School Life and Adolescents' Self-Esteem Trajectories: A conditional growth mixture analysis

This study investigates heterogeneity in adolescents’ trajectories of global self-esteem (GSE) and the relations between these trajectories and facets of the interpersonal, organizational and instructional components of students’ school life. Methodologically, this study illustrates the use of growth mixture analyses, and also how to obtain proper student-level effects when there are multiple schools, but not enough to support multilevel analyses. This study is based on a four-year, six-measurement-point, follow-up of 1008 adolescents. The results show four latent classes presenting elevated, moderate, increasing and low trajectories defined based on GSE levels and fluctuations. The results show that GSE becomes trait-like as it increases and that school life effects, moderated by gender, played an important role in predicting membership in these trajectories.

Associate Professor Alexandre J.S. Morin received his Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Montreal, Canada. He is a highly productive researcher having produced 61 articles many of which are in top-tier journals and book chapters with reputable publishers. His research has also attracted multiple prestigious external grants in Canada (e.g., Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Fond Québécois de Recherche sur la Société et la Culture). Illustrative of the recognition received for his research contributions, he has acted as reviewer for international and local conferences, doctoral and post-doctoral scholarships grant applications for the Fond Québécois de Recherche sur la Société et la Culture, additional Canadian, Italina and Belgian grants applications, and for 74 manuscripts submitted in a total of 27 peer-reviewed journals including Organizational Research Methods and the Journal of Sports and Exercise Psychology. He has been repeatedly invited to present his research to research groups located in Australia, UK, Italy and France, including formal invitations for longer stays as invited professor at the University of Aix-Marseille 2, the University of Western Sydney, and to the University of Cagliari. Upon joining CPPE in September 2012, Alexandre will head the Positive Substantive Methodological synergy cluster and seek ways to promote secondary data analyses of the multiple rich data vases available at CPPE, in order to maximise the return on investment of these impressive data bases.

Research Interests: Alexander defines himself as a lifespan developmental psychologist with broad research interests anchored in the exploration of the social determinants of psychological wellbeing and psychopathologies at various life stages. Most of his research endeavours are anchored into a substantive-methodological synergy framework and thus represent joint ventures in which new methodological developments are applied to substantively important issues. 

 

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