Abstract
It is reported that there are over 60 million left-behind children in rural China. As a lot of reports showed, most research focused on the mental problems of left-behind children, and the main method adopted by the researchers was factor-analysis . The analysis object of factor analysis are indexes or variables, and it analyzes samples according relevant indexes, assuming that the research variables are all continuous. But not every variable is continuous, there may be qualitative differences as well as quantitative differences between individuals' psychological characteristics. From person-centered perspective, this study aims to explore the characteristics of left-behind children's emotional and behavioral problems, and to figure out if there are qualitative differences between left-behind children groups. On the other hand, due to the urgent demand of intervention and compensation for left-behind children, this study aims to analyze group differences heterogeneity of left-behind children’s emotional and behavioral symptoms, to find out the intervention group which need help most and to carry out more effective intervention.
The Children's Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) were administered to 2288 children and exploring laten class analysis was adopted. Obvious grouping features appeared and the model of three latent classes were supported. The three classes were defined as “maladjustment group” “behavior impulse group” and “basically adapted group” respectively , their proportion of all the samples were 32%, 41% and 27%. To explore the impact of gender and grade level on latent classes of left-behind children’s emotional and behavioral problems characteristics , we built a model of multivariate logistic regression, which took the three latent classes extracted in the first step as the dependent variable, took gender and different grade level as independent variables. Further analysis find that compared with basically adapted group, maladjustment group and behavior impulse group have significant gender and grade effects, male students have more big proportion in the two groups,and the primary school children’s proportion in the two groups are higher.
This study is the practical implications research in the field of the Left-Behind Children's emotional and the behavioral problems. This study has important practical significance, teachers and psychologists can give more targeted education and counseling according to children's different problem characteristics.
Key words
Left-behind children /
emotional problems /
behavioral problems /
latent class analysis
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Latent class analysis of the characteristics of Left-Behind Children's emotional and behavioral problems:Person-centered Perspectives[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2014, 37(2): 329-334
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