INVEST Research Flagship Centre, University of Turku, Turku, FI-20014, Finland.
Faculty of Social Sciences / Psychology, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.
BMC Psychol. 2024 May 7;12(1):251. doi: 10.1186/s40359-024-01752-3.
Despite a world-leading educational system, an achievement gap in educational outcomes exists between children of refugee background and native-born peers in Finland. To offer targeted support for children at schools, we need to be able to reliably assess and understand the interplay of the aspects of children's cognitive, social, and mental health functions that may explain the underachievement of refugee children. This study tests a novel research-based, universally applicable screening battery for evaluating cognitive, social, and mental health functioning of children at schools and planning supportive actions. It aims to answer research questions about a) the cognitive, social, and mental health functioning of refugee children compared with non-refugee immigrant and native-born children, b) the interplay of these different functions among refugee and other children, c) whether implementing a screening battery can inform schools in planning supportive actions for (refugee) children, and d) whether such supportive actions result in improvements in cognitive, social, and mental health functioning.
Four hundred fifty children aged 10-12 will be recruited from primary schools, including 150 children of refugee background, 150 of non-refugee immigrant background, and 150 native-born Finnish children. A screening battery including tasks and questionnaires on different aspects of cognitive, social, and mental health functioning will be used to assess the children in their classrooms at the start and end of a school year. Supporting information will also be collected from parents and teachers. The information gathered will be collated into class-level feedback reports for teachers and, with parental permission, individualized reports for multiprofessional student welfare bodies, for informing supportive actions. Correlational and latent profile analyses, ANOVAs, and linear regression will be used to answer the research questions.
This study will help clarify how the interplay of cognitive, social, and mental health factors may explain underachievement at school among refugee children. It will provide evidence about the extent to which a standardized screening battery could be helpful in informing and planning supportive actions for children at schools, and whether such supportive actions can lead to positive cognitive, social, or mental health outcomes.
The study will be preregistered on the Open Science Framework.
尽管芬兰拥有世界领先的教育体系，但在教育成果方面，难民背景的儿童与本土出生的同龄人之间仍存在差距。为了为学校的儿童提供有针对性的支持，我们需要能够可靠地评估和理解可能解释难民儿童学业成绩不佳的儿童认知、社会和心理健康功能的各个方面的相互作用。本研究测试了一种新颖的基于研究的、普遍适用的筛选工具，用于评估学校儿童的认知、社会和心理健康功能，并规划支持性行动。它旨在回答以下研究问题：a）与非难民移民和本土出生的儿童相比，难民儿童的认知、社会和心理健康功能；b）难民和其他儿童之间这些不同功能的相互作用；c）实施筛选工具是否可以为（难民）儿童规划支持性行动提供信息；d）这种支持性行动是否会导致认知、社会和心理健康功能的改善。
将从小学招募 450 名 10-12 岁的儿童，包括 150 名难民背景的儿童、150 名非难民移民背景的儿童和 150 名本土出生的芬兰儿童。一个包括认知、社会和心理健康功能不同方面任务和问卷的筛选工具将用于在学年开始和结束时在教室中评估儿童。还将从家长和教师那里收集补充信息。收集到的信息将整理成班级层面的反馈报告，供教师使用，并在获得家长许可的情况下，为多专业学生福利机构提供个性化报告，以提供支持性行动的信息。将使用相关分析、潜在剖面分析、方差分析和线性回归来回答研究问题。
本研究将有助于阐明认知、社会和心理健康因素的相互作用如何解释难民儿童在学校的学业成绩不佳。它将提供证据，说明标准化筛选工具在为学校儿童提供信息和规划支持性行动方面的帮助程度，以及这种支持性行动是否可以带来积极的认知、社会或心理健康结果。
该研究将在开放科学框架上进行预先注册。
