Social withdrawal and children's academic achievement in Vietnamese primary school : a survey conducted in four primary schools in Central North of Vietnam

Abstract

ABSTRACT In Vietnam, parents, teachers, and adults mostly direct their attention on the development of motor skills, language skills, and learning of children. The social emotional growth of the child is often neglected. Many researches conducted in the country put the focus on other aspects of child development, but not on socio-emotional development. Social withdrawal, one of socio-emotional problems, has not yet been the interest of many researchers. However, this problem could lead to some serious effects on the child both at present and in future. This study, therefore, aims to examine whether social withdrawal has negative effect on academic achievement of Vietnamese children in primary school.

The study with orientation to quantitative approach was conducted in Central North of Vietnam. Sample children were drawn from 4 primary schools, 2 in urban area and 2 in rural area. Informants of the study were teachers. They rated sample children on social skills, problem behaviors, and academic achievement. Data were collected through questionnaires.

The study s results reveal that internalizing problem has negative effect on academic achievement of children in the study. This effect seems to be more significant for girls than for boys. Similarly, social withdrawal is found to be negatively related to academic achievement. However, the magnitude of this relation cannot be computed since the number of children identified as socially withdrawn in the study is very low. This leads to one difficulty that the results could not be generalized. More research on social withdrawal should be done in order to draw a definite conclusion about the relation between social withdrawal and academic achievement of children.