Abstract:

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine self-efficacy in adolescents with dyslexia in reference to social and emotional adjustment. This was an international study that investigated success attributes, goal achievement dispositions and hopefulness as well as other factors to increase understanding of adolescent challenges.

Objectives:
Phase I of the study focused on the individual case stories of children with dyslexia at the elementary school level while Phase II studied these same children in adolescence as they progressed through the secondary level of schooling. The objectives of Phase II of the study included the following two questions, which will be addressed in this proposed presentation:
1) How are these adolescents adjusting to increasing school and life demands?
2) How are these adolescents developing socially and emotionally as they face the challenges of secondary schooling?
The assessment Protocol included five sources of data: semi-structured interviews, two scales (Academic and Emotional) of the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire for Children SEQ-C) (Muris, 2001), the Achievement Goal Disposition Survey (adapted from Hayamizu & Weiner, 1991) and the Children’s Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1997). The semi-structured interview was developed in part of the basis of the success attribute construct, which was the foundation for the longitudinal study conducted by the Frostig Center in Pasadena, California (Goldberg et al, 2003).

Results:
The success attribute data analysis examined the attributes of self-awareness, proactivity, perseverance, emotional stability, use of support and goal setting. The results will present the data across subjects with explanations for identifying adolescents as low strength, medium strength and high strength with respect to specific attributes. The attributes were identified from specific questions in the semi-structured interviews. With regard to achievement goal dispositions, the adolescents in this study showed a marked preference for studying to achieve specific goals, such as university admission, securing a good job, etc. as opposed to studying/learning for mastering content or gaining social approval. Self-efficacy assessment revealed that the majority of the adolescents had strong confidence in the ability to meet academic goals; however, a third of these students had low confidence in this ability. Similar results were found for the emotional scales with almost identical overlapping (i.e., the boys who did not feel strong in the area of academic efficacy were the same who did not feel strong in emotional efficacy. These adolescents were also those who scored lowest in reading achievement. With regard to the assessment of hopefulness, about half of the adolescent scored in the average range while the other subjects’ ratings were divided between high hope and low hope.

Discussion:
As a group, the majority of adolescents showed remarkable resiliency as measured by strong ratings on a number of self-efficacy scales and other instruments. They had faced all sorts of obstacles that they were successfully maneuvering as they sought to accomplish their goals. However, the strengths in the majority are clouded by the adolescents who were struggling greatly at school and showed marked evidence of low self-efficacy across the board. Recommendations for supporting these at risk students will be offered.

Keywords:

Dyslexia, self-efficacy, resiliency, reading disabilities.