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Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
Published in: Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 8/2022

Open Access 10-05-2022 | Original Paper

The role of primary school composition in affective decision-making: a prospective cohort study

Authors: E. Papachristou, E. Flouri, H. Joshi

Published in: Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology | Issue 8/2022

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Abstract

Purpose

School-level characteristics are known to be associated with pupils’ academic and cognitive ability but also their socioemotional development. This study examines, for the first time, whether primary school characteristics are associated with pupils’ affective decision-making too.

Methods

The sample included 3,141 children participating in the Millennium Cohort Study with available data on their school’s characteristics, according to the National Pupil Database, at age 7 years. Decision-making was measured using the Cambridge Gambling Task at age 11 years. We modelled data using a series of sex-stratified linear regression analyses of decision-making (risk‐taking, quality of decision‐making, risk adjustment, deliberation time, and delay aversion) against four indicators of school composition (academic performance and proportions among pupils who are native speakers of English, are eligible for free school meals and have special educational needs).

Results

After adjustment for individual and family-level confounding, schools with a higher average academic performance showed more delay aversion among males, and among females, higher deliberation time and lower risk-taking. Schools with proportionally more native English speakers had higher deliberation time among males. Schools with proportionally more pupils eligible for free school meals showed lower scores on quality of decision-making among males. Schools with proportionally more children with special educational needs showed better quality of decision-making among males and lower risk-taking among females.

Conclusion

The findings of this study can be used to target support for primary schools. Interventions aiming to support lower-achieving schools and those with less affluent intakes could help to improve boys’ affective decision-making.
Footnotes
1
In a supplementary analysis we also tested cross-level interactions between school-average KS1 performance, proportion of children in the school eligible for FSM, and proportion of children in the school with SEN, and the equivalent individual characteristics (i.e. child’s KS1 score, child’s FSM eligibility and child’s SEN status) on the decision-making outcomes after adjustments for confounding. None of these interaction terms yielded significant results.
 
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Metadata
Title
The role of primary school composition in affective decision-making: a prospective cohort study
Authors
E. Papachristou
E. Flouri
H. Joshi
Publication date
10-05-2022
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology / Issue 8/2022
Print ISSN: 0933-7954
Electronic ISSN: 1433-9285
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-022-02252-8

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