Academic achievement and emotional and behavioural problems: the moderating role of gender

The present study aimed to explore the association between academic achievement and emotional
and behavioural problems and the moderation role of gender in this association. 1350 Portuguese
school-aged children and adolescents from first to ninth grade (6–15-year-old), part of a national
representative sample, were assessed by teachers and parents with questionnaires from the
Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA). Results show that academic
achievement significantly predicts child and adolescent’s internalizing, externalizing, and total
problems. Gender moderates the association between academic achievement and child and adolescent’s
externalizing and total problems, both at school and in the family context. The results
underscore the relevance of academic achievement in children and adolescent’s emotional and
behavioural problems, and particularly in boys.
This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia grant number PTDC/PSI-PCL/105489/2008.