Project SASCHA

Social and Acadademic School Transition Challenges

The focus of the project SASCHA lies on the adaptation to secondary school as a critical life event which brings a number of changes to children`s lives.

Children face at least two central challenges while transitioning to secondary school: They need to invest cognitive resources in school achievement due to increased performance requirements and they need to reorganize their social relationships because they have new classmates.

Successful adaptation depends upon cognitive, motivational und self-regulatory antecedents resulting in differences between children in the adaptation process, and in positive long-term outcomes, such as school achievement and social adjustment. Understanding how children adapt to changing academic demands and develop new social relationships during transition are the main goals of the project. We conceive working memory as the central resource in daily self-regulatory processes.

In the project’s study, children complete playful working memory tasks on a smartphone repeatedly each day for four weeks. In addition, they answer short questions about mood, goals, events, and coping behavior to understand which processes lead to successful transition. In pre- and post-tests school achievement, fluid intelligence, and background variables are assessed.

To trace the progress of adapting to secondary school, 200 children will participate in this project during 4^th, 5^th and 6^th grade.