The Structure of Pupils' Worries During Transition from Junior to Secondary School

Abstract Transfer from junior to secondary school is not necessarily accomplished painlessly by children. There has been a general failure to monitor the child's own perception of transition. Worries, as experienced by pupils themselves, may be uncovered by collecting accounts from children ( N = 173). Problems in analysing qualitative date are overcome by using a non‐metric multidimensional scaling analysis (the Guttman‐Lingoes Smallest Space Analysis). This procedure intercorrelates items (worries) and represents them as points in a spatial array. Three distinct regions are identifiable in the multidimensional space concerning worries about interpersonal and social relationships, school work and discipline. The structure of these three sources of worries is demonstrated by means of another Guttman procedure, partial order scalogram analysis (POSA). Worries are shown to be qualitatively and quantitatively different over time. Teachers' perception of worries are demonstrated to be different from those of the children. Findings are discussed in relation to pastoral care .