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This is to certify that the
thesis entitled

INDIVIDUAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL DIFFERENCES
BETWEEN ACADEMICALLY HIGH-ACHIEVING AND LOW-
ACHIEVING MICHIGAN LATINO STUDENTS

presented by
CIDHINNIA M. TORRES CAMPOS

has been accepted towards fulﬁllment
of the requirements for the

Master of Arts degree in Psychology_

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INDIVIDUAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
ACADEMICALLY HIGH-ACHIEVING AND LOW-ACHIEVING
MICHIGAN LATINO STUDENTS
By

Cidhinnia M. Torres Campos

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS
Department of Psychology

2003

C0pyright by
CIDHINNIA M. TORRES CAMPOS
2003

ABSTRACT
INDIVIDUAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
ACADEMICALLY HIGH-ACHIEVING AND LOW-ACHIEVING
MICHIGAN LATINO STUDENTS
By

Cidhinnia M. Torres Campos

This investigation examined both individual level and environmental level
predictors of academic success for Latino students. These included students’ academic
motivation, personal time allocation, school afﬁliation, social support, parental
involvement in school, and peer inﬂuence. The study focused on whether high- and low-
achieving students, as measured by grades, differ signiﬁcantly on these. Participants
consisted of 216 Latino students in grades 6 through 12 attending Michigan schools, who
were administered the Search Institute Proﬁles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors
(ABS) during the 1998-1999 school year. Discriminant analyses and logistic regressions,
using split-half samples along with cross validation, were used to evaluate differences
among groups and build a predictive model. The hypothesized differences between the
groups, and thus a valid predictive model, were not found. Despite this, several of the
results point towards further research. The utility of applying the ABS to Latino
populations is also questioned due, in part, to the lack of cultural variables measured.
The lack Of signiﬁcant ﬁndings also suggests that factors found to be signiﬁcant for
achievement in other populations may not be culturally universal or may need re-

operationalization for Latino students.

To Tristan Josef, so you may know that anything is possible.

To Latinos students everywhere, may you never give up hope, know that success
is possible, and never let anyone tell you otherwise.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I’d like to acknowledge the aid provided by my committee. Wm. Thomas Summerfelt,
you have been a champion in my corner since my ﬁrst semester here. You have always
guided me, and shared knowledge with me, while also being willing to continue to learn.
Thank you for never losing hope, and pushing me exactly when I needed it. I look
forward to a lifetime of collaboration and ﬁiendship. Francisco Villarruel for being a
never-ending source of knowledge, support, and for never doubting I could do it. I know
we will never lose sight of each other, and look forward to collaborations to come. Israel
Cuéllar for stepping in at just the right moment, sharing all of your knowledge, and being
an excellent example of what this is supposed to be all about. I am forever grateful to all
of you for your support, guidance, and mentorship.

I would also like to acknowledge the work of Search Institute and the participation
of the Michigan schools without which the present research would not have come about.
Hats off to school districts around the state who are striving to create better situations,
environments, and involve the community in the education of all of their students.
Additionally, I would like to acknowledge Sarra Baraily’s expertise in the ﬁnal editing
and formatting of this document.

Heartfelt thanks go to my family for the strength and courage they provide.
Gracias en especial a Marni, por nunca dejar de apoyarrne y por enseﬁarme e1 camino.
Siempre dijiste que lo podia hacer y aqui tienes parte de lo que te prometi que haria.

Abuelita gracias por Siempre estar ahi por mi y por nunca dejar que se apagara 1a vela.

 

I also owe a great deal of thanks to my friends for helping me through this
process. Jacky y Nacio gracias por su apoyo incondicional y por Siempre ser un gran
ejemplo de lo que eS amar. Jacky por Siempre estar ahi en los mementos buenos y malos y
nunca dudar que lo podia hacer te debo un millén de gracias. Nunca podré expresar lo
importante y especial que eres para mi. Vanessa for getting me through the ﬁrst years
here, and turning what could have been a terrible situation into one of new experiences
and a ﬁnding a ﬁiendship that will last a lifetime. I will always admire you for making the
decision that was best for you, but never failing to support me in mine. Sinead, Oseela,
Kelly, and Aisha, a million thanks for always being in my corner, supporting and helping
me through this process, and for never letting me forget to have fun while I’m here too.

I would like to thank Jonathan N. Livingston, for your unending support. You
have been there and understood when no one else has. You have shown me that this
process can be done with dignity and without losing one’s foundation. Many thanks for
being a neurotic over-achiever with me, and introducing me to the right one to walk this
path with me. For that alone, a lifetime of gratitude will always be yours. A great deal of
gratitude must also be given to the Livingston family. You have been our support system
in good times and in bad. Thanks for proving it can be done, and all without losing what
is most important in the process.

Tristan Josef, you will probably never remember these times, but just by being
here you have done more than you can ever imagine. Joshua, no words can ever express
all that you have done, and so I will not attempt to do so here. Please know that my love
and gratitude are yours always. Thank you for walking this path with me and never

losing faith.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. viii
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1
Latino Youth in the United States ................................................................................ 3
Vulnerability and Resilience .................................................................................. 5
Educational Resilience ........................................................................................... 7
Rationale for the Current Study .................................................................................... 9
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Predictors of Academic Success ................................................................................... 14
Time Allocation ....................................................................................................... 19
Achievement Motivation ......................................................................................... 22
School Afﬁliation .................................................................................................... 26
Parental Involvement ............................................................................................... 28
Social Support ......................................................................................................... 31
Peer Inﬂuence .......................................................................................................... 38
The Current Study ........................................................................................................ 41
CHAPTER 3
METHODS ........................................................................................................................ 42
Participants ................................................................................................................... 42
Hispanic/Latino Students ........................................................................................ 45
Measure ........................................................................................................................ 45
Reliability ................................................................................................................ 47
Validity .................................................................................................................... 49
Predictors ...................................................................................................................... 52
Outcome ....................................................................................................................... 66
Procedure ...................................................................................................................... 67
Data Analyses .......................................... . .................................................................... 68
CHAPTER 4
RESULTS .......................................................................................................................... 72
Testing for Group Differences Before Analysis
Groups Deﬁned by Median Split ............................................................................. 72
Groups Deﬁned by Extreme Quartiles .................................................................... 75
Discriminant Function Analysis .................................................................................. 75
Groups Deﬁned by Median Split ............................................................................. 76
Groups Deﬁned by Extreme Quartiles .................................................................... 77
Logistic Regressions ..................................................................................................... 79
Groups Deﬁned by Median Split ............................................................................. 80
Groups Deﬁned by Extreme Quartiles .................................................................... 81

CHAPTER 5

DISCUSSION .................................................................................................................... 84
Maj or Findings
Pathways to Latino Academic Achievement ........................................................... 85
Predictive Model of Academic Achievement ............................................................... 97
Limitations of the Current Study .................................................................................. 99
Strengths of the Current Study ..................................................................................... 102
Implications for Further Research ................................................................................ 103
REFERENCES .................................................................................................................. 107
APPENDICES ................................................................................................................... 122
Appendix A: Number of School Districts Conducting Search Surveys in the Six
Regions of Michigan .............................................................................................. 123
Appendix B: Search Institute Proﬁle of Student Life: ,
Attitudes and Behaviors (ABS) .............................................................................. 125
Appendix C: Factor Analyses ...................................................................................... 134
Appendix D: Administration Manual for ABS ........................................................... 138

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Background Characteristics of Total Sample and Hispanic/Latino Sample ....... 43

Table 2: Ethnic/Racial Percentages of Total Sample ........................................................ 44
Table 3: The Framework of 40 Developmental Assets, with Deﬁnition .......................... 46
Table 4: Reliability of Developmental Assets ................................................................... 48
Table 5: Correlations Between Scales and Outcome Variable .......................................... 51
Table 6: Demographic Items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample ................... 52
Table 7: Time Allocation Items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample ............... 54
Table 8: School Achievement Motivation items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino
Sample ................................................................................................................. 57
Table 9: School Afﬁliation Items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample ............ 58
Table 10: Parent Involvement in Schooling Items and Distributions for
Hispanic/Latino Sample .................................................................................... 59
Table 11: Family Support Items and distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample ............... 60
Table 12: School Support Items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample .............. 62
Table 13: Other Adult Support Items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample ...... 63
Table 14: Peer Inﬂuence Items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample ................ 65
Table 15: Chi-square Results of Demographic Variables for High- and
Low-Achieving Students ................................................................................... 73
Table 16: Logistic Regression Results: Median Split ....................................................... 80
Table 17: Logistic Regression Results: Cross Validation of Median Split ...................... 81
Table 18: Logistic Regression Results: Extreme Quartiles Split ...................................... 82
Table 19: Logistic Regression Results: Cross Validation of Extreme Quartiles Split ...... 83

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

In a 1997 Public Agenda Survey, 60% of United States adults thought that youth,
when they became adults, would not make the country a better place in which to live. In
fact, 21% thought that youth would make the country worse (Farkas, Johnson, Duffet, &
Bers, 1997). This startling ﬁnding points to the need for more positive images of youth to
be made public, as well as the need for better understanding and responses to the factors
affecting youth developing into competent and responsible adults.

Much of the literature on adolescents has shown that, while adolescence is an age
of promise, there is also cause for concern about our young people (Dryfoos, 1990;
Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992; Jessor, 1992, 1993). Almost half of the youth in the
United States ages ten to seventeen are estimated to abuse alcohol and other substances,
fail in school, commit crimes, or engage in early, unprotected intercourse (Dryfoos,
1990). Adolescents are at risk from accidental injury, violence, and the initiation of
lifestyles and habits, which present long-term health risk (American Medical Association,
1990; Johnston, O’Malley, & Bachman, 1995; National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1995).
Recent statistics suggest that adolescents are experiencing several difﬁculties, including
mental illness, suicide, low achievement scores, school dropout, substance abuse,
adolescent pregnancy, and juvenile violence (Dryfoos, 1990; Kalil & Kunz, 1999; Moore,
Romano, Gitelson, & Connon, 1997; National Center for Education Statistics, 1996;
National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1995; Voydanoff & Donnelly, 1999). Other areas of

concern include tobacco use, sexual activity, school noncompliance, and engagement in

behaviors that, although not illicit or illegal, are imprudent at best (Lavery, Siegel,
Cousins, & Rubovits, 1993).

Of the adolescent population in the United States, “Latinos represent the fastest
grong segment of the US. population under the age of 21” (Perkins & Villarruel, 2000,
p. 83). Unfortunately, Latino youth continually have higher rates of teenage pregnancy,
juvenile violence, and school noncompliance (Dryfoos, 1990; Frank & Lester, 2001; Kalil
& Kunz, 1999; Moore, Romano, Gitelson, & Connon, 1997). On a national scale,
Hispanic students have been found to engage in more risky behaviors than their Black or
White peers (Frank & Lester, 2001 ). Studies have also found that Latino students are less
likely to graduate from high school than other students (Dryfoos, 1998; Meir & Stewart,
Jr., 1991; US. Department of Education, 1992). In fact, Latino students are more likely
than White students to possess one or more of the characteristics that increases their risk
of academic failure (Davalos, Chavez, & Guardiola, 1999).

Unfortunately, most of the literature to date has focused on issues of individual
failure as opposed to conditions that promote the success of Latino youth (Montero
Sieburth & Villarruel, 2000). However, many Latino youth are doing well, and
succeeding despite the fact that a disproportionate number of their families must contend
with poverty and other stressors. Regrettably, little is known about the achievement
behavior of Latino students. This imbalance in the literature about Latino students’
educational achievement has provided the impetus for this study. The research will look
at Michigan Latino students who participated in the 1998-99 Search Institute Proﬁles of

Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors (ABS) survey.

In order to advance the understanding of the contextual inﬂuences promoting
successful Latino youth, only respondents who self-identiﬁed as Latino will be included
in this investigation. This study, therefore, will depart from previous studies that attempt
to deﬁne only the prevalence of and factors that promote conditions of risk for Latino
youth and instead, try to discern what circumstances promote individual “success.”
Speciﬁcally, this study will extend previous research by identifying potential individual
and environmental processes that lead to and foster academic success for Latino youth.

Latino Youth in the United States

Latinos represent the fastest growing ethnic minority population in the United
States according to the most current US. Census Bureau. From 1990 to 2000, the Latino
population increased by 57.9% (Guzman, 2001). The most recent US. Census (Greico &
Cassidy, 2001) found that Latinos comprise 13% of the total national population. It is
expected that by the year 2050, Hispanics will represent approximately twenty-ﬁve
percent of the population of the United States. According to the US. Census Bureau, in
October of 1996, for the ﬁrst time in the history of the United States, there were more
youth of Latino origin than any other ethnic or racial group except non-Hispanic White
youth (Villarruel & Montero-Sieburth, 2000). From 1995 to 2050, Latinos will be the
racial/ethnic group adding the largest number of people to the population (Day, 1996).
This racial/ethnic group is comprised of individuals from diverse backgrounds including
those who have ancestry from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, as well as countries in Central
and Southern America (e. g. Costa Rica, and Argentina). The Latino population also tends
to be signiﬁcantly younger than the median population age, and much of the Latino

population is concentrated in its youth (US. Census Bureau, 1999).

In the past decade, there has been an increase in the number of Latino youth,
affected by problems such as truancy, school dropout, substance abuse, and poverty.
Unfortunately Latino youth also continually have higher dropout rates, higher rates of
teenage pregnancy, and higher rates on many other negative outcomes as compared to
other groups across the nation (Frank & Lester, 2001; Dryfoos, 1990, 1998; NCES, n. d.).
For example, Latinos across the country have been found to have lower levels of
educational attainment as compared to other groups (Meir & Stewart, Jr., 1991; US.
Department of Education, 1992).

Concerns about the performance of Latino students in public schools are
warranted. Today, Latinos comprise 15% of the elementary school-age population (5-13)
and 13% of students in secondary education (US. Census Bureau, 1996). Young Latinos
and Latinas have the highest dropout rates as compared to Blacks and Whites, 31% and
26% respectively (Provitera Mcglynn, 2001). Some research has even shown that only
about 50% of Latinos graduate from high school (National Council of La Raza as cited in
Borman, 1998). Overall, Latino students perform below the national average in the
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NEAP) (NCES, n. d.). By age nine, Latino
students lag behind their non-Hispanic peers in reading, mathematics, and science
proﬁciency (NCES, n. d.). Some studies have found that gaps emerge as early as the
third grade, and continue to widen in subsequent years (Gandara, 1996). Unfortunately,
the low high school completion rate for Latinos has not changed substantially in several
years. In 1998, the high school completion rate for Hispanics was only 63% (NCES, n.
d.). Given the average disparity between the educational achievements of White and

Latino students, it is vital that a better understanding of these patterns be provided.

These disturbing patterns have also been found in mid-western states, including
Michigan. Programs and interventions designed for students at risk for failure have not
necessarily been effective for Latino students. This is due, in part, to these programs, as
well as research conducted around these issues, not speciﬁcally addressing the concerns
of these students (Waxman, Huang, & Padrén, 1997).

Vulnerability and Resilience

Much of the research conducted by psychologists that examines Latino youth has
focused on their vulnerability, and negative outcomes (e. g. Alva & de los Reyes, 1999;
Vera, 2000). Vulnerability has been deﬁned as “a heightened probability for
maldevelopment ostensibly because of the presence of a single or multiple risk factors”
(Garmezy, 1993, p.379). Risk factors are individual or environmental markers that are
related to the increased likelihood that a negative outcome will occur or will compromise
health, well-being, or social performance (Bernard. 1993; Masten, 2001; Voydanoff &
Donnelly, 1999; Werner & Smith, 1992). Sociocultural risk can also be characterized as
the irnpoverishing of an individual’s world so that he/she lacks the basic social and
psychological necessities of life. Youth become identiﬁed as at risk because of both
biological and environmental factors (Garmezy 1993; Honig, 1984).

