Transition to Kindergarten: exploring concepts of worry, transition activities, and parent efficacy

Kindergarten entry is a significant -- and fairly common -- transition experienced by young children and their families. Put simply, it is often a drastic new experience for young children including new behavioral, social, and emotional demands and it remains difficult for many children (Cowan and Heming, 2005; Jiang, Justice, Purtell, Lin, and Logan, 2021; Latham, 2018). This adjustment is important because how well children adjust to their new academic context has implications for short- and long-term academic and social successes (e.g., Ahtola et al., 2011; Berger et al., 2017; Williams et al., 2020). While adults often act on behalf of young children to design and engage in transition supports during this time, with intentions to ease the transition, what remains largely unexamined is how children perceive their experience and how that may work in conjunction with adults' efforts. This study seeks to further explore children's worries, how worries are associated with outcomes, and how parent efficacy is associated with Kindergarten outcomes. This study utilized electronic surveys with a sample of 85 Missouri parents of current and previous-year Kindergartners.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Human development and family studies (MU)

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Missouri--Columbia

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Turley, Danielle

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Manfra, Louis

Language dc:language.iso

eng, English

DOI

https://doi.org/10.32469/10355/91632

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:mospace.umsystem.edu:10355/91632