Family and school factors related to internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescence

ABSTRACT

Family and school factors are among the most important determinants of internalizing and externalizing problem behavior in adolescents. The aim of this study is to explore how certain family and school factors explain internalizing and externalizing problems after one year. In addition to individual-level variables, school level variables are taken into account. This multilevel study was conducted among 507 adolescents (mean age 13.44; 52.3% girls) who reported their internalizing problems (anxiety, depressive symptoms), externalizing problems (aggressive and norm-breaking behavior), parental knowledge of their whereabouts, parental rule setting, school connectedness and teacher support. At the school level, the aggregated scores for school connectedness and teacher support were calculated. The results show that the differences between schools explained 13.4% of the variance in externalizing problem behavior although it did not account for internalizing behavior. Parental knowledge and school connectedness were significant predictors of both internalizing and externalizing problems. At the school level, aggregated teacher support predicted fewer externalizing problems. While some of the results are partially in line with previous findings, others were found to be contradictory. The implications for practice are provided.

ABSTRAKT

Rodinné a školské faktory patria medzi najdôležitejšie determinanty internalizovaného a externalizovaného problémového správania u adolescentov. Cieľom tejto štúdie je preskúmať, ako rodinné a školské faktory vysvetľujú problémové správanie s odstupom jedného roku. Okrem premenných na individuálnej úrovni sú zohľadňované aj premenné na úrovni školy (viacúrovňová analýza). Zber údajov bol realizovaný medzi 507 adolescentmi (priemerný vek 13,44 rokov; 52,3% dievčat), ktorí vyplnili dotazníky týkajúce sa ich internalizovaných problémov (úzkosť, depresívne príznaky), externalizovaných problémov (agresívne správanie a porušovanie noriem), miery informovanosti rodičov o ich aktivitách mimo dohľadu, stanovovania pravidiel rodičmi, pocitu prepojenia so školou a podpory zo strany učiteľov. Na úrovni školy bolo vypočítané agregované skóre pre pripútanosť k škole a podporu učiteľov. Výsledky ukazujú, že rozdiely medzi školami vysvetľovali 13,4% rozptylu externalizovaných problémov, avšak nevysvetľovali rozptyl v internalizovaných problémoch. Rodičovská informovanosť a pripútanosť k škole boli významnými prediktormi internalizovaných aj externalizovaných problémov. Na úrovni školy predikovala agregovaná podpora učiteľov menej externalizovaných problémov. Zatiaľ čo niektoré výsledky sú v súlade s predchádzajúcimi zisteniami, iné zistenia boli protichodné. Výsledky sú diskutované a na záver je poskytnutá implikácia pre prax.

KEYWORDS:

• Internalizing behavior
• externalizing behavior
• adolescence
• family
• school
• multilevel

Kľúčové slová:

• internalizované problémové správanie
• externalizované problémové správanie
• dolescencia
• rodina
• škola
• viacúrovňová analýza

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by The Ministry of education, science, research and sport of the Slovak republic under the contract VEGA1/0523/20 and the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contracts APVV-15-0662 and APVV-21-0369.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

https://osf.io/mnysd/?view_only=ab451b3b6bd74b85944da60daf99806a

Compliance with ethical standards

Conflict of Interest. The authors report there are no competing interests to declare

Ethical approval

The study obtained Pavol Jozef Šafárik University ethics committee approval. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from parent of all individual participants included in the study.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Agentúra Ministerstva Školstva, Vedy, Výskumu a Športu SR [VEGA1/0523/20]; Agentúra na Podporu Výskumu a Vývoja [APVV-15-0662].

Notes on contributors

Maria Bacikova-Sleskova

Maria Bacikova-Sleskova, PhD. is an associate professor at the Department of Educational Psychology and Health Psychology at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. Her research interest focuses on adolescent health and problem behavior with a particular interest in parenting and family influences. She is the principal investigator in the project “Problem behaviour of adolescents. A cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of the protective and risk factors” and has taken part in the school-based Universal Drug Prevention Program UNPLUGGED.

Lucia Barbierik

Lucia Barbierik, PhD. is an assistant professor at the Department of Educational Psychology and Health Psychology at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. She takes part in research related to national grants and projects (e.g., the school-based Universal Drug Prevention Program UNPLUGGED) as well as international studies (e.g., IMPRESA https://www.upjs.sk/en/faculty-of-arts/science-and-research/IMPRESA/) in the field of risk behavior among pupils and university students. Her focus is on internalizing problem behavior with a particular interest in eating disorders and body dissatisfaction.

Andrej Gajdoš

Andrej Gajdos, PhD. is an assistant professor at the Institute of Mathematics, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. His research is mainly focused on probability, statistics, computational methods and simulations with applications in other non-mathematical disciplines. He also deals with data analysis and machine learning methods.