Garbarino (1995) points out, “in all environments, as in all individuals, there are
weaknesses and strengths, sources of risk and opportunity” (p. 27). Each individual faces
Opportunities and risks for development throughout the growth process. The particular
opportunities or risks that a person may face are dependent upon the person’s mental and
physical make-up and the type of environment the person inhabits (Garbarino, 1982). “By

opportunities for development we mean a person-environment relation in which the

developing child is offered material, emotional, and social encouragement compatible
with the needs and capacities of the child at a given time” (Garbarino, 1982, p. 17). The
absence of opportunities and direct threats to development represent risks.

In general, a deﬁcits-based approach has been taken in investigating Latino
adolescents. Subjects in this kind of research are often adolescents who have been
identiﬁed as at-risk. But, the presence of risk factors does not assure that a negative
outcome will occur; it simply increases the probability of its occurrence (Bowman, 1994;
Garmezy 1985; Werner & Smith, 1992; Masten 2001). Primarily, the literature on
adolescent development has been based on uncovering unmet needs and has rarely, if
ever, taken natural support resources into account. This has been particularly evident with
Latino communities—“in short, these communities supposedly have prodigious unmet
needs and little or no natural resources” (Delgado, 1998, p.6). As a result, this “biased
deﬁcits perspective” has serious limitations for the development of culturally speciﬁc
interventions that seek to involve signiﬁcant community sectors (Marin, 1993).

On the other hand, whereas vulnerability provides a singular emphasis on risk
elements, resilience describes a process whereby people bounce back from adversity and
go on with their lives (Bernard, 1993; Garmezy 1993). Resilience is deﬁned by the
presence of any or many risk factors, “but the accompanying adaptive outcomes are now
presumed to be a function of evident, or unidentiﬁed, positive elements within the
individual and external environments that serve a protective function” (Garmezy 1993,
p.3 79). These positive individual and external elements are known as protective factors.
Protective factors decrease the probability of a negative outcome (Cowan, Cowan, &

Schulz, 1996). Protective factors are speciﬁc competencies, healthy skills, and abilities

that the individual can access and may occur within the individual or in the interpersonal
or family environment (Garmezy 1985; J essor, 1992; Jessor, Van Den Bos, Vanderryn,
Costa, & Turbin, 1995). The interpersonal environment includes the adolescent’s
neighborhood, school, and youth serving organizations. Protective factors can also be
deﬁned as individual or environmental safeguards that enhance a person’s ability to resist
risks (V oydanoff & Donnelly, 1999). Garmezy (1993) found that a review of the literature
on resilience suggests the presence of three core factors that may operate as protective
factors for individuals. These are: 1) personality attributes; 2) families, particularly
cohesion and the presence of some caring adult; and 3) the availability of social support,
whether in the form of a strong mother substitute, a concerned teacher, or a caring
agency, institution or church (Garmezy 1991, 1993). Although the concept of resiliency
has been widely used in areas like developmental psychopathology (Garmezy I991;
Masten, 1994; Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990; Rutter, 1987, 1990), its application in the
area of education has been somewhat more recent.
Educational Resilience

Educational resilience has been deﬁned as “the heightened likelihood of success
in school and other life accomplishments despite environmental adversities brought about
by early traits, conditions, and experiences” (Wang, et a1. 1999, p. 46). Alva (1991) used
the concept of academic invulnerability to describe students who “sustain high levels of
achievement motivation and performance, despite the presence of stressful events and
conditions that place them at risk of doing poorly in school and ultimately dropping out of

school” (p. 19).

While the image of Latino students as underachievers, illiterates, and dropouts
still persists, some Latino students are successful academically despite adverse conditions
and at-risk environments. It is important to know why these resilient students succeed,
while other Latino students (i.e. nonresilient students) from equally stressful
environments experience greater failure and despair in school. Even among the general
Latino population not all students have similar backgrounds, motivations and perceptions
towards school (Reyes & Valencia, 1993). Consequently, it is important to look at Latino
students who do well in school and see how they differ from less successful Latino
students. This area of research, that of investigating resilient students, or students who
succeed academically despite the presence of adverse conditions, has important
implications for the educational improvement of Latino students, (Gordon & Song, 1994;
Masten, 1994; McMillan & Reed, 1994; Wang & Gordon, 1994; Winﬁeld, 1991).

A thrust in this area of research is to extend previous studies that identiﬁed and
categorized students as at risk and shift to studies that concentrate on identifying potential
individual and environmental processes that lead to and foster success (Winﬁeld, 1991).
This approach is essential for it focuses on the predictors of academic success rather than
on academic failure. This focus may be inﬂuential in the design of more effective
educational interventions as it enables the identiﬁcation of those alterable factors that
distinguish resilient and nonresilient students. In other words, educational resilience is not
seen as a ﬁxed characteristic “but rather as alterable processes or mechanisms that can be
developed and fostered for all students” (Wang, et al. 1999, p. 138).

Despite impressive advances in recent years in our understanding of adolescent

behavior and development, there still exist troubling lacunae in what we know about the

normative development of youth (J essor, 1993). An example of an area of research that
has been neglected is research on the role of race and ethnicity, as well as other racial and
cultural variables in adolescent behavior and development. “Race and ethnicity are
central issues that reverberate throughout contemporary American society” (J essor, 1993,
p. 119). They are linked to major differences in access to opportunity, institutionalized in
stereotypical social deﬁnitions, and intricately linked to adolescents’ self-identity and
self-deﬁnition.

It is remarkable, then, how little attention these issues have received in research,
and how little they have ﬁgured into theoretical formulations about adolescent
development. Compounding this neglect is the negative focus of most of the research
that does examine these variables. Given that much of the literature available
surrounding Latino youth has focused on their risks and vulnerabilities, this study
therefore seeks to explore an area of scholarship that has traditionally been overlooked in
this population. This investigation examined both individual level and environmental
level predictors of academic success for Latino students. Given that few studies have
actually compared resilient and nonresilient Latino students on these characteristics, this
research seeks to provide researchers, policy makers, and program efforts with a broader
knowledge base for how Latino students can succeed. Given the severity of the dilemma
facing many Latino students today, understanding what factors promote success is one
way in which Latinos’ failure in school and lack of academic achievement can be tackled.

Rationale for the Current Study
The Carnegie Council on Adolescent development estimates that about one-

quarter of the adolescent population is at risk for academic failure and other problem

behaviors, and that another quarter is considered “moderately” at risk (Carnegie Council
on Adolescent Development, 1989, p. 8). Latino youth are regrettably over-represented in
these numbers (Dombusch, Ritter, Liederman, Roberts, & Fraleigh, 1987; Ekstrom et al.,
1986). The lack of academic success for Latino youth is particularly alarming given that
education has been closely tied to opportunities for employment and economic
development, as well as physical and mental health issues. Latinos, however, are
markedly underrepresented in studies that attempt to understand issues of academic
success and failure. Many of the studies that do include Latino students examine only
those factors associated with academic failure, leading to little literature that clariﬁes
what leads to their achievement. Non-diverse and deﬁcits perspective studies have failed
to demonstrate which factors affect academic achievement among different populations.

Students who underachieve academically are more likely to need social services
and contribute less to the economy than their peers who succeed academically. The costs
to society and to the individual are high. The US. pays not only through welfare
payments, but also in an estimated $260 billion in lost earnings and tax payments
(Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1989). Unfortunately, we know far more
about the failure of Latino students and very little about their success. Those variations
between Latino youth may prove to be unique indicators that have strong social and
cultural implications (Villarruel & Montero-Sieburth, 2000).

There is an abundance of literature, which examines the internal and external
factors affecting the academic success of adolescents as a general population. This
literature however, has largely ignored the effects of these factors in the lives of

adolescents in different ethnic groups, including Latinos. The most important unanswered

10

questions in the resiliency literature are whether the relevant variables Show the same
relations for different ethnic groups (Scales & Gibbons, 1996). Also lacking in the
educational resiliency literature are studies that address the way in which signiﬁcant
variables, including ethnicity and socio-economic factors, interact in relation to
adolescents’ academic achievement. Given the average disparity between the educational
achievements of White and Latino students, it is vital that a better understanding of these
patterns be provided. This study endeavors to provide greater understanding of this
disparity by examining both internal and external factors, along with socio-economic
factors among Latino students. Variables that have been found to be related to academic
success for youth will be examined with a sample of Latino youth to discern whether
these relationships hold true for this population.

Cultural sensitivity has been recognized as a critical factor in producing successful
policies and social programs (Laosa, 1990; McLoyd, 1998; McLoyd & Steinberg, I998;
Slaughter, 1988). Research examining cultural distinctions and commonalities is critical
to successful culturally sensitive measures. Unfortunately, a coherent picture of academic
development among Latino youth is missing in most of the theories of normal adolescent
achievement. This is due, in part, to the lack of research addressing the academic success
of Latino students. Since the importance of speciﬁc protective factors is known to var}I
across developmental levels and contexts (Masten & Coatsworth, 1998), “contextually
and culturally relevant research that identiﬁes the unique aspects of Latino youth and
communities” (Villarruel & MonterO-Sieburth, 2000 p.xii) is the next logical step to take

in order to ﬁll this deﬁcit.

ll

A body of research exists that reports on the problems associated with educating
Latino children (National Council of La Raza as cited in Borman, 1998; NCES, n. d.;
Provitera Mcglynn, 2001). To the further detriment of these youth, rarely does one see
terms such as competent, resourceful or motivated used to describe their performance in
school. As a result, many teachers, parents, and even students begin to believe that
failure is the norm for Latino students, and their expectations for the achievement of
Latinos students are subsequently lowered creating a cycle of failure. It is imperative that
research move away ﬁom a deﬁcit-oriented explanations of failure for Latino youth to
highlighting the successes they achieve through their own personal cultural values and
experiences. Efforts that fall short in developing and fostering the distinctive qualities of
Latino youth and families can and may lead to continued failure and underachievement of
Latino youth (V illarruel & Montero-Sieburth, 2000).

To continue to conduct research that focuses primarily on the academic problems
of Latino youth, in isolation from data that highlight possible solutions to this problem, is
to promote distorted and negative stereotypes that perpetuate defeat and pessimism
(Floyd, 1996). In order to move away from these stereotypes, it is essential to focus
attention on Latino youth themselves. The present study addressed this discrepancy in the
ﬁeld by focusing exclusively on Latino students’ academic success. This exclusive focus
provided the current investigation with the ability to more thoroughly explore the internal,
external, and socio-demographic factors associated with academic achievement among
Latinos.

The high number of Latino students failing in school is regarded as a major

national problem. Therefore, at ﬁrst glance a study of Latino students from Michigan may

12

 

seem unimportant. Nonetheless, it is widely acknowledged that most of the solutions to
the problem of the educational disparity between Whites and minorities must come from
individual school districts and communities dealing with individual students. Although
not as well known as Latinos on the East coast or West coast of the United States, there is
a signiﬁcant Latino population not only in Michigan, but also in the Midwest in general.
By focusing on this segment of the Latino population this study explores the nature of the
relationships between various factors found in the academic resiliency literature and
academic achievement. In this way, the information gathered can have important
implications for both national and school- and community-based programs designed to
help youth develop positively and succeed academically.

Before detailing the current study, a review of the research conducted in the area
of Latino academic resiliency is warranted. This research examines the factors promoting
academic success and identiﬁes several areas that are important for youth’s success in
school. Both individual level and environmental level factors are examined. Particular
attention has been paid to literature attending to the academic success of Latino youth.
Finally, the author will describe the current study within the context of its parameters as

an extension of previous work.

13

 

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW

This study will examine several individual as well as environmental predictors of
academic success to gain a greater understanding of how these function for Latino
students. The literature on educational resilience has identiﬁed many factors that affect
students’ academic success, including social support, achievement motivation, and peer
inﬂuence. Not all of these have been examined thoroughly or even in a preliminary
fashion with the Latino youth population. This investigation hopes to provide additional
insight into the literature describing the success of Latino youth in education. With that
in mind, what follows is a review of the literature on several predictors of academic
success and their relationship to the academic success of Latino youth, paying particular
attention to those factors that may be used in assessments or are most amenable to
programming and intervention efforts.

Predictors of Academic Success

The academic achievement of adolescents has generated numerous arguments and
has remained the subject of extensive debate. In an effort to obtain greater educational
outcomes for school children in the United States, researchers have explored differing
inﬂuences on children’s performance (Paulson, Marchant, & Rothlisberg, 1998).
Research in the area of educational resilience has found both individual and
environmental factors that are associated with students’ academic success.

McMillan and Reed (1994), aﬁer integrating the existing literature with their own

research, found that the factors relating to academic resiliency could be organized into

14

four categories: (a) individual attributes, (b) positive use of time, (0) family, and (d)
school factors.

They found that individual attributes of resilient at-risk students include
temperamental characteristics that elicit positive responses from individuals around them,
such as high intrinsic motivation and internal locus of control, higher educational
aspirations, self-efﬁcacy, having clear realistic goals, and remaining optimistic about the
future. McMillan and Reed (1994) also found that resilient students spend their time
positively and are meaningfully involved in school and other activities. Hobbies, sports,
creative interests, volunteering, and “helping out” leave these students without much
spare time, promote the growth of self-esteem, and provide social support. Involvement
in both academic and extracru'ricular activities appears to maintain resilient students’
positive engagement in school (McMillan &Reed, 1994).

Additionally, McMillan and Reed (1994) found that family factors are also related
to students’ academic resiliency. Most resilient students have a close bond with at least
one caregiver. They receive attention and support from a parent, or some other family
member. Family support then can be an attribute of successﬁrl at-risk youth. Parents’
educational background is also related to student resiliency. Students whose parents have
had a high school education or beyond are more likely to be resilient students than those
whose parents had less than a high school education.

Finally, McMillan and Reed (1994) also discuss school factors that are related to
resiliency. Beyond the support and maintained engagement provided by students’
involvement in academic and extracurricular activities at school, teachers and other

school personnel play an important role in the success of resilient students. Resilient

15

students often describe teachers or other adults at school who have provided support,
encouragement, and guidance as important to their success. Unfortunately, McMillan and
Reed’s (1994) analysis of the literature does not make any mention of how the previously
described factors affect any minority students, including Latinos. It is unclear if these
same four factors would be found to play a key role in the success of resilient Latino
students.

Bogenschneider (1998) in her review of resiliency literature, has similarly
discovered that protective factors are found at various levels of the ecosystems of youth:
(1) individual level, (2) familial level, (3) peer level, (4) school level; and (5) community
level. In her study, Bogenschneider (1998) examines 30 scientiﬁcally substantiated risk
and protective factors. At the individual level, she presents protective factors such as
self-esteem, personal responsibility, and well developed problem solving skills. At the
family level, emphasis is placed on support from or having a close relationship with at
least one person in the family. Similarly, at the peer level, Bogenschneider(l 998)
presents support from a close ﬁiend as an important protective factor. The protective
factor at the school level is positive school experiences, including school engagement and
support from a teacher. Community protective factors include belonging to a supportive
community, where youth can rely on neighbors, teachers, and clergy, and bonding to
family, school, and other institutions (Bogenschneider 1998).

Chavkin and Gonzalez’s (2000) review of the resiliency literature identiﬁed ﬁve
comparable key protective factors for youth: (1) supportive relationships, (2) student
characteristics, (3) family factors, (4) community factors, and (5) school factors.

Unfortunately these reviews of resiliency research do not report literature that speciﬁcally

l6

 

addresses this framework for Latino youth. While these same ﬁve areas are often
examined in resiliency research, there is less research that addresses whether these ﬁve
factors play a protective role in the lives of Latino adolescents, and if so, in what ways.

