Self-report scales for measuring children’s emotional well-being during primary-secondary transitions: An international systematic review

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to conduct a detailed scoping review of school transition papers published between 01/08 and 03/21 that have used child self-report measures to assess school transition experiences and/or emotional well-being and/or factors believed to underpin emotional well-being. Specifically this scoping review examined: what measures have been used, whether they have changed over time and their methodological rigour.
Background: Primary-secondary school transition is a critical period for children, where they experience multiple concurrent transitions. For most children these are positive and they flourish; but for some they can have a negative impact on their well-being. However, to date, we have a limited understanding of how primary-secondary school transition impacts children’s emotional well-being and specifically which aspects of emotional well-being are most affected. It is unclear: who the vulnerable children are over school transition and how this might change over the transition period, how vulnerable children can be identified and what additional emotional-centred support children need.
Methods: This review is based on the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre’s (2010) method, which consisted of: scoping the review, searching for studies, screening studies, describing and mapping, quality and relevance appraisal and finally synthesising the study findings. At the describing and mapping stage, included papers’ conceptualisation of transition and emotional well-being was also reviewed, recognising that this is a gap in school transition research.
Conclusions: The authors are currently synthesising study findings, which will be finalised and presented at the conference.