School achievement and anxiety among students who attend extended and after- school day care

Abstract

© 2017, FACTEACHEREDUCATION. All rights reserved. The aim of the research was to study the correlation between school achievement and the degree of anxiety and characteristics of its structure among students attending extended and after-school day care. The RCMAS (Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale), a scale that measures anxiety among the population aged 7-19, was applied. The sample consisted of 222 elementary school students from the 1st to the 4th grade attending extended and after-school day care programs. Principal components, Pearson’s correlations, t-test and discriminative analysis were used for statistical analysis. The results are indicative of statistically significant differences in the level of anxiety between very good and excellent students. Students who achieve very good success exhibit significantly higher anxiety in relation to students with excellent achievement. Somatised anxiety and, to a lesser extent, social anxiety are dominant among them. Statistically significant differences on the side of very good students are expressed through forms of anxiety that reflect emotional instability, maladjustment, lack of social conformity, and anxiety caused by a variety of social situations. The somatic anxiety factor mostly contributes to the difference in anxiety characteristics.