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The transition from primary to secondary school comes with major changes in the lives of children. There is a shortage of in-depth analyses of young people's perspectives concerning their fears and strategies to address these. This qualitative study aims to gain first-hand understanding of children's fears and the intended coping strategies used during school transition. Data from 52 workshops were analysed, with a total of 896 students (M age = 10.40, SD = 0.839) in lower Austria. First, in the classroom setting, a vignette story about a child facing fears about school transition from primary to secondary school was developed with pupils in a brainstorming session. This was followed by self-selected small group discussions, where pupils proposed strategies to help cope with these fears. A thematic analysis was carried out. Major thematic clusters distinguished between four types of fears: peer victimisation, being alone, victimisation by authority figures, and academic failure. Three additional thematic clusters described strategies for countering the fears: enacting supportive networks, personal emotion regulation, and controlling behaviour. In addition to these connected clusters, two further themes were identified: strategy outcomes and consequences, i.e., personal experiences with using specific strategies, and the discussion of participants about contradictions and questionable usefulness of identified strategy outcomes. In conclusion, the children in our study reported more social fears as compared to academic fears. Children seem reasonably competent at naming and identifying strategies; however, maladaptive strategies, as well as controversies within the described strategies may indicate a lack of certainty and competence at engaging with these strategies on a practical level.

Stakeholder involvement in intervention development has become increasingly popular and is understood as crucial for successful implementation. However, methodological difficulties persist regarding the implementation of appropriate participatory methods to engage children and collect relevant information for intervention development. This paper discusses four creative, qualitative methods - a brainstorming task, an individual letter, a story-based task, and a focus group task - and compares their suitability to generate relevant information for early intervention development. These four methods were used in the early stages of a project aiming to develop a peer relationship intervention and were analysed using thematic analysis. Based on theoretical considerations, information categories (a) definition aspects, (b) context factors, and (c) change mechanisms were of interest, while (d) examples and experience and (e) additional information were identified as prevalent categories through inductive thematic analysis. Definition was a prevalent theme generated by the brainstorming task, although the sticky note format limited the depth of individual answers. The secret letter, which allowed children to share ideas privately, was found to be useful for generating more in-depth reflections on definitions and personal experiences. Stories and focus group discussions were found to be useful for generating varied context factors and change mechanisms, although stories also generated fictional elements and external solutions. Providing different qualitative methods and allowing children to choose how they prefer to communicate their thoughts proved important for collecting authentic, in-depth information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supportive peer relationships are fundamental for mental health and well-being. Hence, peers and friends are a valuable resource, especially at the time of transition from primary to secondary school. Yet, current literature lacks both novel approaches to studying friendship development and how to involve early adolescents in research that is being conducted about them. Within the present study we used novel participatory research methods involving early adolescents who were active in the analysis of their own generated data. We aimed to better understand their perspectives on factors that facilitate and hinder friendship development with peers during the time of school transition between primary and secondary schools. A total of 916 pupils (M age  = 10.44 years, range = 9-16) participated in 54 participatory workshops that were conducted in Austria. We used reflexive thematic analysis to analyze qualitative data from portions of a large series of participatory workshop activities. Moreover, we actively involved participants in the analysis of their own generated data. Themes were structured into personal, interpersonal, and external factors. We found that early adolescents valued kind peers that (a) give them a feeling of safety, (b) show supportive and empathic actions, (c) manage conflicts, (d) avoid negative behavior, (e) spend time with them, and (f) communicate in the offline and online environments. Although shared norms of behavior can support friendship development, friendship jealousy and tolerating bigger friendship groups were identified as important potential barriers. Additionally, external factors (i.e., given circumstances), such as similarities, physical proximity, and duration of acquaintance were included in our data but were perceived as less important by early adolescents. Our results supplement the existing peer relationship literature by showing which factors early adolescents themselves chose as most relevant for friendship development. We conclude with a discussion regarding the implications for school psychology practice and future research., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)