Worry in childhood has been linked to anxiety-related disorders and mental health conditions that reduce the potential for learning in school.  The incidence of these psychological conditions appears to have risen in New Zealand over recent years.  This study examined the content and frequency of children’s worries in a sample of 111 ‘normal’ preadolescent (10 and 11 year-old) children in New Zealand.  Children first listed their worries in a free-response task.  They then rated the frequency of their worry about 42 specific issues representing seven themes (school, home, social acceptance, appearance, health and safety, the environment, and the future).  Ten percent of the children were also interviewed about the worries of children their age.  All children completed a trait anxiety scale.  Statistical analyses of the ratings indicated modest and similar levels of worry across all seven themes, with ratings significantly related to trait anxiety but largely unaffected by gender.  Qualitative analyses suggested that worries were more likely to be about school, health and safety, and social issues.  Worries had implications for school motivation, in particular, self-worth, confidence and perceived control.  The results are discussed with reference to prior research overseas, and in terms of their implications for teaching and parenting.

Worry as a Barrier to Learning: What are New Zealand

Preadolescents Worrying About?

Michael Townsend, Massey University

Children who worry, or have repetitively intrusive thoughts, may experience distressing mood states and cognitive avoidance which reduce the potential for learning in school.  Some studies suggest that up to 30 percent of children may exhibit sub-clinical levels of excessive worry (Bell-Dolan, Last & Strauss, 1990), and in New Zealand the rates of child and adolescent depression and suicide are increasing (Child and Youth Mortality Review, 2006).  Although international research suggests that worry is common in children, particularly with regard to school, health and social acceptance issues, no study has examined the typical worries of normal school children in New Zealand.  This study was designed to identify the nature and frequency of worries of preadolescent school children in New Zealand, and to examine whether worries are coincidental with trait anxiety.

Methodology

Participants

Participants were 111 school students in Year 6 (63 girls and 48 boys; mean age 10.92 years) from four schools in Auckland, New Zealand.

Procedure

In a written free-response activity (called “My Worries”), students were asked to identify the things that worried them.  Students then completed a 42-item questionnaire (“Things That Worry Me”) designed to measure (on a 6-point scale from ‘never’ to ‘always’) the frequency with which students worried about specific issues associated with seven prompted themes (subscales) – worries about school (e.g., “I worry about making mistakes in my work”), health, the environment, friendships, home, physical appearance, and the future.  For each theme, students could write in any additional worries.  Individual interviews (“What do you think children your age worry about most?  What do you think children your age worry most about school/health/home, etc?) were then conducted with 10% of the sample.  Finally, all students completed the Trait Anxiety Scale (Spielberger, 1983).

Responses to the qualitative measures were coded to identified categories by two independent judges (agreement > 95%).  Numerical ratings of the frequency of worries were examined in multivariate analyses involving themes, gender and level of trait anxiety (higher, middle and lower).

Findings

Scores from the seven subscales of the “Things That Worry Me” scale revealed that the frequency of worry was relatively low overall (all means below the mid-point of the subscale), and not significantly different across the seven themes, although there was a tendency to be more worried about the future, health and the environment than home, school, appearance and friendships.  Significant multivariate effects were found for gender and trait anxiety, but not for their interaction.  Tests of the univariate effects revealed that the gender effect was associated with only the appearance subscale, with girls expressing more frequent worry than boys.  However, an effect for trait anxiety was found for all seven subscales, with more frequent worry being associated with greater trait anxiety.  Similar analyses of the items within each subscale were carried out, but are not reported in this summary.  For the presentation we will look in more detail at the ‘school’ worries.

The worries identified in the open-ended “My Worries” activity (completed before the questionnaire) were largely the same as those specifically identified in the questionnaire, although worries about death, academic pressures at school and friendships (particularly bullying) were common.  Similarly, few additional worries were written in for specific themes in the questionnaire; where worries were noted they were usually quite specific (e.g., my broken nose, not marrying, being attacked by dogs), were more likely to be made by girls, and appeared more urgent (often rated as ‘always’).  Finally, the interviews provided deeper understanding of the reasons behind the worries associated with each theme.  For example, although girls were perceived to worry more than boys about school performance (both academic and sporting), the common theme regarding schoolwork was concern about appearing ‘dumb’ to their classmates, given as the major reason for not asking questions in class.  Thus, worry has a significant impact on school motivation.

Significance

Consistent with overseas studies (Gottlieb & Bronstein, 2000; Muris, 1998), the results suggest that worry is a common aspect of life among normal preadolescent school children in New Zealand, particularly worries about academic, social and health/safety issues.  The results also support the view that trait anxiety is a core feature of negative affectivity, a precursor to mental health problems which act as a barrier to learning.  A fundamental aspect of worry is its effect on school motivation, particularly self-worth (Covington, 1992), in undermining students’ confidence and perceived control in academic problem-solving activities (Davey, 1993; Spielberger, 1983).  We argue that good instruction should reflect an understanding of children’s worries, and should allow children more control of potentially anxiety provoking situations so that they may reduce worry and hence increase potential for learning.