Browsing by Author "Kouhia, Miia"

The purpose of this study was to find out if there is a relative age effect on school success and learning to learn skills in the Finnish school system. In addition, this study aims to find out if the possible differences in school success and learning to learn skills lead to differences in the academic self-concept and differences in the teachers and the parents' beliefs about child's possibility to succeed at school. The data of this study is a part of learning to learn data collected by the Centre of Educational Assessment (the University of Helsinki). The participants of the study were children and their teachers and parents in one school grade in all elementary schools in the city of Vantaa, including Finnish and international schools. This longitudinal data has been collected in the years 2010, 2013 and 2016, when the pupils were first-, third- and sixth-graders. The pupils (N=2569) part consisted of learning to learn assignments in the all grade. They answered beliefs and attitude questions in the third and the sixth grade additionally. The part of the teachers and parents consisted of the background questions and propositions of the children's learning and social skills. The data was analyzed with SPSS Statistic 24 program. Used analysis methods were Spearman correlation coefficient, Chi square and cross tabulation, Kruskal-Wallis test and Linear regression analysis. According to this study date of birth affects both school success and learning to learn skills in first, third and sixth school grade. The differences are the biggest at the beginning of school and decrease during the years. The relative oldest pupils also have a little bit higher attainment in mathematics and Finnish language and they were more able in part of learning to learn task than the youngest peers in the sixth grade. The relative youngest pupils have more special education needs than their older peers. Although relative age had an effect to educational attainment and learning to learn skills, it does not affect academic self-concept.