The Mediating Role of School Liking

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The Project

This research project was completed as part of a poster presentation at the conference for the Western Psychological Association in 2021. The poster can be found here. The goal of this project was to conduct research on the role of school liking in children around the world. The project had a very short timeframe but ultimately my team and I presented an exceptional study. For this project, I lead a team of three undergraduate research assistants. 

The Objective

I inherited this project as part of a line of research being conducted by my supervisor. Prior research had not examined the how a child's perceived financial stability and school attitudes could impact their overall life satisfaction in a cross-cultural context. As such, my team and I aimed to address this gap in the literature through a poster presentation at a regional psychology conference. I was given two months to coordinate with my research assistants, conduct the research, and prepare a proposal to the conference. After being accepted to the conference, my team was given an additional month to prepare the poster. My team primarily worked on the literature review while I handled all data and statistical analysis. Additionally, I regularly met with my team and checked their work to ensure a high level of scientific rigor. The project addressed two hypotheses:

1. There will be differences between countries based on GDP on the three variables of interest.
2. Perceived financial stability will have a positive relationship with life satisfaction among elementary school students, with school liking mediating this relationship.

The Work

Research plan:

The project began by conducting an in-depth review of the existing literature on school attitudes, financial stability, and life satisfaction. Additionally, little research had been conducted in a cross-cultural setting. This led my team and me to develop the hypotheses based on the literature review. By examining our given dataset, I was able to conduct this research with three different nations. The in-depth literature review guided this research project and ensured a high level of scientific rigor. 

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Method:

Data was extracted from a existing public-use dataset. The variables of interest were picked out for three nations. The data was then cleaned and analyzed in R. The dataset is extremely large so I had to reduce the information to make it manageable based on the hypotheses.

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Participants:

Participants consisted of school-aged children in the Germany, Slovakia, and the Republic of Moldova. Participants from these nations were picked based on the availability of data and the nation's GDP.

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Data Analysis:

Data was analyzed in R. A variety of methods were implemented including MANOVA, intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), path analysis, and mediation analysis. The ICC was implemented to ensure that the data from each nation was distinct from each other nation. The remaining analyses were implemented to address the hypotheses.

The End Result

The results of the study indicate that school liking significantly mediates the relationship between perceived financial stability and life satisfaction to varying degrees in the three nations. These findings are especially impactful for parents and school officials when trying to improve a child's life satisfaction. Additionally, these findings help researchers better understand the predictors of a child's life satisfaction in nations of varying GDP.