Adolescents’ Friendship Quality, Internalizing Problems, and Academic Achievement during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic substantially influenced adolescents lives and possibly also their cognitive and mental health outcomes. In our longitudinal study, we investigated possible changes in adolescents’ academic achievement and internalizing problems across two academic years during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we examined whether adolescents’ friendship quality buffers against possible changes in academic achievement and internalizing problems during the pandemic. Methods Our study sample consisted of Dutch young adolescents aged 11–16 ( N T1 = 250) who filled out questionnaires on their friendship quality and internalizing problems during four data collection points across two academic years. Timepoint 1 (T1; November 2019) was before the COVID-19 pandemic, and the subsequent data collection points during the COVID-19 pandemic (T2: May/June 2020, T3: November/December 2020, T4: May/June 2021). Academic achievement was measured with school records of report grades. We conducted linear mixed models to analyze the data. Results Our findings showed that academic achievement decreased over time, and internalizing problems increased over time across two years during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, we found that adolescents with better (i.e., higher positive and lower negative) friendship quality had fewer internalizing problems. This significant relationship between better friendship quality and fewer internalizing problems held across all timepoints (pre-pandemic and during the COVID-19 pandemic). Conclusion Together, our findings provide insights into the adverse effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on adolescents’ academic achievement (decrease over time) and internalizing problems (increase over time), which could be considered by future governmental policies on lockdowns and restrictions during a crisis, such as the pandemic. Additionally, our results provided support for the general significance of friendship quality for adolescents’ mental health (i.e., internalizing problems).