Article Critique Assignment

Article Critique Name Institution Affiliation Course Date of Submission Article Critique Summary The article focused on the study regarding peer victimization in kindergarten and the relationship that exists with the children’s school adjustment. The study addressed four types of victimization that include physical, direct verbal, indirect verbal, and general victimization. Large percentage of children had reported victimization by their peers where both sexes were equally at risk. The study is based on theoretical framework analysis of aggressive behavior among children, where it was found that aggressive children tend to portray their aggressive behavior on others. The author hypothesis was that female children were more exposed to peer victimization that their male counterparts in school. The finding of the study indicated that the general and direct verbal victimizations occurred often that indirect and physical victimization. All type of victimization had a relationship with children loneliness in school and their desire to avoid the school environment. This provides the negative attitude toward school, as the analysis indicates that victimization is a major contributor to school adjustment. Identity and Source of Subject The study subject emanated from the growing awareness among psychologists and educators that the school adjustment and progress among children was dependent on the security and comfort of school environment. The adaptation of school environment is to the extent that children feel secure and comfortable, and the extent to which they are victimized by their peers. Children who were regularly victimized by their peers perceives school to be threatening and became lonely, due to the fact that little was know on the impact of peer victimization on children adjustment in early grade school years. Therefore, the study was designed to address the gap by examining the relation between peer victimization and school adjustment of children who had entered kindergarten (Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996). Sample Size The study focused on a sample of 200 kindergarten children that consisted of 105 male and 95 female children. The children age ranged from a mean of 5.5 and a range of 5.0 to 6.83 from a school serving three communities in the mid US. The project was longitudinal taking 5 years to study these children who were from differ rent social economic backgrounds that comprised of 36.8% comprising of low income earners. 30.6% from middle income earners, and the remainder were from the upper to high income earners. The ethnic composition of the sample was representative of the participating school systems of 20% African American, 25% Latino, 73.5% Caucasian, and 4.5% mixed race and others. The peer support scale was administered to children during the interview to obtain the children perception of class peers, where they self report the extent to which they have experienced the four forms of peer victimization (Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996). The children had been trained on the response format which ranged between 0 and 2 on all forms of victimization. Study Design The study design is correlation, as the variables are being deter mined whether they relate to one another. There was a moderate magnitude of correlation that was obtained from victimization measures representing different types of victimization experiences. The extent of the study was the differing types of victimization and the types of experiences differ by gender. The analysis conducted was to determine the existence of gender difference among children with high level of victimization. The study also focused its analysis on the correlation of victimization and school adjustment among children, which make unique contribution to children’s school adjustment. The study design is best suited as it was used to...