The role of social-emotional development, grit, and subjective well-being at school in primary school students' motivation on reading and writing

The changing world order necessitates innovation movements in education. In the primary school period, interrogative and interpretative educational activities that include emotional factors such as social-emotional development, motivation, taking responsibility, having grit skills, and subjective well-being are needed. The learning process depends not only on the cognitive process but also on some emotional factors such as motivation, subjective well-being, social-emotional development, and grit. In this study, the mediating role of grit and subjective well-being in the school is aimed to examine in the relationship between social-emotional development reading-writing motivation of primary school fourth-grade students. In the sub-purpose, it is examined the changes of these variables according to some demographic variables. The sample of the study where a correlational design was used consisted of 582 fourth-grade primary school students enrolled at the city center, villages, and neighborhoods of a province in the Central Black Sea Region in Turkey in the academic year of 2018-2019. Social-Emotional and Character Development Scale, Academic Grit Scale, Primary School Students Motivation Scale, and Subjective Well-Being at School Scale were used as data collection tools. All of the data collection tools used were adapted to Turkish by the researcher. Analysis of research data was carried out using SPSS 22 and LISREL 8.80 programs. Before analyzing the data, initial analyzes were carried out and the accuracy of the data, missing and outlier values and the assumptions of the statistics used were examined. The hypothesis measurement model and determination of mediating role were tested by Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Among the descriptive statistics in order to determine the socio-demographic characteristics of the students; t-test and one-way ANOVA analyzes were used to examine the differences in social-emotional development, grit, and subjective well-being at school. In all statistical analyzes, .05 margin of error was accepted as the upper limit. According to the findings for the main purpose of the research, social-emotional development is directly and positively related to reading-writing motivation, grit and subjective well-being at school. In addition, grit and subjective well-being at school are directly and positively related to reading-writing motivation. Grit and subjective well-being at school also have a full mediating role in the relationship between social-emotional development and reading-writing motivation. According to the findings of the sub-purpose of the research, it was determined that the students who did not receive pre-school education and those who read much daily compared to those who read a little or never daily, and female students to male students had higher levels of social-emotional development, grit, and subjective well-being at school. It has been observed that female students have higher levels of reading-writing motivation than male students and those who read much daily than those who read a little or never daily. As a result, it is understood that grit and subjective well-being at school should be given importance, which has a full mediation role on reading-writing motivation. According to the model put forward, although social-emotional development is high, students with low grit and subjective well-being at school may have low reading-writing motivation. It is striking that primary school students with a high level of reading books and receiving pre-school education are socially-emotionally developed, have high grit and subjective well-being levels. Based on research findings the following suggestions can be made: In terms of reading-writing motivation, importance should be given to social-emotional development, grit and subjective well-being at school starting form the primary school period. Primary school children should be informed about the benefits of daily reading. It can be said that social-emotional development, grit and subjective well-being at school programs, which can be prepared by taking into account the variables that may affect reading-writing motivation in primary school period, will play an important role in the development of reading-writing motivation with the development of primary school students in these areas. The variables that may affect the reading-writing motivation in primary school period should be taken into consideration.