Benard (1991) as well as Dossey, Mullis, Lundquist, and Chambers (1988) found
that students’ personal time allocation was an important variable related to students’
academic achievement, as it is an indicator of the amount of their daily lives which is
structured or inﬂuenced by different types of people and activities. Research examining
successful Latino students has also found that these students were more satisﬁed and felt
more involved at school than less successful Latino students (Alva, 1991; Reyes & Jason
1993; Waxman, Huang, & PadrOn, 1997). Students’ motivation has been highly related to
their academic achievement as well (U guroglu & Walberg, 1986; Waxman, Huang, &
Padrén, 1997).

Parental involvement in school is another factor that has been associated with
students’ school achievement (Clark, 1983). Clark (1983) perceived that ﬁequent school
contact initiated by parents, parents expecting to play a major role in the child’s
schooling, and parents frequently engaging in deliberate achievement training activities,
are characteristics of successful children.

Other studies have found that levels of support ﬁom family, school, and the
community are related to students’ academic achievement and resiliency (Alva, 1991;
Benard, 1991; Clark, 1983; Clark, 1991; Werner 1989). Werner and Srrrith (1992) in their
classic study of over 700 at-risk Hawaiian residents over a forty year period, argued that
the most important of the protective factors was a caring relationship with someone,

regardless of whether the person was a parent, teacher, or community mentor. Clark

17

(1983) also found that stimulating and supportive school teachers, and nurturing and
supportive parents, were attributes of successful youth. Peer inﬂuence has also been
found to be particularly important for the academic achievement of Latino youth
(Steinberg & Darling, 1993).

In sum, the literature on academic resiliency has identiﬁed several key individual
as well as contextual level protective factors: Community factors, such as organized
youth activities (e.g., sports, clubs, hobbies); student characteristics, such as motivation;
school factors such as an engaging environment; family factors such as parental
support/concern and school involvement; supportive relationships, particularly
encouragement from school personnel, and other adults, and peer inﬂuence, such as
friends who do well in school (Chavkin & Gonzalez, 2000). One major question still
confronting educational researchers is why some minority students are successful in
school and others are not (Rurnberger & Larson, 1998). In order to address this question,
this study will assess several of the factors found to be associated with academic success
among a sample of Latino students, including students’ time allocation, achievement
motivation, school afﬁliation, parent involvement, social support, and peer inﬂuence.

What follows is a more in-depth examination of the educational research
conducted, which examines these factors and their relationship to academic performance.
The research in this area has predominantly used White suburban youth in its analyses.
As such, particular attention will be paid to those studies that address these variables
among Latino populations. While research of these factors in Latino student populations

is limited, this work seeks to build from and expand the current knowledge base.

18

 

Time Allocation

Larson, Richards, Sims and Dworkin (2001) have documented how students’ time
allocation, or how they spend their ﬁ'ee time, provides useful information regarding their
daily experiences and socialization. Their study examined the time budgets for a sample
of 253 5th to 8th grade students from Chicago area elementary schools, which provided
important information about how time budgets for ethnic minority students may be
distinct ﬁ'om those of other populations, with implications for their socialization and
development (Larson, et. a1, 1995). This is particularly true for adolescents from
collectivist cultures, such as Blacks and Latinos, who may spend more time with family
and extended family than their White peers.

As noted earlier, McMillan and Reed (1994) have remarked that youth’s positive
use of time is related to resiliency. They found that resilient students, who spend their
time involved in positive academic or extracurricular activities, hobbies, sports, or
volunteer work, have little spare time, maintain a higher engagement with school, and
receive valuable support and increased levels of self-esteem (McMillan & Reed, 1994).
Several researchers have noted that the amount of time an individual devotes to
schoolwork is related to his or her individual achievement level (F uligrri & Stevenson,
1995; Leone & Richards, 1989; Wahlberg & Fredrick, 1982). Youth, who spend large
amounts of personal time doing homework and those who spend large amounts of time in
leisure, are participating in different sets of socialization experiences (Whiting &
Edwards, 1988, Rumberger, 2001). Steinberg and Darling (1993) and Fulgini (1997)
have found that time spent on homework is associated with academic achievement or lack

thereof. Low interest in school activities and low participation in school activities have

l9

also been linked with an increased likelihood of school failure and dropout rates
(Goldschmidt & Wang 1999; Rumberger 2001).

Several studies have found that participation in organized activities outside of
school time is related to educational attainment and academic achievement (Barber &
Eccles, 1997; Eccles & Berber, 1999; Hanks & Eckland, 1976; Larson, 1994; Posner &
Vandell, 1994; Quinn, 1995; Scales, et al., 2000). Quinn (1995), using data from a three-
year study of American youth organizations, found that youth’s participation in organized
activities outside of school time was positively related to their educational attainment.

Eccles and Barber’s (1999) study used participants from the Michigan Study of
Adolescent Life Transitions (MSALT), a longitudinal study begun in 1983 that followed
a cohort of approximately 1,800 youth for eight years. Using 1,259 of the respondents
they found that adolescents involved in pro-social activities, such as attending church or
participating in volunteer or community service-type activities, were more likely to have
better academic performance as measured by high school grade point average (GPA).
Students’ sports participation, participating in one or more school teams, was also found
to predict an increase in liking school as well as a higher-than—expected GPA. Similarly,
participation in the performing arts, including school band, drama and/or dance, was
related to a greater liking of school and to higher GPAS.

Higher-than—expected GPAs were also found for students who participated in
school-related clubs and non-athletic activities, such as student government, pep club,
and/or cheerleading. In addition, involvement in academic clubs, such as debate, foreign
language, math or chess clubs, science fair or tutoring in academic subjects, also

predicted higher-than-expected high school GPAS. Scales and his colleagues (2000), in

20

their study of 6,000 youth grades 6-12, also found that the amount of time youth spent in
youth programs was a predictor of school success. Overall, participation in organized
activities outside of school predicted greater academic performance for those adolescents
involved (Eccles & Barber, 1999).

Participation in organized activities has also been found to provide a buffering
effect between risk factors and grades (Voydanoff & Donnelly, 1999). Voydanoff and
Donnelly’s (1999) study of 929 parents and children interviewed for the National
Commission on Children’s 1990 Survey of Parents and Children, found that moderate
protective effects suggest that opportunities for constructive activities and support can
interact to reduce the effects of negative peer behavior on grades. In other words, in their
study, positive time allocation seemed to protect against risk factors for academic
achievement (V oydanoff & Donnelly, 1999). But their study did not ﬁnd a direct effect
of this variable on grades. Regrettably, only a modest amount of the research on youth’s
use of personal time has examined its relationship to academic performance in Latino
youth

A few studies of Latino students have found that successful students report higher
levels of being involved in high school activities than unsuccessful students (Alva, 1991;
Waxman, Huang, & PadrOn, 1997; Davalos, Chavez, & Guardiola, I999). Davalos and
her colleagues (1999), conducted a study with Of 2.621 dropouts and youth still enrolled
in school, including 1163 Mexican American adolescents, in the southwestern region of
the US. to examine the effects of extracurricular activity and ethnic identiﬁcation on
school success. They found that involvement in extracurricular activities, including

athletic participation, other than band had a signiﬁcant positive effect on whether

21

Mexican American youth were in good standing at school (Davalos, Chavez, &
Guardiola, 1999). But this in and of itself did not predict whether these youth were
academically successﬁrl in school.

In a study of Latino middle school students from the south central region of the
United States, Waxman, Huang and Padrén (1997) examined the differences between
resilient and nonresilient students. Waxman (1997) and her colleagues found signiﬁcant
differences between resilient and non-resilient students’ use of personal time.
Speciﬁcally, resilient Latino students reported that they spent signiﬁcantly more time
doing homework each week, and more time on additional reading than nonresilient Latino
students (W axman, Huang, & PadrOn, 1997). Scales, Benson, Leffert, and Blyth (2000)
using a sample of 6000 youth, including 1000 Latino youth, found that time spent in
youth programming was a signiﬁcant predictor of student’s success in school for all
ethnic groups except African Americans. Fuligni (1997) in his study of over 1,100
immigrant youth including Latinos, found that the amount of time students reported that
they spent studying was a predictor of their academic achievement as measured by grades.
As can be seen, the majority of these studies did not look at positive time allocation for
Latinos speciﬁcally, but as a subset of a larger sample, or in conjunction with other
variables associated with academic achievement. Further research in this area is needed
to clarify how time spent outside of school and participation in organized activities affects
Latino students’ academic performance, particularly in conjunction with other factors.

Achievement Motivation
Researchers have found a connection between students’ academic motivation and

their academic achievement including higher grades (Anderson & Keith, 1997; Jessor,

22

Van Den Bos, Vanderryn, Costa, & Turbin, 1995; Paulson, Coombs, & Richardson,
1990; Scales, Benson, Leffert, & Blyth, 2000; Wentzel, 1993). Wentzel (1989) conducted
a study of 203, 9th through 12th-grade adolescents from a suburban high school in the
San Francisco bay area, on their goals, standards for performance, and academic
achievement. She found that effort towards academic mastery goals, including being a
successful student, learning and understanding new things, was signiﬁcantly correlated
with grade point average. Wentzel (1996), in her longitudinal study of 216 junior high
school students, found that students’ academic motivation was positively and
signiﬁcantly correlated to their English class grades. Both of Wentzel’s studies shed light
on the relationship of motivation to academic performance, but do not address how this
differs across ethnic groups. Nor do they take into consideration other factors that may
affect student’s academic achievement.

Marchant, Paulson, and Rothlisberg’s (2001) analysis of this same data found that
academic motivation was signiﬁcantly correlated to academic achievement as measured
by students’ self-reported grades. Their regression analyses revealed that students’
perceived motivations, along with school competence, predicted a signiﬁcant portion of
the variance in academic achievement above and beyond all of the other factors examined
(Marchant, Paulson, & Rothlisberg, 2001).

A longitudinal study of a total of 2,410 7th, 8th, and 9th-grade adolescents in a
large, urban school district, found that for youth, including Latino students, academic
motivation was signiﬁcantly related to their academic achievement. However, the focus
of this study was to assess the relation of psychosocial protective factors to involvement

in problem behavior. Although this study had a large enough sample size to conduct

analyses by ethnicity, its goal was neither to examine the relationship of risk and
protective factors for Latino youth nor to examine their effects on academic achievement.

Achievement motivation was found to be a signiﬁcant predictor of school success
across all racial/ethnic groups by Scales, Benson, Leffert, and Blyth (2000). In their study,
examining a sample of 6,000 students from across the United States, they observed that
high academic motivation predicted higher grades (Scales, et al., 2000). Keith and
Perkins (1995), examining data collected ﬁ'om over 13,000 students in Michigan during
the 1993-94 school year using Search Institute’s Proﬁles of Student Life: Attitudes and
Behaviors (ABS), found that achievement motivation was one of the factors most
associated with preventing at-risk indicators or behaviors at school.

Adolescents, who have a positive attitude towards school and who value school,
are less likely to fail or drop out than adolescents who hold a negative attitude towards
school or value school less (Powell-Cope & Eggert, 1994; Goldschmidt & Wang, 1999;
Rumberger 2001). Goldschmidt and Wang (1999) used the National Education
Longitudinal Study database to examine student and school factors associated with
dropping out in different grades. They found that students’ attitudes toward school were
a factor for dropping out of school (Goldschmidt & Wang, 1999). Paulson, Coombs, and
Richardson (1990) examined the relationship between drug use, school performance, and
academic aspirations in a study of 446 Anglo and Hispanic youths (aged 9-1 7 yrs),using
interview data analyzed and made comparisons of the data by age, ethnicity, and gender.
Paulson and his colleagues (1990) found that academic motivation, more interest in
schoolwork, and stronger feelings of its importance, were correlated with higher overall

grades for both Anglo and Hispanic students. But it is important to note that the main

24

focus of this study was to examine the differences between current substance users and
nonusers, and not to examine the differences in academic achievement of these students.

Waxman, Huang, and PadrOn (1997) found that resilient Latino students’
motivation was signiﬁcantly different from that of less resilient students. They found, in
their study of Latino middle school students, that resilient students are much more
motivated than their nonresilient classmates. Shultz’s (1993) study examined
relationships among socioeconomic advantage, achievement motivation, and academic
performance in an urban elementary school population of 130 African-American and
Hispanic 4th through 6th grade students. He found that achievement motivation was a
signiﬁcant mediator of academic performance in Hispanic children, independent of
intellectual ability (Schultz, 1993).

In a recent study of 122 Latino students in the 9th and 10th grades attending a
predominantly Latino (80%) high school in California, which examined the relationship
of language brokering, biculturalism, academic self-efﬁcacy, and social self-efﬁcacy,
found that academic self efﬁcacy, including academic motivation, was the strongest
predictor of academic performance (Buriel, Perez, De Ment, Cahvez, & Moran, 1998).
Although this study focused on the academic achievement of Latino students, it did not
take into account many of the external factors that may play a role in these students’
academic performance.

While it provides some insight into the academic performance of a group of
Latino students, this study still leaves several areas unexarnined As previously noted,

Scales and his colleagues (2000), in their study of 6000 students, also found achievement

25

motivation to contribute meaningfully to school success, as measured by self reported
grades, across all ethnic groups including Latino students.
School Aﬂiliation

The majority of research on school affiliation, engagement, or bonding has
reported that the greater the sense of students’ connectedness to school the greater their
academic performance. The opposite relationship has also been found to be true; students
who feel alienated ﬁom school are more likely to fail academically (Eckstrom, Goertz, &
Took, 1989).

Several studies have shown that adolescents who report a positive orientation to
school, school connectedness, or perceived school quality are less likely to engage in
problem behavior and to have higher levels of school achievement (Furstenberg &
Hughes, 1995; Jessor et al., 1995; Resnick, et al., 1993). Marchant’s (1991) study of
urban elementary students concluded that pursuing challenging activities might be related
to more positive feelings about school learning. Finn and Rock (1997) found signiﬁcant
differences in school engagement of resilient students, nonresilient students, and
dropouts, even after background and psychological characteristics were controlled
statistically. Connell, Spencer and Aber (1994) also found that students’ reported
engagement in school predicted school performance. Scales, Benson, Leffert and Blyth
(2000) found school engagement, as measured by the ABS in a sample of 6000 students,
to be a signiﬁcant predictor of student’s school success. Unfortunately, despite the large
overall sample size, this study did not include a sufﬁcient sample of Latino students to

conduct speciﬁc analyses for this group.

26

Paulson, Marchant, and Rothlisberg’s (1998) study of 230 middle school students
from the Midwest examined the effect of their perceptions of positive school climate and
school afﬁliation on academic achievement, academic motivation, and self-efﬁcacy.
Their ﬁndings revealed that, in conjunction with students’ perceptions of congruence
between parental and teacher styles, positive school climate and afﬁliation were indeed
associated with higher academic achievement for these students. This research provided
valuable information on how students’ perceptions of several external factors plays a role
in their academic achievement. But it is also important to note that this study did not
examine these relationships for different ethnic/racial minorities. So, the extent to which
this same pattern holds true for Latino students is not investigated.

Some studies have examined the relationship between school afﬁliation and
academic performance among Latino students. Goodenow and Grady (1993) found that a
sense of school belonging had a strong relationship with school success for Latino middle
school students. In another study, of 169 in the 5th and 6th grade of four elementary
schools in a central coast community in California, Latino students with low levels of
school bonding were found to be more at risk for school failure (Robertson, Harding, &
Morrison, 1998). While this research focuses on a population of Latino students, it does
not speciﬁcally explore whether the inverse positive relationship is true for Latino
students; that higher levels of school bonding are related to greater academic
achievement. Reyes and Jason (1993) found in their study of inner-city high school
Latino students that more successful students reported signiﬁcantly more satisfaction with
their school than did less successful students. Alva’s (1991) study of Mexican-American

10th graders also found high achievers reported enjoying coming to school.

