RESUMO
School coexistence is a fundamental aspect for good academic performance. The objective of the study was to identify school coexistence indices, and to analyze differences in academic performance according to these indices in students from public schools in the province of Biobío, Chile. This cross-sectional study involved 730 children (53.8% boys; 12 ± 1.2 years). School coexistence indices as a quality of interpersonal relationships between school bodies, the perception of violence and aggressiveness from a gender perspective, and the perception of levels of safety and unsafety in different school areas as well as academic performance through accumulated final grades (AFG) and grade point averages (GPA) were measured. A total of 40.9% and 41.3% of schoolchildren agreed or strongly agreed that stronger students are violent toward weaker students and boys are violent toward one another, respectively. The school areas most classified as unsafe or very unsafe were the restrooms (20.4%), followed by the playgrounds (10%), and the gym and fields (9.5%). Schoolchildren who classified the relationships within the school bodies as bad, or very bad, presented significantly lower AFG in subjects such as math, language (Spanish), and physical education and health as well as GPA. In the same line, those who perceived greater violence and aggressiveness among peers and higher insecurity in different school areas presented significantly poorer academic performance. In conclusion, students perceived violence and aggressiveness among themselves, and the school areas perceived as unsafe were identified. Furthermore, students who perceived poorer school coexistence indices presented a weaker academic performance.
RESUMO
Understanding the perception that students have about their own cognitive processes is a key aspect that allows for a deeper assimilation of the different factors that affect school performance. However, there is limited evidence explaining the link between students' perception of their own cognitive functions and their academic performance. The objective of this study was to analyze the association between perception of cognitive functions, such as memory, processing speed, attention, execution of complex tasks and nervousness, and academic performance in Chilean schoolchildren from the province of Biobio. A cross-sectional analytic design was conducted. The sample consisted of 590 elementary school students (12 ± 1.3 years old; 48.3% female) from Chilean public schools. The academic performance was measured by means of the accumulated final grades in the language, mathematics, physical education and health subjects, and the grade point average (GPA) of each student. Moreover, a survey to measure the cognitive functions of the participants was applied. The results show that 20.3% of the students perceived themselves as very nervous and 16.8% felt distracted. Differences in marks were observed in all the measured subjects, as well as in GPAs, depending on the perception of cognitive functions. Thus, the students with low to moderate perceptions of their cognitive functions received lower marks than those who reported a high perception. These results were consistent after a multivariate analysis adjusted for a socio-educational variables model. In conclusion, one in five public school students in the Biobío Region of Chile expressed a low perception of their cognitive functions, which is consistent with their weaker school performance. Therefore, it is believed that integrating curricular activity and cognitive work could potentially boost the perception of said functions, and thus reduce the risk of poor academic performance.