Roland Yeow, Roger KO, Sharmaine LOH
The purpose of this study was to examine differences of social adjustment factors between youths living in residential care setting and the non residential care youths. Out of 468 youths who participated in this study, 127 were living in residential homes (Mean age = 15.46 years, SD= 1.54) and 341 youths were not (Mean age= 13.76, SD=0.63). They were surveyed on social adjustment factors of family support, peer support, teacher support sense of belonging and student’s motivation to learn. Focus group discussions were also held. A two way between multivariate analysis of variance was performed to investigate age and group differences in social adjustment factors. Results showed that residential care youths had a more negative perception of teachers compared to non residential care youths; residential care youths had a more positive perception of family bonding compared to non residential care youths. For residential care youths, there was also an increase in self-initiated learning behaviors as age increased. Results indicated that residential care youths were not as maladjusted as initially thought and lent support to the strengths based approach to working with youths.
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