27

A recent study examined the differences in educational achievement among 1,880
middle school Mexican-American Language Minority students in a large, urban school
system in Los Angeles County, California (Rumberger & Larson, 1998). This study
found that school engagement, including how often students were absent, their classroom
work habits, and their classroom social behavior, were predictive of students’ GPAS.
They also found that the less engaged the students were, the lower their GPAS.

More engaged Latino students were also found to do better in school in a recent
study by Scales and colleagues (2000). With a sample, which included 1,000 Latino
students, they found school engagement to be a predictor of school success for Latino
students (Scales, et al., 2000).

Parental Involvement

In general, research has found that students whose parents are involved in school
have relatively high levels of school performance (Furstenburg & Hughes. 1995; Muller,
1993, 1995; Paulson, 1996; Steinberg, Larnbom, Dombush, & Darling, 1992; Zill &
Nord, 1994). As Chavkin and Gonzalez (1995) put it; “research has shown that one of the
most promising ways to increase students’ achievement is to involve their families (p. 1).
This pattern, although found in the general literature on adolescent academic
achievement, has not been thoroughly explored for Latino students.

Frequent school contact and involvement on the part of parents have been found
to be characteristics of successful students (Clark, 1983). Henderson (1988) reviewed 49
studies of parent involvement programs and reported numerous beneﬁts, including higher
grades and test scores, and long-term academic achievement. Henderson and Berla (1994)

in their extensive review of research on academic achievement found that the most

28

accurate predictor of a student’s achievement in school is not income or social status, but
the extent to which parents encourage learning, set high expectations, and become
involved in their children’s education at school and in the community.

Parents, who are more involved with their children’s school, including conferring
with school staff, presenting, observing or volunteering in the class or school, and
attending a school event or meeting, have been found to have children who perform better
in school (Population Reference Bureau, 2000). NCES (n. d.), drawing on data ﬁ'om the
1996 National Household Education Survey, studied the differences in the level of school
involvement in a sample of parents of high school students. School involvement was
deﬁned as participating in at least three of four school activities: attending a general
school meeting, attending regular parent-teacher conferences, attending a school or class
event, or volunteering at school. They found that fathers’ and mother’s involvement was
associated with a higher likelihood of students getting mostly A’s.

Paulson, Marchant, and Rothlisberg (1998) examined adolescents’ perceptions,
congruence and noncongruence of parenting styles and involvement, teaching styles, and
school atmosphere and the implications these have for academic achievement. The
participants in the study were 230 students in the 5th- and 6th-grades from three school
districts in the Midwest. Those students who had congruent authoritative styles at home
and at school (moderate demand/control and high responsiveness) saw their parents as
being highly involved in their school functions and were also the students with highest
grades. This study did not examine ethnic differences in their results. And, as the authors
themselves point out in their discussion of the study, as the diversity of the school

population increases there will also be an increasing need to understand the relative

29

importance of these factors on academic performance in differing contexts and among
differing populations.

Bogenschneider (1997), in her study of 10,000 students (12% Latino) from nine
high schools in California and Wisconsin, found that both mother’s and father’s school
involvement were signiﬁcantly correlated with high school grade point average,
regardless of the parent’s educational level or the child’s gender or ethnicity. But,
Voydanoff and Donnelly (1999) in a study of 929 parents and children, ages 10 - 17,
reported only a modest but not statistically signiﬁcant relationship between parental
involvement and childrens’ grades.

There are also a few studies, which have found that students whose parents were
more involved had lower mathematics achievement scores (Bempechat, Graham, &
Jimenez, 1999; Muller, 1995). This may reﬂect the tendency on the part of some parents
to respond to poor performance. Most aspects of parental involvement in the literature
suggest a positive relationship with youth’s academic achievement (V oydanoff &
Donnelly, 1999). What effect parental involvement has for Latino students remains to be
seen because parental school involvement has primarily been studied in White student
populations (Bogenschneider, 1997).

There are a limited amount of studies that examine how parental involvement in
school affects the academic achievement of Latino students. Lopez’s (1996) study of
Latino and White students in vocational and academic programs found that parental
involvement in schooling (i.e. father and mother keeping track of progress in school, how
often parents attend PTA meetings, parents volunteering for school projects, and how

often parents visited classes) was related to their academic achievement as measured by

30

grades. Latinos and Whites, who had been kept in academic programs, as opposed to
going to vocational programs, were also more likely to have greater parental involvement
(Lopez, 1996). Bogenshneider (1997) found that for all students, including Latinos,
parental school involvement was associated with GPAs, such that the more involvement
the higher the GPA.

Romo and F albo (1996) found, in their four-year longitudinal qualitative study of
one hundred at-risk Latino youth, that parents of academically successful at-risk
adolescents were aggressive in making contacts with the schools. Jones and Velez’s
(1997) study of twenty Latino parents and 76 10th-grade students from a Midwestern high
school, found that direct involvement of parents by supervising the child, particularly as
related to homework at home appeared to be related to academic performance.

The President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic
Americans (2000) has stated that parental involvement is one of the essential factors for
improving the education of Hispanic youth. But research still needs to be conducted that
further examines the relationship of parental involvement in school for Latino students’
academic performance.

Social Support

Clark (1991) has suggested that support networks also constitute resilient
behaviors that need to be fostered and developed by students. Dryfoos (1998) has stated
that for young people to succeed they have to be attached to a caring adult. Several
researchers have found that support from farrrily, school, and the community is related to
students’ academic achievement and resiliency (Alva, 1991; Benard, 1991; Clark, 1983;

Clark, 1991; Lopez, 1996; Scales & Gibbons, 1996; Werner 1989). Scales and Gibbons

31

(1996), in their review of the literature, found that many reports on adolescent
development have indicated that a relationship with a least one caring adult, not
necessarily a parent, is perhaps the single most important element in protecting young
people who have risk in their lives. Wang and Gordon (1994) have also noted that most
resilient children have at least one strong relationship with an adult, not always a parent.

Werner and Smith (1992) in their longitudinal study of 700 at-risk youth found
that a distinguishing factor shared by each resilient child was a long-term, close
relationship with a caring, responsible parent or other adult. Speciﬁcally, when they
were of school-age, they had more access than did less resilient peers to supportive
teachers, clergy, neighbors, and other caring adults outside of the family. A lack of
interpersonal relationships and support ﬁom signiﬁcant adults, such as parents or
teachers, has also been found to be a barrier to academic achievement (Vera, 2000).
Clark (1983) found that both parent and teacher support were distinguishing patterns of
high-achieving children. A recent study, in which racially/ethnically diverse students
were interviewed found that many academically successful high school seniors from
inner-city high schools attributed their academic success, at least in part, to the
educational support they received ﬁom their social support networks (Kenny, Gallagher,
Alvarez-Salvat, & Silsby, 2002).

Some research has even addressed the effects of social support exclusively on
Latino students. One example is Robertson, Harding, and Morrison’s research (1998) of
at-risk, learning disabled, speech impaired, and not at-risk Latino elementary youth from

California. They found that social support, measured as the number of signiﬁcant

32

individuals in a student’s life, was higher for those students who were not at risk for
school failure (Robertson, Harding, & Morrison, 1998).

Parental support has been associated with a number of positive outcomes
including higher levels of academic success. An abundance of research has reported that
family support is associated with higher grades and higher standardized test scores
(Bisnaire, Firestone, & Rynard, 1990; Canoe, Felner, & Primavera, 1982; Christenson,
Grounds, & Gomey, 1992; Eccles, Early, Fraser, Belansky, & McCarthy, 1997; Feldman
& Wentzel, 1990; Glasgow, Dombush, Troyer, Steinberg, & Ritter, 1997; Masselam,
Marcus, & Stunkard, 1990; Rosenthal & Feldman, 1991). Werner (1989) in her classic
40-year study of at-risk youth found that those students who did overcome adversity had
higher levels of family support. Adolescents who have parental support and have
communication with their parents are less likely to fail or drop out of school (Barnes &
Farrell, 1994; Dryfoos, 1990; Goldschmidt & Wang, 1999; Rumberger, 2001)). Parental
support has also been found to differentiate between high- and low-achieving groups
(Clark, 1983).

Clark’s (1983) study observed that students with parents who provided liberal
nurturing and support were more likely to be high-achievers. Keith and Perkins (1995)
found that, for students in Michigan, family support was associated with preventing
problem indicators and behaviors in school. Floyd (1996), in her study of academically
resilient African American high school seniors, reported that supportive parents were
often mentioned as inﬂuential in students’ academic achievement. In her qualitative

study of 20 Aﬁican American youth who were succeeding in school despite economic

33

hardship, Floyd (1996) found that many students cited supportive family members,
including both mothers and fathers, as factors in their success.

A recent study of 100 multiethnic academically successful inner-city youth, found
that mother’s support, but not father’s support, was signiﬁcantly related to students’ grade
point averages (Kenny, et al., 2002). In the second part of this study, Kenny and her
colleagues (2002) interviewed successful high school seniors, and found that the most
successful seniors, in terms of academic achievement, reported high levels of family
support. Scales and Gibbon’s (1996) review of the literature on the presence of caring
adults reported that parents were most often found to be the most important adults in the
lives of adolescents. Regrettably, little research has examined the role parental support
plays in the academic achievement of Latino youth.

Lopez (1996), in his study of both White and Latino students in vocational and
academic (college-bound) programs, found that the amount of time students spent talking
with their parents was positively related to their academic achievement. Comparatively
higher levels of social capital at home, including parental support, also accompanied the
higher performance of Latino students in academic programs (Lopez, 1996). In other
words, students receiving higher grades were more likely to have greater parental support
than their low achieving peers (Lopez, 1996). What little other research exists that
examines family support and Latino students’ academic achievement has not shown any
relationship between these variables (LOpez, Ehly, & Garcia-Vézquez, 2002).

Scales and Gibbons (1996) reviewed the available literature with respect to
identifying non-parental adults who positively affect adolescents, characterizing the kinds

and frequency of contact between adolescents and non-parental adults, and articulating

34

the functions that the relationships serve and Specifying personal characteristics of the
non-parental adults. These non-parental adults included teachers and other school
personnel as well as neighbors and other adults. They found in their review that although
parents are the most important adults in the lives of adolescents and peers are the most
important non-relatives, non-parental adults might play important roles in the healthy
development of adolescents.

Not surprisingly, support provided by the school environment has also been
associated with better academic performance. Students whose schools foster caring and
supportive relationships have higher math, language, and reading achievement scores
(F elner, et al., 1997). Schools that have high expectations, encourage cooperation, and
have teachers who are supportive have lower levels of failure and dropouts than schools
that emphasize competition, testing, tracking, and have low expectations (Powell-Cope &
Eggert, 1994; Rumberger & Thomas, 2000; Rutter, 1979). Many of these researchers
only examined this relationship in terms of school support and negative outcomes such as
dropout rates (e. g. Rumberger & Thomas, 2000; Rutter, 1979). For example, Rumberger
and Thomas (2000), in their study of 7,642 10th-grade students, observed that in schools
where students reported a higher quality of teachers there were lower rates of dropout and
turnover. While these ﬁndings are important, they do not explain the relationship of this
factor to positive outcomes such as academic success.

Teachers represent a special case of non-related adults in adolescents’ lives in that
adolescents may have frequent contact with teachers (almost daily), and contact occurs in
a structured setting (the school) (Scales & Gibbons. 1996). Several researchers have

found that support from teachers and the school environment has been associated with

35

higher grades (Eccles & Harold, 1993; Felner, Ginter, & Primavera, 1982; Linney &
Siedrnan, 1989; Graham, Updegraff, Tomascik, & Hale, 1997; Rutter, 1983).

Davis and Jordan’s (1994) longitudinal study found that students who perceived
their teachers to be supportive had the highest grades and the highest test scores. In a
review of the literature on signiﬁcant adults other than parents in the lives of adolescents,
Galbo (1986) found that for youth who were high academic achievers, teachers were
perceived to have an important role in their lives. Werner and Smith (1992) found, in a
Kauai sample, that one of the three most common unrelated family adult relationships in
the lives of resilient youth were teachers. F elner (1992), in a study of more than 4,000
middle school students, reported that the degree of overall student-teacher closeness in
the school contributed to higher academic achievement.

Floyd’s (1996) study of academically resilient Black students also found teachers
to be motivating inﬂuences in school success. Having exposure to teachers that are
stimulating and supportive has been found to be a predictor of whether students are high-
or low-achieving (Clark, 1983). But this relationship has not been as thoroughly explored
with Latino students.

There is a limited amount of literature, which examines the relationship of school
support on the academic success of Latino youth. Alva’s (1991) study of Mexican-
American high school students found educational support from teachers and ﬁiends to be
important factors related to resiliency. Kaplan’s (1999) study of Black and Latino
students revealed that students gave their teachers credit for strengthening their academic
skills. Conversely, Erickson and Schutlz (1982) found in their study of Latino and

African American junior high, high school, and college students in northern California

36

that students often reported unsupportive teachers and counselors as barriers to academic
success.

Lucas, Henza, and Donato (1990) noted that support provided by teachers,
speciﬁcally in the form of valuing students’ primary language and encouraging academic
achievement, promoted the academic success of Latino students. Their study of six
effective high schools found that two of the features of high schools that promote
achievement of Latino youth is the respect and value that school personnel give students,
along with their challenging students and providing guidance to meet those challenges
(Lucas, Henza, & Donato, 1990). LOpez, Ehly and Garcia-Vézquez’s (2001) study of 60
9th-grade students of Mexican descent in a southwestern school district, found a
signiﬁcant correlation between perceived teacher support and students’ GPA.

Although there is much less research on neighborhood and other adult support
than on support provided by families or schools, the research does suggest that support
from these other adults can have a positive effect on various areas of youth’s lives,
including strengthening their academic performance. Support provided by other adults
and neighbors has been associated with higher grades and higher academic achievement
(Cochran & Be, 1989; Entvvilse, Alexander, & Olson, 1994; Wenz-Gross & Siperstein,
1997). Werner (1989; Werner & Smith, 1992) in her longitudinal study found support
from other adults to play an important role in the lives of resilient students. High levels
of support have been related to better grades among at risk youth (Dubois, et al., 1992).

Extended family and non-related adults are known to fulﬁll attachment ﬁrnctions
in supporting personal and academic adjustment, particularly within families of color

(Harrison, Wilson, Pine, Chan, & Buriel, 1990; Kenny & Perez, 1996). Chavkin and

37

Gonzalez’s (2000) review of research and programs addressing Mexican immigrant youth
and resiliency, found that relationships with caring adults was associated with resiliency.
Although Latino student dropout has also been related to a lack of supportive adult
relationships (Chavkin & Gonzalez, 2000; Nesman, Barobs-Gahr, & Medrano, 2001;
Rumberger, 2000), research examining supportive adult relationships and academic
achievement in Latino youth are scarce.
Peer Inﬂuence

Peers can have either a positive or negative effect on adolescents’ academic
achievement. Resilient youth often have one or more close and stable ﬁiendships, on
which they rely for ongoing emotional support (Werner & Smith, 1992). Positive peer
inﬂuence has been associated with higher academic achievement (Chen & Stevenson,
1995; Hanson & Ginsberg, 1988), higher math achievement (Hanson & Ginsburg, 1988),
and better grades (Mounts & Steinberg, 1995). Adolescents, whose peers have high
expectations and positive attitudes towards school, are less likely to fail or drop out of
school (Powell-Cope & Eggert 1994; Wang, Harte], & Walberg, I999; Rumberger 2001).

