CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The purpose of this chapter is to review literature that presents information related to the life

of freshmen junior high school academy students. The literature review is organized and

categorized into for sections including: the transitioning into a boarding school, challenges of

the freshmen junior high school academy students, coping strategies to overcome challenges

while staying away from family. This chapter also contains the theoretical framework which

contains a review of relevant theories for the study.

Transitioning into a Boarding School

According to Green (1997), transitioning is moving from known to unknown where

social dynamics and relationship to peer are recognized as significant in the success or

otherwise of the transitioning process. Transitioning for boarding students involves

transferring from what is known to unknown in many different forms: they will start life at a

new school, live geographically in a different place and with people they have not yet met

before. Engaging activities within the local communities are no longer attended by many of

the boarding students. Social relationships, finding friends, fitting in and creating a sense of

belonging, all key concepts associated with transitioning, become critically essential in the

transitioning process for boarding students as they live, work and play with their peers.

(Berliner, 1993; Howard & Johnson, 2005; Pereira & Pooley, 2007)

Assimilating into boarding is a challenging time for young people who may be

frequently suffered by short period of experiencing homesickness and distress at becoming

far from their families. However, there are many advantages to boarding, the transitioning

and ongoing challenges faced by boarders in these closed environments are different from

those faced by day students and may be short lived or could have long lasting affects

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(Duffell, 2005; La Fontaine, 1991; Lambert, 1968; Schaverien, 2002; Poynting & Donaldson,

2005).

Cognitively young people are also further developing their capacity to remember the

world around them and to understand, think and reason. Theorists have studied the

psychology of cognitive development from numerous perspectives, with Piaget’s stages of

development used as an effective means by which to understand and explain this process of

maturation. Many theorists share common key concepts when exploring cognitive

development including problem solving, thinking and reasoning. When boarding students’

transition into their new complex environment most will need to engage in problem solving,

thinking and reasoning at a higher level than in their home environment. There is capacity for

this change of environment to possibly hasten cognitive development, accelerating the

movement from Piaget’s concrete to formal operations developmental stages. Even more

significant cognitive gains may occur when considering the experiences of boarding students

through the lens of Seigler’s overlapping waves model that advocates strategies employed to

situations through experiential learning leads to cognitive development (Krause et al., 2010)

Challenges of the Freshmen Junior High School Academy Students

Social, emotional and academic wellbeing of young people are affected due to

transitioning to boarding school during the middle years of childhood. Greater transitional

changes in all three components may be experience by the students who live at school as

boarders. During the first two weeks of staying at the boarding school and when students

returned after the holidays usually they experienced homesickness. Especially for the girls,

younger students and international students are experiencing more homesickness. There are

three factors that best explained how students experienced homesickness which are

psychosomatic symptoms, separation distress and grief and loss. Boarding students might

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encounter new challenges that are unfamiliar to them like homesickness, academic stresses,

handling money, responsibilities, and time management, dealing with those kinds of

situations especially to the inexperienced ones would be rough and adjusting to the new

rhythm of living would be much challenging. (Bramston & Patrick, 2007; Connell &

Wellborn, 1991; Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991; Earls & Carlson, 2001; Miller,

B.,2017).

Most of the boarding students do not have their immediate availability of their family

daily to support them through the changes experienced during puberty stage. It may add the

social anxiety experienced by the students because of the difficulty to discuss or share with

the people outside of their immediate family in terms of the physical changes. For example,

the onset of menstruation may have little or no warning and could be an awkward experience

for boarding students, particularly for those students who do not know where or how to

access necessary sanitary requirements.

Students regain their psychological stability while living at home with their parents.

However, boarding school students have to adjust to living away from the security of a family

and away from parental guidance. Therefore, boarding students find psychological and

physical problems because they do not receive care from home. For many boarding students,

the separation from home for the first time may create feelings of doubt, confusion, and

anxiety. In the harassed mental symptom of boarding students, loneliness is the most terrible

problem. They were overwhelmed by a longing for warm hearted family loving. If they get

over this process, loneliness leads an individual to achieve deeper self-awareness, a time to be

creative, and an opportunity to attain self-fulfilment and to explore the meaning of life.

However, not every boarding student is psychologically mature enough to convert their

loneliness to positive outcomes. Most outstanding students learn how to deal with the

attachment and separation processes of interpersonal situations in normal psychological

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growth and to create a unique self-identity. However, those who fail to learn how to manage

stressful situations suffer from unpleasant and distressing consequences due to their social

and emotional loneliness.

However, in the case of boarding school students, some may experience additional

emotional instability and face various psychological and physical problems due to an

adjustment to living away from parental guidance. This situation is further aggravated by the

insufficient social support and the students’ own negative thoughts about boarding school.

Boarding school students also have to socialize with a multitude of unfamiliar people while

having to cope with stress and homesickness can affect their personality. Uncontrolled stress

levels among these students may lead to psychological, physiological, physical, or mental

problems (Kim, Kim, & Yang, 2015; Ak & Sayil, 2006; Schaverein, 2004; Romas & Sharma,

2004).

Coping Strategies to Overcome Challenges while Staying Away from Family

Susan Folkman and Richard Lazarus defined coping as the constant changing

cognitive and behavior efforts to manage specific external and internal demands that are

appraised as taxing. It is a respond to loss, a technique to retain the balance, and a human’s

approach that intends to solve problems by taking the right approaches and actions.

Coping mechanisms are ways wherein external and internal stress is managed, adapted to, or

acted upon. It also refers to the specific efforts, both behavioral and psychological, that

people employ to master, tolerate, reduce, or minimize stressful events.

There are three methods of coping according to Laureate Education, Inc., 2012. These are

problem-solving coping strategies, emotion-focused coping strategies, and biological-focused

coping strategies.

