Relation between Behavioural Problems and Reading Skills in Gender Contexts: Forecasting Longitudinal Data from Kindergarten to Fifth Grade

Abstract

This study investigated the association between behavioural problems and reading ability in gender contexts. Specifically, its goal is to determine to what extent of girls and boys differ in the development of reading skills and behavioural problems, and how the relationship between these variable changes based on gender perspectives. This research employed a correlational method whose purpose is to find out the relationship among multiple variables-genders, behavioural problems, and reading skills. To elicit all data of these variables, we focused on nine schools located in the capital city of West Java province, Indonesia. The participants in this research were 500 students from kindergarten to fifth grade which encompassed females (N=260) and males (N=240). The age of the participants ranges from 58 months to 11 years old and they originated from public and private schools. We used Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Literacy (DIBELS)- which is a set of standardized and validated early literacy indicators-to measure reading skills; We employed Office Discipline Behaviour (ODB) to measure students' destructive behaviour or behavioural problems. Findings of the research revealed that reading skills and behavioural problems were significantly different for each learning levels from kindergarten to fifth grade. In addition to correlation between behavioural problems and reading skills, we found a strong correlation for them both of boys and girls. Thus, the gender differences contributed equivalent or similar to reading skills showing this variable has lack of contribution to differences of reading skills.