Voydanoff and Donnelly (1999), in their sample of 929 parents and students ﬁom
a national random digit sample of telephone numbers, found that having ﬁiends who were
planning to go to college was positively related to grades for students. This study also
reported that the effect of peer activities actually became positive when children had high
levels of other protective factors as well. Keith and Perkins (1995) in their sample of
Michigan students found that high school students who had positive peer inﬂuence were
less likely to display at-risk indicators or behaviors for school failure. Kenny and her

colleagues (2002) also found that peers could provide support for academic success. In

38

their interviews with sixteen academically successful inner-city youth, they found that
supportive relationships with friends were often mentioned as factors encouraging their
academic success (Kenny, et al., 2002).

Azrnitia and Cooper (2001) report on two longitudinal studies of peers as
resources and challenges for students’ school performance and future planning. The ﬁrst
study examined European American and Latino students’ perceptions of peers’ emotional
support, academic guidance, and companionship from elementary to junior high school.
Students’ perceptions of peers’ overall encouragement or discouragement of school were
linked to English and math grades (Azrnitia & Cooper, 2001). They also found that the
link between seeing peers as a resource and grades were stronger in junior high than in
elementary school (Azrnitia & Cooper, 2001). The second study examined peers as both
challenges and resources for youth in a community college academic outreach program.
Participants in the program saw their peers as challenges as well as resources in reaching
their career goals (Azrnitia & Cooper, 2001). Peers were also seen as greater challenges
than families (Azrnitia & Cooper, 2001). Taken together, these studies demonstrate the
signiﬁcance of peers as having both positive and negative inﬂuences on adolescents.

Peers, who are involved in risky behaviors, such as alcohol use, drug use or
delinquent behavior, have been found to have a negative effect on students’ academic
achievement ([Powell-Cope & Eggert, 1994; Romo & Falbo, 1996; Rumberger,
2001;Wang, et al., 1999). Negative peer behavior and peer pressure were found to be
negatively correlated with youth’s grades (Voydanoff & Donnelly, 1999). Speciﬁcally,

the more friends a student had that participated in risky behaviors, and the more pressure

39

they felt to participate in risky behaviors, the lower their grades (Voydanoff & Donnelly,
1999)

A recent longitudinal study of 120 Black and Latino youth in outreach programs
examined students’ family backgrounds: challenges and resources across family, school,
peer, and community (Cooper, Cooper, Jr., Azrnitia, Chavira, & Gullat, 2002). This
study found that students, including Latinos, saw peers, along with teachers, as their
greatest challenges (Cooper, et al., 2002). This ﬁnding points to the possible negative
effect that peers can have on students.

Although there is a limited amount of research on peer inﬂuence and academic
success in Latino populations, some research has shown a relationship between types of
peer inﬂuence and school success. Research has found that for Latino adolescents, peers
are relatively more inﬂuential on their academic achievement than are parents (Steinberg
& Darling 1993). Involvement with peers who are motivated to succeed in school, and
who spend time doing homework, has also been found to positively affect Latino
students’ academic achievement (Romo & F albo, 1996). Muskal and Chairez (1990)
found that high-achieving Latino students, whose families live in middle- to upper-
income neighborhoods of mixed ethnicity, regardless of parents’ birthplaces, beneﬁted
from peer pressure to succeed in school. In contrast, peer pressure, particularly to
participate in risky behaviors, was found to be a barrier to academic achievement in
Vera’s (2000) study of Chicano urban youth. Unfortunately, this study only examined
barriers to achieving youth’s goals and did not examine what the youth felt would
promote success. The relationship between peer inﬂuence and academic achievement for

Latinos is still relatively unexplored.

40

While the factors affecting the academic achievement of Latino youth have been
examined in varying degrees, few researchers have examined both individual level and
environmental level factors simultaneously. Many have also looked at the factors
affecting academic achievement from a failure perspective, looking only at those factors
that negatively affect academic achievement.

The Current Study

Expanding on previous research in this area, the purpose of the current study was
to compare high achieving and low achieving students using various attributes that have
been found to be predictors of academic success. In the present analysis, the selection of
predictors related to academic success was guided by an emphasis on variables that can
be used for assessment or are amenable to prevention and intervention efforts. This
research may particularly useful in ﬁ'aming successful efforts for Latino students. This
study focused on whether high and low achieving Latino students differ signiﬁcantly on
their personal time allocation, their achievement motivation, their school afﬁliation, the
type and amount of social support they receive, their parents’ involvement in schooling,

and the type of peer inﬂuence in their lives.

41

CHAPTER 3
METHODS
The current study used secondary data collected in collaboration with the Search

Institute. Since 1989, Search Institute in Minneapolis, Minnesota has been conducting
research, grounded in resilience, prevention, and adolescent development literature, that
examines the positive relationships, opportunities, competencies, values, and self
perceptions that youth need to succeed. This research has produced the institute’s
framework of developmental assets. Search Institute’s Healthy Communities-Healthy
Youth initiative sponsors research, evaluation, training, technical assistance, networking
opportunities, and the development of resource materials based on this framework. The
developmental assets have been measured using Search Institute’s Proﬁles of Student
Life: Attitude and Behaviors survey (ABS). Since 1994, more than 500,000 6th- to 12th-
grade students in more than 600 communities across the United States have used the
survey. If a community decides to employ the ABS, Search Institute provides them with
resources to administer and get results of the survey. Results are reported from Search
Institute back to the community. Data collected during a given school year is also
aggregated and reported by state and as a national sample. The data being used in this
study is an aggregate of the majority of the data collected from students in the state of
Michigan during the 1998-99 school year.

Participants

The Search Institute’s total aggregate state sample consisted of 20,872 youth in
grades 6 through 12 who were attending public schools in Michigan during the 1998-99

school year. In total, 35 school districts had students who participated in the study.

42

Appendix A presents a map of Michigan with the number of school areas indicated where

the Search data was used. Of these, 49% were male and 51% were female. The mean age

for the sample was 14.4 years. Table 1 (below) shows the distribution of the students by

grade level. 50.5% of the students were in middle school or junior high (6th-8th grade)

and 49.5% were in high school (9th-12th grade) at the time the survey was administered.

Table 1

Background Characteristics of Total Sample and Hispanic/Latino Sample

 

 

 

ﬁgment
Total Sam le Hispanic/Latino
Demoggphics ____p__=2 0872) Sample
(N=219)
Gender (Missing=29)
Male 49 50
Female , 51 50
Grade in school (Missing=42)
6th ' 8 7
7‘“ 20 23
8th 23 23
9th 19 20
10th 12 14
11th 11 10
12th 8 5
Where does your family live now? (Missing=988)
On a farm 6 3
In the country, not on a farm 25 24
On an American Indian reservation 1 1
In a small town (under 2,500 in population) 16 15
In a town (2,500 to 9,9999) 14 19
In a small city (10,000 to 49,999) 21 15
In a medium size city (50,000 to 250.000) 14 18
In a large city (over 250,000) 3 4
What grades do you earn in school? (Missing=363)
Mostly As 26 14
About half As and half Bs 28 26
Mostly Bs 12 12
About half Bs and half CS 19 22
Mostly Cs 6 7
About half Cs and half Ds 7 13
Mostly Ds 2 2
Mostly below DS 1 4

 

*Percentages may not sum 100% due to rounding

43

The majority of the students reported their racial/ethnic background as White (see

Table 2 below). The percentages reported for all other ethnic/racial categories are

 

 

presented in Table 2.

Table 2

Ethnic/Racial Percentages for Total Sample

Race/Ethnicity Percent
(N=20698)

American Indian 1.7

Asian or Paciﬁc Islander 1.2

Black 1.1

Hispanic 1.7

White 89.9

Multi-racial 4.4

 

It is of interest to note that 4.4% of the students reported a multiracial ethnic/racial
background, and of these students 62.3% reported both White and American Indian.
Thirty-two percent of the students reported living in rural areas (on a farm; in the country,
not on a farm; and on an American Indian reservation), 30% in suburban areas (in a small
town under 2,500 in population, and in a town 2,500 to 9,999 in population), and 38% in
urban areas (in a small city -10,000 to 49,999, in a medium size city ~50,000 to 250,000,
and in a large city - over 250,000; see Table 1 for all percentages reported). One
thousand, six hundred and forty-four participants’ data were removed by Search ﬁom the
total sample of those students who took the survey (leaving the 20,872 stated earlier)
because it was determined that students were being inconsistent in their responses, were
exaggerating alcohol or other drug use rates, or had not responded to 40 or more

questions.

Hispanic/Latino Students

Of the sample surveyed by Search, 358 (1.7%) of the students self-identiﬁed as
only Hispanic/Latino. This study focused on this subset of students. It is important to
note that the ABS only includes the pan-ethnic terms Hispanic or Latino as possible
choices for those students whose heritage is ﬁ'om Spain, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, or
any other Latin American country. There are no options on the ABS to Specify country of
origin. This should be kept in consideration as differences have been found between the
groups that come under the Hispanic/Latino label as to their levels of academic
achievement.

Participants who were missing answers to any of the questions used in this study
were excluded from analyses. This left a sample of 216 Latino students for analyses.
Table 1 presents comparisons of the Hispanic/Latino sample and the total sample. The
gender distribution of the Hispanic/Latino sample is comparatively equal. The median
age for Latino students was 14.4 years old. The distribution of Latino students by grade
level was also similar to that of the total sample, 51.9% were in middle school or junior
high school and 48.1% were in high school . Of this sample, 36.3% indicated they lived
in an urban area, 36% in a suburban area, and 27.8% in a rural area .

Measure

The survey, Search Institute Proﬁle of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors
(ABS), was used to measure protective and risk factors among youth in Michigan. The
survey is a 156-item self-report questionnaire that has been administered to 6th- to 12th-
grade students in public and private schools. Search Institute’s ABS measures 40

developmental assets. The framework of 40 developmental assets with deﬁnitions is

45

presented in Table 3 below. The assets are measured by one or more survey items, with
Likert-type response options. The ABS also measures a number of other constructs,
including developmental deﬁcits (e.g., whether youth watch too much television or are
the victims of violence), thriving indicators (e.g., school success and maintenance of
physical health behaviors), high-risk behaviors (e.g., alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use,
sexual intercourse, and violence), and demographics. See Appendix B for all of the items
included in the survey.

Table 3
The Framework of 40 Developmental Assets, with Deﬁnition
External Assets

 

Support
1. Family support-Family life provides high levels of love and support.
2. Positive family communication-Young person and her/his parent(s) communicate positively, and
young person is willing to seek advice and counsel form parents

3. Other adult relationships-Young person receives support from three or more non-parent adults.
4. Caring neighborhood-Young person experiences caring neighbors.
5. Caring school climate-School provides a caring, encouraging environment.
6. Parent involvement in schooling-Parent(s) are actively involved in helping young person succeed
in school.
Empowerment

7. Community values youth-Young person perceives that adults in the community value youth.
8. Youth as resources-Young people are given useful roles in the community.
9. Service to others-Young person serves in the community one hour or more per week
10. Safety-Young person feels safe at home, at school, and in the neighborhood.
Boundaries and Expectations
11. Family boundaries-Family has clear rules and consequences and monitors the young person’s
whereabouts.
12. School boundaries-School provides clear rules and consequences
13. Neighborhood boundaries-Neighbors take responsibility for monitoring young people’s behavior.
14. Adult role models-Parent(s) and other adults model positive, responsible behavior.
15. Positive peer inﬂuence-Young person’s best friends model responsible behavior.
16. High expectations-Both parent(s) and teachers encourage the young person to do well.
Constructive Use of Time
17. Creative activities-Young person spends three or more hours per week in lessons or practice in
music, theater, or other arts.
18. Youth programs-Young person spends three or more hours per week in sports, clubs, or
organizations at school and/or in the community.
19. Religious Community-Young person spends one or more hours per week in activities in a religious
institution.
20. Time at home-Young person is out with friends “with nothing special to do” two or fewer nights
per week.
Internal Assets
Commitment to Learning
21. Achievement motivation-Young person is motivated to do well in school.

46

22. School engagement-Young person is actively engaged in learning.
23. Homework-Young person reports doing at least one hour of homework every school day.
24. Bonding to school-Young person cares about her or his school.
25. Reading for pleasure-Young person reads for pleasure three or more hours per week
Positive Values
26. Caring-Young person places high value on helping other people.
27. Equality and social justice-Young person places high value on promoting equality and reducing
hunger and poverty.
28. Integrity-Young person acts on convictions and stands up for her or his beliefs.
29. Honesty-Young person “tells the truth even when it is not easy.”
30. Responsibility-Young person accepts and takes personal responsibility.
31. Restraint-Young person believes it is important to not be sexually active or to use alcohol or other
drugs.
Social Competencies
32. Planning and decision making-Young person knows how to plan ahead and make choices.
33. Interpersonal competence-Young person has empathy, sensitivity, and friendship skills.
34. Cultural competence-Young person has knowledge of and comfort with people of different
cultural/racial/ethnic backgrounds.
35. Resistance skills-Young person can resist negative peer pressure and dangerous situations.
36. Peaceful conﬂict resolution-Young person seeks to resolve conﬂict nonviolently.
Positive Identity
37. Personal power-Young person feels he or she has control over “things that happen to me.”
38. Self-esteem-Young person reports having a high self-esteem.
39. Sense of purpose-Young person reports that “my life has a purpose.”
40. Positive view of personal future-Youngperson is ommistic about her or his personal future.

 

Note. Adapted from Scales and Leffert, 1998.

Reliability
Thirteen of the assets measured by the ABS are measured with single items;

therefore, internal consistency does not apply. Nineteen of the assets have demonstrated
reliability coefﬁcients above .60, four are between .50 and .59, and four are less than .50
(Leffert, et al., 1998). Most of the scales show acceptable reliability ranging ﬁ'om the
.608 to the .803, particularly those from items which were used to assess the predictors in
this study. These include family support (a = .79), other adult relationships ((1 = .82),
caring school climate ((1 = .68), parent involvement in schooling (a = .75), achievement
motivation (or = .64), school engagement (at = .63), and peer inﬂuence (a = .71). Table 4

on the next page presents reliability coefﬁcients for each of the asset scales.

47

Table 4
Reliability of Developmental Assets

 

 

Asset Scale No. of Items Reliabilgy Coefﬁcient“
I. Family Support 3 .79
2. Positive Family Communication 3 .50
3. Other Adult Relationships 3 .82
4. Caring Neighborhood 1 NA
5. Caring School Climate 3 .68
6. Parent Involvement in Schooling 4 .75
7. Community Values Youth 4 .81
8. Youth as Resources 3 .48
9. Service to Others 1 NA
10. Safety 3 .50
1 1. Family Boundaries 3 .62
12. School Boundaries 3 .52
13. Neighborhood Boundaries 1 NA
14. Adult Role Models 3 .31
15. Positive Peer Inﬂuences 4 .71
16. High Expectations 2 .53
17. Creative Activities 1 NA
18. Youth Programs 3 .40
19. Religious Community 1 NA
20. Time at Home 1 NA
21 . Achievement Motivation 3 .64
22. School Engagement 4 .63
23. Homework 1 NA
24. Bonding to School 1 NA
25. Reading for Pleasure 1 NA
26. Caring 3 .75
27. Equality and Social Justice 3 .75
28. Integrity 2 .79
29. Honesty 1 NA
30. Responsibility 2 .68
31 . Restraint 2 .80
32. Planning and Decision-Making 2 .62
33. Interpersonal Competence 3 .67
34. Cultural Competence 3 .80
35. Resistance Skills 2 .63
36. Peaceful Conﬂict Resolution 1 NA
37. Personal Power 2 .32
38. Self-Esteem 4 .78
39. Sense of Purpose 1 NA
40. Positive View of Personal Future 1 NA

 

Note. N=99,462. NA=Reliabilty coefﬁcient not applicable for l-item
‘For scales including 3 or more items, Cronbach’s (1951) alpha coefﬁcient was used to assess reliability.
For 2-item scales, Spearman-Brown prophecy formula was used to assess reliability.