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Problem-solving coping strategy is the effort to do something active to alleviate stressful

circumstances. It targets the causes of stress in practical ways which tackles the problem or

stressful situation that is causing stress, consequently directly reducing the stress. Its aim is to

remove or reduce the stressor (I. Pavlov).

According to the study, it mainly focuses on the changing or modifying the cause of stress

and some strategies like information seeking to reduce and avoid the cause of stress. Its

effectiveness depends on whether the stressor can be managed by changing it.

Carver (2011) also found out that problem-solving coping strategy had a biological effect on

stress, thus it lowers the cortisol levels and promotes recovery from the stress.

Emotion-focused Coping Strategies are effective in the management of unchangeable

stressors (Baldacchino ; Draper, 2001; DeGraff ; Schaffer, 2008). These coping mechanisms

involve a cognitive reappraisal process that includes self-reflection and taking control over

one’s emotions (Carver, 2011). This kind of coping strategy involve efforts to regulate the

consequences of stressful events.

Emotional Coping combined with actively expressing and processing emotions has

psychological adjustment benefits (Stanton et al.2000). It increases sense of pleasure,

positivity, and contentment in our lives and thus enables us to increase our ability to focus on

that which we can change. This coping strategy helps us feel better and often get utilized

when the problem is out of our control and aids us in becoming less emotionally, we face

every day.

In addition, Stanton, Kirk, Cameron, and Danoff-Burg states that emotion-focused coping can

facilitate expressing and processing emotions as a prelude to reappraising unchangeable

stressors. This kind of coping strategy increases the sense of positivity and contentment in

our lives and thus enables us to increase our ability to focus on the things we want to change.

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Dusek et al., 2008 defined Biology-Focused Coping Strategy as a strategy that focuses on the

relationship between the mind and body and works toward affecting this relationship with

relaxation techniques to have an effect to physiological responses.

It also involves utilizing techniques that modify behavior and affect the physiological stress

response. For example, if an individual is experiencing stress because he is worried about his

inability to relax, biology-focused coping strategy will be beneficial to him because he has

the potential to lower down his blood pressure be able to relax. It is because biology-focused

coping provokes a relaxation response, which lowers stress.

The focus of coping must consider the changeability of the stressor, the perception or

emotional reaction to the stressor, and the capacity of the human body to manage stress

through behaviors that can induce some changes. The focus must also consider the unique

circumstances of the individual. Providing individuals with appropriate adaptive coping skills

can reduce negative health outcomes and increase the ability to manage ongoing stress (D.

Stone, 2002).

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Self-determination theory of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan which is an essential

concept that refers to each person’s ability to make choices and manage their own life. This

theory allows people to feel that they have control over their own choices and lives. Self-

determination has a personal and psychology-relevant meaning in the present: the ability or

the process of making one’s own choices and controlling one’s own life. This theory is a vital

piece of psychological well-being and is relevant to anyone who has the desire to guide their

own lives. According to Deci & Ryan (2008), self-determination connects personality, human

motivation, and optimal functioning. It suggests that there are two main types of motivation –

intrinsic and extrinsic – and that both are powerful forces in shaping who we are and how we

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behave. Intrinsic motivation comes from within which drives to inspire people to behave in

certain ways, including our core values, our interests, and our personal sense of morality. On

the other hand, extrinsic motivation is a drive to behave in certain ways based on external

sources and it results in external rewards. This theory focuses primarily on internal sources of

motivation in order to gain a knowledge or independence. However, both intrinsic and

extrinsic motivation are highly influential determinants of one’s behavior, and both drive to

meet the three basic needs identified by the Self-Determination Theory model. This theory

suggests that people are motivated to develop and change by three innate and universal

psychological needs.

Competence. People have a need to build their competence, develop mastery over

tasks that are important to them and learn different skills needed for success. And it will help

people to more likely take an action that will help them achieve their goals.

Relatedness. According to Deci & Ryan, (2008), people need to have a sense of

belonging and connectedness with others; each of us needs other people to some degree.

Autonomy. People have a need to feel that they are the masters of their own destiny

and that they have at least some control over their lives; most importantly, people have a need

to feel that they are in control of their own behaviour and goals. This sense of being able to

take direct actions that will result in real change plays an important part in helping people feel

self-determined.

Generally, psychologists recognise the need for all humans to feel a sense of

autonomy, competency and relatedness in their lives (Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Deci et al.,

1991; Maslow, 1968). Those students who stayed at the boarding school will become more

autonomous because they are no longer have their readily available to call their family to

assist with their daily tasks or decision-making. They will be more likely to become

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competent at tasks which may be considered inappropriate to their age, for example, at the

age of twelve they may be independent to do washing, scheduling, homework tasks without

additional support and effectively manage their time. In addition, boarders will need to

quickly and effectively make positive and good connections with the people caring for them,

as these people will form critical part of the student’s new boarding family and guide them as

they learn to take over tasks that is unfamiliar to them.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

The following definitions are provided to ensure uniformity and understanding of

these terms throughout the study. The terms were defined operationally and conceptually.

Boarding school. A school where students reside during the school year; a school

equipped with rooms where students live instead of living in their own homes.

Boarding students. A student who lives at the school or boarding houses during

school term; students who are living in boarding house.

Coping Mechanisms. Refers to the specific efforts both behavioral and psychological,

that people employ to master, tolerate, reduce, or minimize stressful events; are ways to

which external or internal stress is managed, adopted to acted upon.

Homesickness. Feelings of missing home or one’s home environment; may embody

emotional, cognitive and motivational features (Baier & Welch, 1992; Fisher et al., 1986)

Stress. A state of mental tension and worry caused by problems in your life, work,

etc.; something that causes strong feeling of worry and anxiety.

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