School Success

This special issue of European Psychologist focuses on issues related to school success in the European context. It includes five reviews and meta-analyses covering Northern (Finland), Southern (Greece), and central Western Europe (Germany and Austria). In addition, three of the articles also include authors from the USA and Australia. The papers collected here provide valuable insights and impulses for both the scientific community and for those working in an applied field in the school context.

Three papers in this special issue cover intervention programs. In the first of them, Salmivalli, Poskiparta, Ahtola, and Haataja (2013) discuss bullying, a problem whose prevalence in schools throughout Europe is leading to the emergence of nationwide initiatives to prevent and reduce it in a number of European countries. In particular, the article covers the effects of the Finnish national antibullying program KiVa, which has been evaluated in a randomized controlled trial and nationwide rollout across schools. The KiVa program has been found to reduce bullying and victimization while increasing empathy toward victimized peers and self-efficacy in their defence. KiVa has been found to increase a positive attitude toward school and school motivation, and it has led to significant reductions in anxiety and depressive symptoms. The paper provides a comprehensive insight into the development of the KiVa program, the evaluation of its effects, and its implementation across Finnish schools.

In the second paper, Fischer, Moeller, Cress, and Nuerk (2013), investigate interventions supporting children’s school success in mathematics. Mathematical and related STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) skills are among the most important school-taught competencies with relevance for everyday life as well as further education. Existing interventions and trainings aimed at improving children’s mathematical skills address different proficiency levels and age groups; however, their efficacy is often insufficiently evaluated. This paper reviews current intervention approaches and provides a meta-analysis of mathematical intervention literature, looking at 39 effect sizes extracted from 37 studies and drawing conclusions as to which evaluation criteria reliably impact on the reported efficacy of an intervention.

Schober, Lüftenegger, Wagner, Finsterwald, and Spiel (2013) then provide a summary of the state of the art regarding programs and recommendations to facilitate the impetus toward lifelong learning in school-age learners. As today’s societies are faced with numerous changes making continuous development indispensable, lifelong learning (LLL) has been proclaimed a Europe-wide strategy. Schools can play a key role in laying the foundations for successful LLL, and facilitating LLL is thus an important aspect of their success. There is a need for a more systematic promotion of LLL in schools. In view of this, the authors give an overview of the theoretical basis for promoting LLL competencies in schools from the perspective of educational psychology. The goals, structure, and evaluation results of the TALK training program, which aims to provide teachers with the competencies to systematically implement the enhancement of LLL in their regular educational responsibilities, are reported on as an example. Schober and colleagues also provide general recommendations for a systematic facilitation of LLL in schools.

The remaining two papers cover timely topics in research on school engagement from a European perspective. One such topic continues to be immigration and its effects. Motti-Stefanidi and Masten (2013) look at the school success and school engagement of immigrant youths from a risk and resilience developmental perspective. School success can be an important indicator of current and future adaptive success. Since the future of immigrant children and adolescents is inextricably linked to that of the receiving society, the success of their trajectory through school is a high-stakes issue for both the individual and society. The authors focus on school success in immigrant youths, and the role of school engagement in accounting for individual and group differences in academic achievement from the perspective of a multilevel integrative model of immigrant youths’ adaptation. Drawing on their conceptual framework, they examine school success in a developmental and acculturative context, taking into account multiple levels of analysis. Their findings suggest that school engagement is a general promotive factor for school success, both for immigrant and nonimmigrant youths. The authors also evaluate evidence regarding potential moderating and mediating roles of school engagement for the academic success of immigrant youths.

In the final paper, Upadyaya and Salmela-Aro (2013) take a positive approach to school engagement and school success. They examine the development of students’ engagement with school and how it may contribute to future academic success and individual well-being in different social contexts. Their review discusses the two main approaches of school engagement research – one examines students’ behavioral, cognitive, and affective engagement (North American approach), while the other examines study-related vigor, absorption, and dedication (European approach). This research shows that a high level of school engagement is positively associated with academic success, and negatively associated with depressive symptoms and burnout in students. Furthermore, the review indicates that several contextual factors, including parental affect, teachers’ support, and a mastery-oriented atmosphere in the classroom, promote students’ engagement with school.