48

Validity

A considerable portion of the established validity of the developmental assets is
content validity in the form of face validity. In other words, the assets and the individual
items that comprise them reﬂect important aspects of what is reported in the literature as
to the structure of those domains, and they appear to measure what was intended in their
development (Fitzpatrick, 1983).

Results from an exploratory factor analysis of the construct validity of the
developmental assets framework, support the identiﬁcation of a l6-factor solution that
explains 49.6% of the variance (Furrow & Wagener, 1998). This factor analysis was
conducted using only the 92 asset items of the 156 total ABS items utilizing a principal
components method extraction with varimax rotation. The 16 factors were composed of
89 of these items; 3 items did not have sufﬁcient loadings (>.3 5) with any one factor.
Each of the 16 factors identiﬁed fell into at least one of the eight categories. These
ﬁndings suggest that, while some of the individual assets may overlap in the domains that
they measure, the developmental assets ﬁ‘amework can indeed be used for assessing the
variability of developmental outcomes for youth.

Principal—axis factor analyses were conducted with orthogonal (varimax) rotation
for all the scales included in this study, using the Latino student sample. Two primary
criteria were set forth a priori for determining the number of factors to extract. The scree
test and the root-one criterion were examined to decide the number of factors to retain.
The root-one criterion states that factors with eigenvalues equal to or greater than one
should be rotated (Guttrnan, 1954) and the scree test criterion (Cattell, 1966) suggests that

factoring should cease when the plotted graph of the eigenvalues levels off, forming a

49

straight line with an almost horizontal slope. Both of these criterion suggested that one
factor be extracted during principal-axis analysis using varimax rotation for several of the
scales. Speciﬁc results for each scale are presented below. Correlations between the
scales and the outcome variable were also conducted. Correlations ranged ﬁom .24 to

.54 (see Table 5 on the next page).

50

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51

Predictors

In order to examine background characteristics of time allocation, achievement
motivation, school afﬁliation, parental involvement, social support, peer inﬂuence, and
their relationship to academic success, a subset of the 156 items on the survey were used
in this study. Predictors of academic success were chosen based on the literature. The
items ﬁ'om the ABS chosen to measure each predictor were based on Search’s grouping
of items based on asset deﬁnition as well as on literature and face validity. Background
characteristic were measured by the demographic questions included in the survey. These
consist of age, gender, family situation, parental education level, and area of residence.
The majority of the students live with both parents, and in a suburban area. Also, 42.6%
of the students’ fathers and 47.7% of their mothers had at least some education beyond
high school. For a list of all the demographic items and their distributions for the

Hispanic/Latino sample see Table 6 below.

 

 

Table 6
Demographic Items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample
Items Percent
(N=219)
Which best describes your family?
I live with two parents 73.6
I live in a one-parent family with my mother 14.4
I live in a one-parent family with my father 3.2
Sometimes I live with my mother and sometimes with my father 8.8
Where does your family live now?
On a farm 3.2
In the country, not on a farm 24.1
On an American Indian reservation 1.4
In a small town (under 2,500 in population) 15.3
In a town (2,500 to 9,9999) 19.0
In a small city (10,000 to 49,999) 15.3
In a medium size city (50,000 to 250,000) 18.1
In a large city (over 250,000) 3.7

52

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How many years have you lived in the city where you now live?

All my life 25.5
10 years or more, but I’ve lived in at least one other place 14.4
5-9 years 23.6
3-4 years 16.2
1-2 years 8.3

Less than 1 year 11.6

What is the highest level of schooling your father (or step-father or male foster
parent/guardian) completed?

Completed grade school or less ' - ‘ 8.4
Some high school 13.9
Completed high school 27.8
Some college 20.8
Completed college 18.5
Graduate or professional school after college 10.6

Don’t know, or does not apply"
What is the highest level of schooling your mother (or step-mother or female
foster parent/guardian) completed?

Completed grade school or less 4.2
Some high school 12.0
Completed high school 33.3
Some college 23.1
Completed college 17.6
Graduate or professional school after college 9.7

Don’t know, or does not apply“

 

*Students that marked this response were not included in analyses.

Twelve items were chosen to measure students’ personal time allocation. These
included questions that ask about how students spend their time outside of school, and the
kinds of activities they are involved in. This scale was a combination of several of
Search’s one-item scales, including helps others, TV overexposure, service to others,
creative activities, religious community, time at home, homework, and reading for
pleasure. It also included the three items in Search’s youth program’s scale and another
item not used to assess any of the assets, deﬁciencies or thriving indicators. More than
half of the students in this study were involved in creative or organized activities during
the average week including sports, reading just for fun, and/or attending religious
programs, groups or services (see Table 7 on next page). For a complete list of the items

used to assess students’ time allocation and their distributions see Table 7.

53

Table 7
Time Allocation Items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample

 

Items Percent
(N=219)

During an average week, how many hours do you spend playing on or helping

with sports teams at school or in the community?

0 hours 44.9
1 hour 11.1
2 hours 11.1
3-5 hours 13.0
6-10 hours 8.3

11 or more hours 1 1.6

During an average week, how many hours do you spend in clubs or
organizations (other than sports) at school (for example, school newspaper,
student government, school plays, language clubs, hobby clubs, drama club,

debate, etc.)?
0 hours 66.7
1 hour 19.9
2 hours 7.4
3-5 hours 3.7
6-10 hours .9
11 or more hours 1.4

During an average week, how many hours do you spend in clubs or
organizations (other than sports) outside of school (such as 4-H, Scouts, Boys
and Girls Clubs, YMCA, YWCA)?

0 hours 77.7
1 hour 10.5
2 hours 7.0
3-5 hours 2.3
6-10 hours .4
11 or more hours 2.0

During an average week, how many hours do you spend reading just for fun
(not part of your school work)?

0 hours 37.5
1 hour 26.9
2 hours 14.8
3-5 hours 11.1
6-10 hours 2.3
11 or more hours 7.4

During an average week, how many hours do you spend going to programs,
groups, or services at a church, synagogue, mosque, or other religious or
spiritual place?

0 hours 44.9
1 hour 22.7
2 hours 14.8
3-5 hours 11.6
6-10 hours .9
11 or more hours 5.1

54

During an average week, how many hours do you spend helping other people
without getting paid (such as helping out at a hospital, daycare center, food
shelf, youth program, community service agency, or doing other things) to
make your city a better place for people to live?

 

0 hours 52.3
1 hour 25.5
2 hours 11.6
3-5 hours 5.6
6-10 hours 1.9
11 or more hours 3.2

During an average week, how many hours do you spend helping friends or

neighbors?
0 horns 25.5
1 hour 31.0
2 hours 22.7
3-5 hours 12.5
6-10 hours 3.2
11 or more hours 5.1

During an average week, how many hours do you spend practicing or taking
lessons in music, art, drama, or dance, after school or on the weekends?

0 hours
1 hour 62.5
2 hours 10.6
3-5 hours 9.7
6-10 hours 6.9
11 or more hours 6.0
4.2
On the average how many evenings per week do you go out to activities at a
school, youth group, congregation, or other organization?
0
1 46.8
2 16.2
3 13.4
4 6.5
5 4.6
6 6.5
7 3.2
2.8

 

Cronbach’s alpha = .68

After conducting principal axis factor analysis with the items in the time
allocation scale using the Latino student sample, the scale was reduced to 9 items. Three
of the items chosen did not load on any factor. The principal axis analysis yielded two

underlying factors that together accounted for 45% of the variance (see Appendix C).

55

Items in Factor 1 were speciﬁc activities students could be involved in. This factor alone
accounted for about 31% of the variance. Item factor loadings for this factor ranged from
.38 to .64. Factor 2 contained items related to general activities students could participate
in. This factor accounted for about 14% of the variance. Eigenvalues for item factor
loadings ranged from .43 to .69. In previous research, the youth programs scale has been

found to have a reliability of .40 (Leffert, et al., 1998). This combined scale has a

:21

reliability coefﬁcient of .68 for this sample. The ﬁrst factor had a reliability of .55, and

'.A_._jr'_'.‘ L. .

the second had a reliability coefﬁcient of .48.

Three items measured the students’ achievement motivation. These items are the
same questions Search includes in their achievement motivation scale. Leffert, et al.
(1998) found this scale to have a reliability of .64 based on a national sample. In this
Latino sample, the scale had a reliability of .68. The distributions for all three of the items
are also positively skewed in this sample. See Table 8 on following page for item
description and distributions. One factor was extracted during principal axis factoring for
the achievement motivation items. The item total factor loadings ranged from .27 to .43,

and the factor accounted for 62% of the variance (see Appendix C).

56

Table 8
School Achievement Motivation Items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample

 

 

Items Percent
QI=219)
I don’t care how I do in school.
Strongly agree 7.4
Agree 6.0
Not sure 16.2
Disagree 28.7
Strongly disagree 41.7
At school I try as hard as I can to do my best work. *
Strongly agree 20.4
Agree 47.7
Not sure 17.1
Disagree 11.1
Strongly disagree 3.7
It bothers me when I don’t do something well. *
Strongly agree ' 34.3
Agree 34.7
Not sure 18.1
Disagree 8.8
Strong disagree 4.2

 

*reverse coded
Cronbach’s alpha = .68

To examine students’ school afﬁliation six items were used. This scale is an
adaptation of two of the asset scales used by Search, school engagement and bonding to
school. The school bonding scale is composed of only one item and as such, reliability
coefﬁcients are not applicable. Leffert and her colleagues (1998) found the school
engagement scale to have a reliability of .63. The six-item school afﬁliation scale used in
this study was found to have a reliability coefﬁcient of .62. It is not surprising to note that
the majority of the students who responded had not skipped any days of school in the four
weeks prior to taking the survey (see Table 9 on next page). But more than half of the
students also reported usually feeling bored at school. See Table 9 for a description of all

the items along with their respective distributions. Principal axis factor analysis of the

57

school afﬁliation items yielded one underlying general factor that accounted for 40% of

the variance. Item factor loadings for these items ranged from .40 to .66 (Appendix C).

Table 9
School Afﬁliation Items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample

 

 

 

Items Percent
(N=219)
How often do you feel bored at school?
Usually 51.4
Sometimes 44.9
Never 3.7
How often do you come to classes without bringing paper or something to
write with?
Usually 12.0
Sometimes 39.4
Never 48.6
How often do you come to classes without your homework finished?
Usually 15.7
Sometimes 65.3
Never 19.0
How often do you come to classes without your books?
Usually 7.9
Sometimes 33.8
Never 58.3
I care about the school I go to. *
Strongly agree 14.4
Agree 37.0
Not sure 25.0
Disagree 1 1.6
Strongly disagree 12.0

During the last four weeks, how many days of school have you missed
because you skipped or “ditched”? *

None 62.0
1 day 13.9
2 days 6.0
3 days 5.6
4-5 days 4.2
6-10 days 3.2
11 or more days 5 .1

 

*reverse coded
Cronbach’s alpha = .62

Parental involvement in schooling was assessed by four items. These are the same

four items used by Search in their parent involvement in schooling scale. These indicators

58

reﬂect the degree to which parents express interest in and are actively engaged in their
children’s activities. Prior research (Leffert, et al., 1998) has found this scale to have a
reliability of .75. In this study, the scale was found to have a reliability of .67. Table 10
below has a complete list with descriptions and distributions of the items being used to
assess this predictor. Not surprising, given the age of the students who participated in the
study, only about 25% of the students reported that their parents often or very often
helped them with school work. Only one factor emerged ﬁom principal axis factOring for
the items in the parent involvement in schooling scale, which accounted for 51% of the

variance. Item factor loadings for this scale ranged from .43 to .76 (Appendix C).

 

 

Table 10
Parent Involvement in Schoolig Items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample
Items Percent
(N=219)
How often does one of your parents help you with your school work? *
Very often 9.7
Often I 5.7
Sometimes 36.1
Seldom 23.1
Never 15.3
How often does one of your parents talk to you about what you are doing in
school? *
Very often 24.5
Often 28.2
Sometimes 24.1
Seldom 14.8
Never 8.3
How often does one of your parents ask you about homework? *
Very often 37.5
Often 22.7
Sometimes 19.4
Seldom 12.0
Never 8.3
How often does one of your parents got to meetings or events at your school?
Very often 11.1
Often 19.4
Sometimes 30.1
Seldom 19.4
Never 19.9

 

*reverse coded. Cronbach’s alpha = .69

59

Three aspects of social support were examined. These were family support, school
support, and other adult relationships. Items and distributions for all three aspects of
social support are presented in Tables 11, 12, and 13 respectively. Five items from the
survey were used to evaluate family support. This scale included the three items used by
Search to assess family support as well as two other questions taken from two other scales
that Search uses to measure the youth as resources asset, and the high expectations asset.

Search’s three-item family support scale has been found to have a reliability of .79. The

FJxATEIP47ﬁ§A 1
‘ A . _

adapted ﬁve-itern version used in this study was found to have a reliability of .87. The
distributions for the family support items are all somewhat positively skewed. For
example, over 70% of the students reported that they either agreed or strongly agreed with
the statement “my parents give me help and support when I need it” (see Table 11 below).
Principal axis factor analysis of family support items yielded only one factor. This
general factor accounted for 60% of the variance of this scale. The item factor loadings

ranged from .51 to .79 (Appendix C).

 

 

Table 11

Family Support Items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample

Items Percent

(N=219)

I get along well with my parents. *
Strongly agree 31.5
Agree 43.1
Not sure 10.6
Disagree 8.8
Strongly disagree 6.0

My parents give me help and support when I need it. *
Strongly agree 37.5
Agree 37.0
Not sure 13.9
Disagree 6.9
Strongly disagree 4.6

60

My parents often tell me they love me. *

Strongly agree 42.6
Agree 32.9
Not sure 10.6
Disagree 9.3
Strongly disagree 4.6
In my family, I feel useful and important. *
Strongly agree 26.4
Agree 40.7
Not sure 18.1
Disagree 9.7
Strongly disagree 5.1
My parents push me to be the best I can be. *
Strongly agree 45.8
Agree 30.6
Not sure 13.4
Disagree 4.6
Strongly disagree 5.6
I have lots of good conversations with my parents. *
Strongly agree 19.4
Agree 35.2
Not sure 23.6
Disagree 14.8
Strogly disagree 6.9

 

* reverse coded
Cronbach’s alpha = .87

Four items were used to gauge school support. This is an adaptation of Search’s
caring school climate scale, which uses three items. The fourth item used in this scale was
taken ﬁom Search’s high expectations scale. Leffert and her colleagues (1998) found
Search’s caring school climate scale to have a reliability of .68. The adapted school
support scale used with this Latino sample had a reliability of .74. It is interesting to note
that about an equal number of students reported agreeing and not being sure about
whether the “students in my school care about me” item (see Table 12 on next page).
Factor analysis of the school support items extracted one general factor accounting for
56% of the variance. The item factor loadings for this scale ranged form .46 to .80

(Appendix C).

