The decision whether or not to accelerate a student is relatively easy to make on the cognitive level, but it is much harder on the psychosocial level. Previous studies suggest to pay more attention to the social-emotional development of young accelerated students and their relations with classmates.
The goal of this research is to make a first step in increasing the insight in the psycholosocial aspects of the acceleration of students.
Research question: To what extent is the social status of accelerated children related to their ego development?.
Design: A mixed-methods design with a large scale quantitative study on social status and a qualitative small scale study to gain insight in the psychosocial development of five accelerated children with diverse social statuses.
Method: 305 students in their first year of secondary schools participated. Students were clustered into five sociometric status groups (accepted, rejected, neglected, controversial and average). A questionnaire contained ten behavior reputation descriptions (five positive and five negative) and The Dutch ’ZinnenAanvulLijst Curium (ZALC)’ was admistered during an interview to assess the level of ego development of the five case-study students (impulsive, self-protective, conformist, self-aware and conscientious). These were compared to different age norms.
Results: Accelerated students had less positive reputations than nonaccelerated students (F(2,302)= 3.46; p= .033). Levels of ego-development of the accelaretad students were rather high. Three of the five case study students showed levels of ego-development higher than the age norm of their classmates. Higher levels of ego-development were related to more positive social statuses of accelareted students.
We have found indications for a relation between psychosocial development and social status of students. Since the research group was rather small, more extensive research is needed to further validate this relation.