The Effects of Young Children’s Self-esteem and Social Competence on Elementary School Adjustment

Abstract

This study aims to discover how self-esteem and social competence in early childhood affect school adjustment in elementary school. This study used the 7th year (2014) and 10th year (2017) of the panel study on Korean children, which are longitudinal research data from the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education (KICCE). Pearson’s correlation analysis and hierarchical regression analysis were used as the main statistical analysis methods. The analysis was performed using the the Spss 21.0 program. As a result of this study, peer acceptance among early childhood’s self-esteem, assertion, cooperation, and self-control among social competence have influences on adjustment to elementary school life. This study is meaningful in that it is a longitudinal study conducted with a time difference for 3 years with the same subjects in order to investigate the influence of the inner factors of early childhood on school adjustment in elementary school.