61

Table 12
School Support Items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample

 

 

Items Percent
(N=219)
My teachers really care about me. *
Strongly agree 17.6
Agree 23.6
Not sure 38.4
Disagree 10.6
Strongly disagree 9.7
I get a lot of encouragement at my school. *
Strongly agree 7.9
Agree 33.3
Not sure 26.4
Disagree 21.3
Strongly disagree 1 1.1
Students in my school care about me. *
Strongly agree 17.1
Agree 36.1
Not sure 30.6
Disagree 6.9
Strongly disagree 9.3
Teachers at my school push me to be the best I can be. *
Strongly agree 15.3
Agree 35.6
Not sure 22.2
Disagree 1 8.1
Strorgly disagree 8.8

 

*reverse coded
Cronbach’s alpha = .74

Support from other adult relationships was measured using seven items. Three of
these items are used by Search to assess student’s other adult relationships, three of them
come ﬁ'om Search’s 4-item scale assessing the community values youth assets, and the
7th item is Search’s caring neighborhood scale. Leffert, et al. (1998) found Search’s other
adult relationships scale to have a reliability.82, the community values youth scale to
have a reliability of .81. The combined other adult support scale used in this study has a

reliability coefﬁcient of .84. Little variability is seen in the distribution for the “how many

62

adults have you known for two or more years who you look forward to spending time

with?” item (see Table 13 below).

 

 

Table 13
Other Adult Support Items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample
Items Percent
(N=219L
In my neighborhood, there are a lot of people who care about me. *
Strongly agree 15.7
Agree 23.6
Not sure 33.3
Disagree 12.0
Strongly disagree 15.3
Adults in my town or city make me feel important. *
Strongly agree 10.2
Agree 29.2
Not sure 31.0
Disagree 15.7
Strongly disagree 13.9
Adults in my town or city don’t care about people my age.
Strongly agree 11.1
Agree 13.9
Not sure 35.6
Disagree 25.9
Strongly disagree 13.4
Adults in my town or city listen to what I have to say. *
Strongly agree 9.3
Agree 25.5
Not sure 30.1
Disagree 18.1
Strongly disagree 17.1
In my town or city, I feel like I matter to people. *
Strongly agree 7.9
Agree 24.1
Not sure 36.6
Disagree 16.7
Strongly disagree 14.8
How many adults have you known for two or more years who give you lots
of encouragement whenever they see you? (don’t count parents or
relatives)
0 17.6
1 10.6
2 20.8
3 or 4 17.6
5 or more 33.3

63

Table 13 (continued)

How many adults have you known for two or more years who you look
forward to spending time with? (don’t count parents or relatives)

0
1 21.8
2 16.2
3 or 4 20.8
5 or more 19.4
21.8
How many adults have you known for two or more years who talk with
you at least once a month? (don’t count parents or relatives)
0 14.8
1 19.4
2 23.6
3 or 4 11.1
5 or more 31.0

 

*reverse coded
Cronbach’s alpha = .82

Principal axis factor analyses yielded two underlying factors for the other adult
support scale (see Appendix C), which together explained 67% of the variance. The
factors extracted measure two aspects of non-farnilial adult support. The ﬁrst factor
includes items that address the non-familial adult support students receive locally in their
town, city or neighborhood. This factor singularly accounted for about 47% of the
variance, and item factor eigenvalues ranged ﬁom .44 to .90. The second factor includes
items that examine the total number of non-familial adults students have supporting them.
The second factor explained about 20% of the variance. Item factor loadings for this
factor were between .70 and .83. Reliabilities were then conducted on the subscales.
The local support available subscale had a reliability coefﬁcient of .81 for this sample.
The number of adults providing support subscale had a reliability of .83.

Four items were used to measure peer inﬂuence. These are the same four items

Search uses to assess peer inﬂuence. Leffert and her colleagues (1998) found Search’s

positive peer inﬂuence scale to have a reliability of .71. In this study the scale was found
to have a similar reliability of .73. It is interesting to note that 45.8% of the students
reported that none of their closest friends “have used drugs such as marijuana or cocaine”
(see Table 14 below). Factor analysis extracted one factor for the items in the peer
inﬂuence scale. This factor accounted for 56% of the variance. Item factor loadings

ranged from .20 to .93.

 

Table 14

Peer Inﬂuence Items and Distributions for Hispanic/Latino Sample

Items Percent
(N=219L

 

Among the people you consider to be your closest friends, how many would
you say drink alcohol once a week or more? *

None 47.2
A few 27.8
Some 6.5
Most l 3 .4
All 5.1

Among the people you consider to be your closest friends, how many would
you say have used drugs such as marijuana or cocaine? *

None 45.8
A few 20.8
Some 10.2
Most 15.7
All 7 .4

Among the people you consider to be your closest friends, how many would
you say do well in school?

None 8.3

A few 20.4
Some 1 8.1
Most 37.0
All 1 6.2

Among the people you consider to be your closest friends, how many would
you say get into trouble in school? *

None 33.8
A few 28.7
Some 21.3
Most 10.6
All 5.6

 

‘reverse coded
Cronbach’s alpha = .73

65

Outcome

School success was measured by student self-report of grades. Students reported
whether they received “mostly As, about half As and half Bs, mostly 83, about half Bs
and half Cs, mostly Cs, about half Cs and half Ds, mostly Ds, or mostly below DS.”
Researchers have found student self report of grades to be highly correlated with actual
grades (Crockett, Schulenberg, & Petersen, 1987; Leffert et al., 1998). Previous research
that included Latino high school students (Dombush, Ritter, Liederman, Roberts, &
Fraleigh, 1987) has found a strong correlation, .76, between self-reported grades and
recorded grades. Students were divided into high- and low-achieving using two criteria.
Both of these categorizations were tested in the data analyses. The ﬁrst method, by which
students were considered either as high or low achieving was based on whether they were
above or below the median. This break occurred between “mostly Bs”. Those students
reporting between “mostly Bs” or above were categorized as high-achieving. and those
reporting “about half Bs and half Cs” or below were categorized as low-achieving. The
second scheme used to divide the students into high- and low-achieving youth was to
categorize those students in the upper quartile as high-achieving, and those students in the

lower quartile as low-achieving.

Strategies of using single-item outcome measures are not uncommon in survey
research with large samples; recent examples of common secondary analysis datasets that
utilize numerous single-item measures are the National Educational Longitudinal Study
(Manlove, 1998) and the National Household Survey of Drug Abuse (Hofﬁnan &
Johnson, 1998). This is the only indicator of academic achievement used in the study as a

result of it analyzing secondary data. Self-report of grades is the only measure included in

66

the ABS that assesses academic success. Although there are some limitations to using
only one outcome (in that this study may not take into account other ways in which youth
succeed in school), even as a single item, this outcome indicator has considerable
construct validity since it reﬂects a salient element represented in the literature. This is
also the indicator most often used by schools themselves as a measure of academic

achievement.
Procedure

The ABS was administered to students in grades 6 through 12 in 35 school
districts throughout Michigan during the 1998-99 school year. Each of the school districts
opted to have their students complete the survey, the data ﬁom which were then used to
generate the aggregate data set for the state of Michigan. Standardized administration
procedures were provided to school staff by Search Institute to enhance the quality of the
data. These instructions are included in Appendix D. The survey asked sensitive and
personal questions of the students, in particular, items regarding sexual activity, drug use,
and delinquent behavior. For this reason, the survey was administered anonymously in a
classroom setting during one class period with the standardized instructions. To ensure
complete anonymity, no names or identiﬁcation numbers were collected from individual
participants. Students placed completed surveys in an envelope that was then sealed and
mailed to Search Institute for processing and generation of a school district report. The
school districts surveyed a complete census of all 6th to 12th-grade students attending

school on the day the survey was administered.

67

Data Analyses

The objective of this study was to compare high- and low-achieving Latino
students’ personal time allocation, achievement motivation, school afﬁliation, parental
school involvement, peer inﬂuence and social support. Speciﬁcally, this study
hypothesized that high- and low-achieving Latino students would differ signiﬁcantly in
their constructive use of personal time, on their motivation to achieve academically, their
degree of afﬁliation to their school, how involved their parents are in their schooling, type
of peer inﬂuence, and the amount of social support they receive. Before evaluating the
hypothesis any limits in range for each scale, as well as correlations between the scales
and the outcome variable, were explored. Also, factor analyses were conducted of the
personal time allocation, school afﬁliation, family support, school support, peer
inﬂuence, and other adult support scales. Because the number of variables in each scale
was small (v 2 11) and the reliabilities were imperfect, principal axis analysis was
selected as the factor procedure.

Initially, chi-square tests and t-tests were used to compare the frequencies of
responses between high- and low-achieving students on background characteristics.
Discriminant and logistic regression analyses were then used to examine students’
personal time allocation, achievement motivation, school afﬁliation, parental school
involvement, peer inﬂuence and social support. For both of the analyses the sample was
randomly split into two. Discriminant and logistic regression analyses were run on one-
half of the sample, and the other half was used to cross-validate the utility of the model

and probabilities created by each of the analyses.

68

In discrminant analysis, as with any inferential technique based on sample data,
the percent correct prediction tends to overestimate the power of the classiﬁcation
procedure (Klecka, 1980). The classiﬁcation functions are more accurate for the
particular sample than they would be for the full population (Klecka, 1980). When the
sample is large enough, the classiﬁcation procedure can be veriﬁed by randomly splitting
the sample into two subsets (Klecka, 1980). This procedure of splitting the sample in half
to run analyses was used because there was no comparison or control group. Not having
some type of control groups raises the probability of encountering Type I errors, which in
this case, would mean ﬁnding Signiﬁcant differences between the groups even when there
are none. Using only half of the sample at a time and using the other half to verify the
original results reduces the possibility of drawing erroneous conclusions due to the
idiosyncratic characteristics of the sample.

In evaluating the choice of analyses and their subsequent results, an advantage of
discriminant analysis over related statistical procedures such as MANOVA is that groups
cannot only be predicted and categorized, but that the nature of those relationships may
be interpreted (Tabachnick & F idell, 1989). This process operates much the same way as
dimensions are interpreted following a factor analysis (Betz, 1987). Discrinrinant
function analysis was used to build a predictive model of group membership (i.e. high-
and low-achieving students) based on students’ personal time allocation, achievement
motivation, school afﬁliation, parental involvement in schooling, social support, peer
inﬂuence, and background characteristics. This analysis was used to determine which of
these variables allows for the best discrimination between the groups. A forward stepwise

entry model was used to examine the independent contribution of each of the variables in

69

determining group membership. The discriminant functions canonical correlation was
used to test the strength of the relationship between the groups and the discriminant
function. The standardized discriminant function coefﬁcients were used to describe the
impact or independent contribution of each variable on the grouping variable, holding
constant the impact of all the other discriminating variables. These analyses were
conducted using both the outcome variable deﬁned by_the natural break as well as by
upper and lower quartiles.

Logistic regression analysis was employed to predict the probability that a student
was high-achieving, and to examine the predictive power of each variable as well as the
entire model. The predictor variables used were personal time allocation, achievement
motivation, school afﬁliation, parental school involvement, peer inﬂuence and social
support, as well as those demographic variables on which the groups were found to differ
signiﬁcantly. Forward stepwise procedure was used to estimate the model. The logistic
regressions were used with students divided into high- and low-achieving categories
according to the natural break as well as when using upper and lower quartiles. The
logistic regression coefﬁcients were used to estimate odds ratios for the independent
variables in the model. R2 was used to assess the strength of the model. Goodness-of-ﬁt
tests and the Wald statistic were used as indicators of the model’s success and
signiﬁcance.

A power analysis was conducted to ascertain the minimum detectable effect size
given the ﬁxed study parameters. The minimum detectable effect size for this study is
between .55 and .60 when alpha and power are set at the conventional levels (0.05 and

0.80, respectively) with the smallest group size being 41. Lipsey and Wilson (1993) in

70

their classic meta-analysis found that the average effect size within education was .45,
with a median of .40, and a mode of .47. Medium effect sizes range from -.15 to 1.31

(Lipsey & Wilson, 1993).

 

71

CHAPTER 4
RESULTS

Before evaluating the hypothesis, t-tests, for continuous variables, and chi-square
tests, for categorical variables, were used to evaluate whether signiﬁcant differences
existed between high- and low-achieving students on the basis of demographic variables
including age, gender, mother and father’s educational level, and area of residence. Any
demographic variables on which the student groups were found to differ signiﬁcantly
were then included in the discriminant function analyses as well as the logistic
regressions. Additionally, cross validations of the discriminant ﬁrnction analyses and
logistic regressions were conducted. These cross validations were done by randomly
splitting the samples, using one of the sub samples for all original analyses, and the other
to verify the results. Cross validation was used to ensure that the results of the analyses
were not do to chance, which is inherent in any stepwise analysis. All of these analyses,
including the t-tests and chi-square tests, were conducted on both the students grouped by
median split, as well as the students grouped by upper and lower quartiles groups
(extreme quartiles). Signiﬁcance testing used the conventional alpha level of .05 to
determine signiﬁcance.

Testing for Group Differences Before Analysis
Groups Deﬁned by Median Split

Analyses conducted with the students divided into high- and low-achieving based
on median split, used a sample of 216 Latino students. No signiﬁcant difference was
found between the students in each group based on age (t(214) = -.508, p = .612). The

chi-square results for the two students groups revealed that there were also no signiﬁcant

72

differences between the two groups based on gender, father’s educational level, living

area, or living situation. For example, there were about equal percentages of males and

females in the low- achieving group (58% and 42% respectiveIY), and similarly almost

equal amounts of males and females in the high-achieving group (47% and 53%

respectively). Correspondingly, the majority of the students in both the high- and low-

achieving groups reported that their fathers had completed at least some college (47%

and 54% respectively). Table 15 below presents all the chi-square results and

signiﬁcance levels, along with the frequencies for each variable by high- and low-

achieving groups.

Table 15

I‘d—l ‘EI-dmi q

Chi-square Results of Demographic Variables for High- and Low-Achieving Students

 

Variable

Gender
Male
Female

' Father’s
Educational
Level

Grade school or
less to
completed high
school

Some college

Completed
college—
graduate or
professional
school after
college

Extreme Quartiles Split (N=153)

Median Split (N=216)

 

nL*

(41)

21

20

12

21

113*
(112)

53

59

18

55

39

x’

.18

(If

l

m,“
p (57)

.67
33

24

.08

13

31

13

73

113*
(159)

75

84

35

74

50

12

1.93

1.62

df p

l .17

 

Extreme Quartiles Split (N=153) Median Split (N=216)

 

Variable nL* nu.“ nlf [kph
(41) (112) 1? df p (57) (159) 1’ df p

 

 

 

Mother’s 7.1 2 .03 7.10 2 .03
Educational 0
Level

Grade school or 10 15 12 23

less to

completed high

school

Some college 26 61 37 85

Completed 5 36 8 51
college-

graduate or

professional

school after

college

Living Area 13 28 .70 2 .71 16 46 .08 2 .96
Rural
Suburban 14 41 19 55
Urban
14 43 22 58

Living 1.5 2 .47 3.74 2 .15
Situation 1
Two parents 27 84 37 122

One parent 9 20 12 26

Sometimes with 5 8 8 11
mother,

sometimes with
father

 

* 111, = low-achieving sub-sample ; 1111 = high-achieving sub-sample

There were, however, signiﬁcant differences between the two groups on mother’s
educational level (38(2) = 7.10, p = .03). About 32% of the high-achieving students
reported that their mothers had completed college and/or graduate /professional school

after college, compared with only 14% of the low-achieving students. Due to the

74

signiﬁcance of this variable, mother’s educational level was included in subsequent
analyses.
Groups Deﬁned by Extreme Quartiles

Analyses conducted using the upper and lower quartiles to divide students into
high- and low-achieving included 153 participants. High- and low-achieving students
were not found to differ signiﬁcantly by age (t(151) = -1.30, p = .208). As in the results
for the groups split using the median, chi-square results showed no signiﬁcant differences
between the high- and low-achieving students based on gender, living area, or living
situation (see Table 15). Again, about equal percentages of males and females were
found in the low-achieving (51% and 49%), and the high-achieving group (47% and
53%). Similarly, 51% of the low-achieving students and 49% of the high-achieving
students reported that their fathers had some college education.

