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School Performance Paths: Personal and Contextual Factors Related to Top Performers and Low Achievers in Portugal and Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2018

Celeste Simões Open the ORCID record for Celeste Simões [Opens in a new window] ,
Francisco Rivera ,
Carmen Moreno  and
Margarida Gaspar de Matos
Celeste Simões*
Affiliation:
Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal)
Francisco Rivera
Affiliation:
Universidad de Sevilla (Spain)
Carmen Moreno
Affiliation:
Universidad de Sevilla (Spain)
Margarida Gaspar de Matos
Affiliation:
Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal)
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Celeste Simões. Universidade de Lisboa. Faculdade de Morticidade Humana. Lisboa (Portugal). E-mail: csimoes@fmh.ulisboa.pt - csimoes@sapo.pt
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Abstract

School performance is a critical aspect of adolescents’ lives. Several factors have an impact on school performance. The aim of this study is to analyze the relevant personal and contextual variables associated with top performance and low achievement in a sample of Portuguese and Spanish adolescent students. The sample included 1,564 adolescents, mean age 14 years old, and was collected from the HBSC (Health Behavior in School-aged Children) survey. The questions in this study covered sociodemographic, health and wellbeing, health-related behaviors, family, school and peers. Results show that students with low performance more frequently have worse social-contextual and personal/health-related indicators, while the opposite is the case for top performers. Student-teacher relationships appeared as the most influential variable on school performance paths, χ2(2) = 328.11, p < .001; but other variables within families, e.g. mother studies, χ2(2) = 50.54, p < .001, and schools, e.g. liking the school, χ2(1) = 16.27, p < .001 and χ2(1) = 22.54, p < .01 (in the low and high student-teacher relationship branches of the decision tree, respectively), as well as some health and wellbeing variables, e.g. health related-quality of life, χ2(2) = 53.58, p < .001, and χ2(2) = 63.86, < .001 (in the low and high student-teacher relationship branches, respectively), appeared significant in the paths.

Keywords

health-related behaviorsschool performancestudent-teacher relationshipstudents well-being
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 21 , 2018 , E36
Copyright
Copyright © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2018 

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Footnotes

The authors thank to the HBSC Portuguese and Spanish teams, for their fieldwork, collecting data. Likewise, the authors thank to the Portuguese Health Authority - Health Ministry and to the Spanish Ministerio de Salud, Asuntos Sociales e Igualdad, for funding this study in Portugal and Spain, respectively. The authors would like also to thank Harry Ballan for the important inputs and the final English writing revision.

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