What Makes School Hard for Students with Internalizing Problems? – Students’ Insights on Emotional Challenges at School [Was erschwert Kindern mit internalisierenden Problemen den Schulalltag? – Emotionale Schwierigkeiten aus der Schüler:innenperspektive]

Bosch, Jannis; Baer, Ella; Meisel, Melanie; Wilbert, Jürgen

Abstract

A number of studies have found evidence for associations of internalizing problems (IP)with negative emotional experiences at school. However, most studies on the subject haveneglected to investigate explanations for these associations. Satisfaction of psychologicalneeds of students (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness) provides a theoreticalframework to further explain these associations, as need satisfaction has been shown toaffect students’ emotional wellbeing. The aims of the study at hand are to investigate stu-dents’ explanations for their own emotional experiences within the school context, andwhether they correspond with aforementioned psychological needs, with a particular focuson students with high IP. To achieve these aims, n = 32 structured interviews were con -ducted with fifth and sixth graders. Students were screened for IP and students with eithervery high or very low IP were interviewed. Students’ explanations for their own emotionalexperiences were categorized using qualitative content analysis based on aforementionedpsychological needs. Results show that children with high IP focused on negative ratherthan positive situations within school. Differences between children with high and low IPwere particularly pronounced in the relatedness category. Children in the high IP groupmentioned peer-related needs more often and showed a lower percentage of positive seg-ments relatedness needs. The specific topics within individual needs provided by this studycan be used to enhance and further differentiate need-supportive teaching models, partic-ularly for children with high IP.