Associations Between Teacher-Reported School Climate and Depressive Symptoms in Australian Adolescents: A 5-Year Longitudinal Study

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
File version

Accepted Manuscript (AM)

Author(s)
Possel, Patrick
Rakes, Christopher
Rudasill, Kathleen Moritz
Sawyer, Michael G
Spence, Susan H
Sheffield, Jeanie
Griffith University Author(s)
Primary Supervisor
Other Supervisors
Editor(s)
Date
2016
Size
File type(s)
Location
License
Abstract

Adolescent depression is serious and common. As adolescents spend approximately 15,000 h in school, this setting is a logical place to seek etiological factors. Research suggests there are negative associations between school climate and adolescent depressive symptoms. However, such studies typically use student reports of both climate and depressive symptoms; this is problematic because common method variance results when the same individual provides information on all variables, contributing to overestimations of associations between depressive symptoms and school climate. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the association between teacher-reported school climate and adolescent-reported depressive symptoms. Thus, 2545 Australian high school students participated in this 5-year longitudinal study. Students completed a measure of depressive symptoms annually; their teachers (N = 882) completed a questionnaire to evaluate the quality of the school environment (i.e., safe/orderly and supportive relationships). Multi-group latent growth models revealed that more positive teacher-reported school climate was cross-sectionally associated with fewer student-reported depressive symptoms in both boys and girls, although this association was significantly stronger for girls. Longitudinally, positive school climate was associated with lower depressive symptoms but a higher rate of change of symptoms for both boys and girls. The overall findings are consistent with previous findings with student-reported school climate. However, the gender difference and the directionality of the longitudinal association between school climate and depressive symptoms over time demonstrate that additional studies of mechanisms by which school climate is connected to adolescents’ depressive symptoms are needed.

Journal Title

School Mental Health

Conference Title
Book Title
Edition
Volume

8

Issue

4

Thesis Type
Degree Program
School
Publisher link
Patent number
Funder(s)
Grant identifier(s)
Rights Statement
Rights Statement

© 2016 Springer Vienna. This is an electronic version of an article published in Amino Acids, December 2016, Volume 8, Issue 4, pp 425–440. Amino Acids is available online at: http://link.springer.com/ with the open URL of your article.

Item Access Status
Note
Access the data
Related item(s)
Subject

Educational psychology

Persistent link to this record
Citation
Collections