical growth during puberty, and development of their social mental state, physical change in puberty has no influence on their psycho-social development.
Second, the effect of physical change in elementary school students on school adjustment rates are as follows. Pre-maturity does not effect school adjustment. This result was found regardless of sex. Also, interaction between the sexes did not have an effect. This means that physical growth, in other words biological change doesn't directly effect school adjustment. However, elementary students' psycho-social development is correlated to rates of school adjustment. Especially when looking at relationships with family members and friends, as social mental states go negative, school-adjustment decreases.
Third, elementary students' physical changes influence home room teachers stress levels. Pre-mature students increase home room teachers stress more than children who are not experiencing puberty. Again, sex/gender did not effect this outcome.
However, in occurrences where students had negative thoughts about their bodies, the teacher's stress decreased as the students did not actively express themselves to teachers. This is due to the fact that in elementary school, home room teacher's roles are similar to parents. Therefore, when students' relationships between family members are negative, it can also negatively effect their school life, thus students choose not to confide in their teachers.
Results from the research is stated below.
The change of elementary school students during puberty is more influenced by social relationships between family members and friends rather than changes of individuals' inner mental states due to physical development. From this, it shows that family relationships effect school adjustment and home room teachers stress. Therefore, home room teachers should pay more attention to the students' family relationships when trying to help their students. Also, students physical development effects home room teachers stress levels.
So, it is recommended that counselors should give information to students to prepare them for the physical changes and development that will occur. Therefore, proper educational programmes are needed. Lastly, there should be better representation of adolescents going through these changes in the mass media, as not every one has difficulty during this time. This will help change the perception that they have of themselves and how their parents view them as well.
When a counselor is counseling a student that is having problems he or she should concentrate on the different backgrounds and situations that can effect individuals. Futhermore, when counseling mature students going through puberty, the counselor should discuss family relationships and use specific programmes to improve social interactions for such students. Therefore professional counsellors' roles are increasingly needed and for that reason more jobs for counsellors are necessary inside of schools.