Transition to secondary school: relationship between changes in academic achievement and general adjustment

English: Adolescence is a time of immense physical, cognitive and emotional development. This transition from childhood to adulthood begins with the onset of puberty. Puberty also coincides with the transition many learners have to make from primary to secondary school. This transition confronts adolescents with new educational environments and challenges. Some adolescent learners experience a great deal of stress during this period and are thus not able to maintain the same level of academic achievement as they did in primary school. Other learners, however, appear to make the transition with very little difficulty. These learners are able to maintain or even improve upon their previous level of academic achievement. These differing experiences during the transitional period may be due to differences in the learners' adjustment. Learners' study habits and attitudes serve as important coping mechanisms within the changing educational environment. Specific attention was also given to the role of the family, peers, school and academic skills during the transition from primary to secondary school. The sample consisted of 137 grade eight learners from four secondary schools in the greater Bloemfontein area. The learners were divided into two groups on the basis of whether their academic achievement had improved or decreased from the end of grade seven to the middle of grade eight. These two groups were then compared with respect to their adjustment and general study orientation. The effects of gender, language and residential status upon adjustment and general study orientation were also investigated. Attention was also given to the interaction between changes in academic achievement and each of the above-mentioned independent variables. The statistical analysis of the data was performed by employing a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). An analysis of variance (ANOVA) or post hoc t-test (Scheffé) was then used to determine the direction of any differences that were indicated by the MANOVA. Significant differences were found to exist between male and female learners with regard to their general study orientation and certain aspects of their adjustment. Differences were also found to exist between English, Afrikaans and other language speaking learners with respect to their adjustment and general study orientation. Although no significant differences were found with regard to changes in academic achievement differences were found to exist with respect to the interaction between change in academic achievement and language. Differences seem to exist between the adjustment and general study orientation of learners from different language groups who experienced an increase in academic achievement and those who experienced a decrease in academic achievement. Differences also seem to exist within the same language group with regard to changes in academic achievement. Based on these findings various suggestions for future research and development were made.