The Role Of Individual Character Strengths In Adolescent Academic Achievement And Risky School Behavior

<p>Adolescent achievement is a major developmental task in adolescence and reducing Risky School Behaviors is an important part of the process. Patterns of adolescent achievement and general development are the result of the cumulative process that includes a long history of experience and socialization in school, in the family, in the peer group, and in the community. This study is the first to expand understanding of these key interrelated but unique outcome variables of both Academic Achievement and risky School Behavior through examination of individual Character Strengths in the presence of other key intrapersonal and contextual variables from multiple systems in the child’s life including intrapersonal/individual and microsystem (family, peer, school) factors. Over 500 adolescents from 2 different high schools participated in the study providing information on demographics, individual Character Strengths, Adolescent Achievement Orientation, Parent Achievement Orientation, Parent Involvement, Peer Achievement Orientation, Teacher Social Support, School Attachment, Academic Achievement and Risky School Behaviors. Results revealed that the individual Character Strengths of Persistence and Prudence were significant in predicting Academic Achievement and Risky School Behaviors, respectively, when considered in comparison with other know predictors. Implications and possible application of Character Strengths to inform school-wide character education programs as well as individual character building interventions with the goal of increasing student achievement and decreasing Risky School Behaviors is discussed.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Psychology

Year dc:date.available

2016

Author dc:creator

• Deschamps, Paul

Contributors dc:contributor

• Cheryl Somers

• achievement
• adolescent
• behavior
• character strength
• positive psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/1439

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.wayne.edu:oa_dissertations-2438