Just as was the casein the analyses conducted using the groups divided by median
split, mother’s educational level (38(2) = 7.10, p = .03) signiﬁcantly differed for high- and
low-achieving youth. 32% of the high-achieving students reported their mothers had
completed college and/or graduate /professional school after college, while only 12% of
the low-achieving students reported the same. The discriminant function analysis and
the logistic regression conducted with the groups split by upper and lower quartiles
included mother’s educational level.

Discriminant Function Analysis

Discriminant function analysis was used to build a predictive model of group

membership (i.e. high- and low-achieving students) based on students’ personal time

allocation, achievement motivation, school affiliation, parental involvement in schooling,

75

social support, peer inﬂuence, and mother’s educational level. This analysis was used to
determine which of these variables allows for the best discrimination between the groups.
A forward stepwise entry model was used to examine the independent contribution of
each of the variables in determining group membership. These analyses were conducted
both using the outcome variable deﬁned by the natural break as well as by upper and
lower quartiles.
Groups Deﬁned by Median Split

The 216 students included in this sample were randomly split leaving 107 students
for analysis and 109 students for cross validation. A discriminant function analysis was
performed to determine the extent to which the hi gh- and low-achievers differed with
respect to their time allocation, achievement motivation, school afﬁliation, parental
involvement in schooling, social support, peer inﬂuence, and mother’s educational level.
The direct entry model examines the independent contribution of each of the variables in
determining group membership. Using all of the predictor scales, as well as mother’s
educational level, only the school afﬁliation scale (discriminant function coefﬁcient =
.276) was found to be most useful in classifying students into the high- and low-achieving
groups; Wilks’ lambda of .910, F (1, 105) = 10.45, p < .001 . The discriminant function
had a canonical correlation of .3 0, indicating a moderate relationship between the groups
and the discriminant function (Waxman, Huang, & PadrOn, 1997). The squared canonical
correlation coefﬁcient for the model was .09, indicating that about 9% of the variance
between the two groups can be explained by this one variable in the model. A

classiﬁcation matrix revealed that overall, 80.4% of the cases were classiﬁed correctly.

76

This scale alone correctly classiﬁed 96.4% (80 of the 83) of the high-achieving students
and 25.0% (6 of 24) of the low-achieving students.

Using the cross-validation sample grouped by median split, the results of the
original analysis were not conﬁrmed. Using all of the predictors and mother’s
educational level, as before, only the peer inﬂuence scale was found to be most useful in
classifying students into the high- and low-achieving groups; Wilks’ lambda of .788, F ( l ,
107) = 28.80, p < .001. In this case, the discriminant ftmction had a canonical correlation
of .46, indicating a moderate relationship between the groups and the discriminant
function (W axman, Huang, & Padrén, 1997). The squared canonical correlation
coefﬁcient for this model was .21, indicating that about 21% of the variance between the
two groups can be explained by the peer inﬂuence scale. The classiﬁcation matrix
reported that overall, 72.5% of the cases were classiﬁed correctly. This scale correctly
classiﬁed 73.7% (56 of the 76) of the high-achieving students and 69.7% (23 of 33) of the
low-achieving students.

Groups Defined by Extreme Quartiles

After the Latino students were divided into high- and low-achieving groups based
on the upper and lower quartile, this left a sample size of 148. This sample was then
randomly split, leaving 74 students for the original analyses and 79 for cross validation.
Discriminant function analysis was conducted, using students divided into high- and low-
achieving groups by the upper and lower quartiles, to determine how well the time
allocation scale, achievement motivation scale, school afﬁliation scale, parental
involvement in schooling scale, social support sales, peer inﬂuence scale, and mother’s

educational level classiﬁed students into groups. In each of the steps of the discriminant

77

function analysis, items were selected based on the contribution a given item made to
classify the students.

Using this procedure, three of the variables, peer inﬂuence, achievement
motivation and mother’s educational level, were found to be signiﬁcant classifying
predictors. This model produced a Wilks’ lambda of .597, F (3, 70) = 15.78, which was
statistically signiﬁcant at the p < .001. The canonical correlation, indicating the strength
of the relationship between the discriminant function variate and the dichotomous
classiﬁcation variable (high- or low-achieving), was .64. This indicates a moderately
strong relationship (W axman, Huang, & PadrOn, 1997). The square of the canonical
correlation was .26, indicating that the variables constituting the function explained
approximately 26% of the variation in the dependent variable. The classiﬁcation matrix
revealed that overall, 82.4% of the students were classiﬁed correctly. The function
correctly classiﬁed 87.0% (47 of the 54) of the high-achieving students and 70.0% (14 of
20) of the low-achieving students.

The standardized discriminant function coefﬁcients describe the impact or
independent contribution of a given variable on the grouping variable (high- vs. low-
achieving), holding constant the impact of all the other discriminating variables. The
results indicated that the achievement motivation scale and the peer inﬂuence scale were
found to have the greatest impact (.545, and .556 respectively), after adjusting for all the
other variables in the analysis. Mother’s educational level was found to have the least
impact on the grouping variable. The canonical structure coefﬁcients for each variable
provide an indication of the relative contribution of each variable to the overall

discriminant function. It describes how closely a variable and the discriminant function

78

are related. The results indicated that two of the three signiﬁcant variables included in
the discriminant analysis were found to have structure coefﬁcient values of .40 or greater
and have the greatest practical signiﬁcance for distinguishing between high- and low-
achieving students. These variables were achievement motivation and peer inﬂuence.

The stepwise discriminant function analyses, conducted using the 79 students in
the cross validation sample yielded somewhat different results from the original analysis.
Two of the scales, school afﬁliation and peer inﬂuence, were found to be useful in
classifying students as high- and low-achieving. A Wilks’ lambda of .754, F (2, 76) =
12.37, p < .001. This discriminant function had a canonical correlation of .50, and a
squared canonical correlation of .25, indicating that the function accounted for 25% of the
variance of the dependent variable. The classiﬁcation matrix revealed that overall,
79.9% of the students were classiﬁed correctly. The function correctly classiﬁed 84.5%
(49 of the 58) of the high-achieving students and 76.7% (14 of 21) of the low-achieving
students.

The standardized discriminant function coefﬁcients indicated that the school
afﬁliation and the peer inﬂuence scale were found to both have a large impact, after
adjusting for all the other variables in the analysis. The results also indicated that both of
the variables were found to have structure coefﬁcient values of .40 or greater and have the
greatest practical signiﬁcance for distinguishing between high— and low-achieving
students.

Logistic Regressions
To examine further the possible differences between high- and low-achieving

Latino students, logistic regressions were conducted to predict the probability that a

79

student was high-achieving, and to examine the predictive power of each variable as well
as the entire model. The predictor variables used were personal time allocation,
achievement motivation, school afﬁliation, parental school involvement, peer inﬂuence
and social support, as well as mother’s educational level. Forward stepwise procedure
was used to estimate the model. The logistic regressions were used with students divided
into high— and low-achieving according to the natural break as well as when using upper
and lower quartiles.
Groups Defined by Median Split

As in the discriminant analyses, the 216 students included in this sample were
randomly split leaving 107 students for analysis and 109 students for cross validation.
Logistic regressions using all the predictor variables as well as mother’s educational level
did not identify any variables as being signiﬁcant for classiﬁcation (see Table 16 below).
In fact parental involvement in schooling, family support, school support, and other adult

support all had, although not signiﬁcant, negative beta weights.

 

 

Table 16
Logistic Regression Results: Median Split
Variable B SE Odds ratio
Time allocation .0534 .0414 1.0548
Achievement motivation .1495 .1 137 1.1613
School afﬁliation .1 367 .0928 l .1465
Parent involvement in schooling -.0968 .0905 .9078
Family support -.0063 .0699 .9937
School support -.0950 .0974 .9094
Other adult support -.0072 .0579 .9928
Peer inﬂuence .0296 .0844 1.0301
Mother’s educational level (less than high
“hm." = 0) .0284 .8689 1.0288
H‘gh s°h°°l gmduate 1 0325 9991 2 8080
More then high school ' ' '
Constant -l .1958 1.5810

 

Note. Model 712 (8) = 12.624

80

Cross validation of the logistic regression using 109 students found somewhat

different results. The logistic regression analysis identiﬁed the peer inﬂuence scale as

being useful (odds ratio = 1.30; p < .01; 95% CI = 1.1043, 1.5420), according to the Wald

statistic, for classifying students into high- and low-achieving. R2 was equal to .06,

indicating a weak model. In this case, school affiliation and other adult support has

negative non-signiﬁcant beta weights. Table 17 below presents the complete results.

 

 

 

Table 17
Logistic Regression Results: Cross Validation of Median Split
Variable B SE Odds ratio
Time allocation .0237 .0462 1.0240
Achievement motivation .0566 .1 3 12 1 .0583
School afﬁliation -.0231 .1017 .9771
Parent involvement in schooling .0052 .0922 1.0052
Family support .0657 .0744 1.0680
School support .0343 .091 9 1 .0349
Other adult support -.0754 .0684 .9273
Peer inﬂuence .2661 * .0852 l .3049
Mother’s educational level (less than high
school = 0)
High school graduate .2147 .6212 1.2395
More then high school 1.0548 .8151 2.8715
Constant -4.8932* 1.7683
Note. Model {(8) = 10.846
"' p < .01

Groups Deﬁned by Extreme Quartiles
As before, the Latino students were divided into high- and low-achieving groups
based on the upper and lower quartile, leaving a sample of 148 to be randomly split, 74
students for logistic regression and 74 students for cross validation. logistic regression
analysis showed that only the achievement motivation scale was identiﬁed as being useful

(odds ratio = 1.4955; p < .05; 95% CI = 1.0046, 2.2262) for classifying students into

81

high- and low-achieving groups. See Table 18 on the next page for complete results.

Interestingly, family support and other adult support had negative, although non-

 

 

signiﬁcant, beta weights.
Table 18
Logistic Regression Results: Extreme Quartiles Split
Variable B SE Odds ratio
Time allocation .0244 .0714 1.0247
Achievement motivation .4025* .2030 1.4955
School afﬁliation .1 l 72 .1 576 l .1244
Parent involvement in schooling .1447 .1363 1.1557
Family support -. 1084 .1 151 .8973
School support .0148 .1383 1 .0149
Other adult support -.0137 .0836 .9864
Peer inﬂuence .1875 .1349 1.2062
Mother’s educational level (less than high
school = 0)
High school graduate 1.6951 .9849 5.4470
More then high school 2.5291 1.3968 12.5418
Constant -9.667* 3.2762

 

Note. Model x2 (8) = 4.0286
*p<.05; **p<.01

Cross validation of the logistic regression using 79 students found different results
as compared to the original logistic regression. In this case none of the variables were
found to be useful for classifying students into high- and low-achieving groups. The
complete results are presented in Table 19 on the net page. In this case, parent
involvement in schooling, school support, and mother’s educational level were found to

have negative non-signiﬁcant beta weights.

82

Table 19

Logistic Regression Results: Cross Validation of Extreme Quartiles Split

 

 

 

Variable B SE Odds ratio
Time allocation .0780 .0562 1.0811
Achievement motivation .0063 .1710 1.0064
School afﬁliation .0982 .1162 1.1031
Parent involvement in schooling -.0701 .1202 .9323
Family support .0433 .0840 1.0442
School support -.0633 .1213 .9387
Other adult support .0538 .0807 1.0553
Peer inﬂuence .1432 .1000 1.1540
Mother’s educational level (less than high
school = 0)
High school graduate -1.1985 .8151 .3016
More then high school -.0835 .7156 .9199
Constant -4.550* 1.8656
Note. Model x2 (8) = 9.4768
* p < .05

83

CHAPTER 5
DISCUSSION

The present study examined an area of research that has largely been ignored in
the educational resilience literature, the differences between high- and low-achieving
Latino students. The focus of this study was to identify both internal and external factors
that signiﬁcantly differed between these groups. Speciﬁcally, this study hypothesized
that there would be differences between students’ personal use of time, their achievement
motivation, their affiliation to their school, as well as the involvement of their parents in
their schooling, the family support they received, the school support they received, the
support they received from non-familial adults, and the inﬂuence of peers in their lives.
Additionally, according to the literature, signiﬁcant differences between socio-
demographic variables could also have been expected (J essor, 1993; Rumberger &
Larson, 1998; Voydanoff & Donnelly, 1999).

As the largest minority youth population in the United States, Latino adolescents
are poised to be one of the most inﬂuential groups in this nation. And yet, Latino youth
consistently have signiﬁcantly lower levels of academic success than their peers. As a
result, increasing the academic achievement of Latino youth has become a matter of
national importance. Despite the alarming gap between the academic achievement of
Latino students and their peers, a comprehensive model of Latino academic achievement
has yet to be elucidated through research. The great majority of the research that has been
conducted on Latino adolescents and their educational outcomes has examined their
failures and not their successes. The purpose of this study was to broaden our

understanding of academic achievement, by examining the effect of both internal and

84

external factors, which in other groups have frequently been found to relate to academic
success, on the academic success of Michigan Latino students, and to build a predictive
model of high-and low-achievement for Latino adolescents. The following section will
discuss the results and implications of this study.

Major Findings

Pathways to Latino Academic Achievement

Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological model of human development calls for
research and theories of adolescent development to take a multi-dimensional, multi-level
perspective, and a critical analysis of the combined effect of variables known to
contribute to the development of youth. Using this perspective requires the inclusion of
both individual and environmental factors affecting the development, including academic
outcomes, of Latino youth. This study proposed the internal variables time allocation,
achievement motivation, and school afﬁliation as well as the following external variables,
parental involvement in schooling, family support, school support, non-familial adult
support, and peer inﬂuence as part of a predictive model for Latino academic success.
Although this model was not supported by the results of the study, certain ﬁndings merit
further examinatiOn.
Family and Student Background Characteristics

As an ecological model, in examining the interrelationships between the internal
and external factors and academic success, ﬁrst the possibility of family and student
background characteristics as predictors of academic success was considered. The
highest level of education that students’ mothers had completed was signiﬁcantly

correlated with their academic success. The greater the level of education completed by a

85

 

student’s mother the greater the chance that the student was academically a high-achiever.
This ﬁnding mirrors several studies on the academic achievement of adolescents that has
found a relationship between parents’ highest level of schooling and educational
outcomes (Baker, McGee, Mitchell, & Stiff, 2000; NCES, 1995; Educational Testing
Services, 1996; Shurnow & Miller, 2001; Voydanoff & Donnelly, 1999). Despite
signiﬁcant correlations with students’ grades, mother’s highest educational level
completed was only found to be a useﬁll classiﬁer of high- and low-achieving students in
the discriminant function analysis of extreme quartiles. But this ﬁnding was not veriﬁed
in cross validation discriminant function analysis. Given the nature of stepwise analyses,
conclusions cannot be drawn on the utility of this predictor. Mother’s highest educational
level was not a signiﬁcant predictor of academic achievement in logistic regression. This
may be due, in part, to the low variability of this variable as a large percentage of
students’ (about 48%) mothers had completed at least some education beyond high
school. Given signiﬁcant correlation between the two, the relationship of mother’s
highest educational level to the academic achievement of Latino students bears further
study. The relationship between mothers’ educational level and other predictors of
academic success should also be explored as it may be a distal predictor, which affects
academic success through other proximal predictors, such as parental involvement
(Lareau, 1996; Shurnow & Miller, 2001).

None of the other socio—demographic variables assessed in this study were found
to have signiﬁcant correlations with grades nor were they found to be signiﬁcant
classiﬁers or predictors of academic achievement. Research on academic resiliency has

found some conﬂicting ﬁndings on whether student and family background

86

characteristics are related to students’ academic success. For example, Cooper and her
colleagues (2002), in their study of Aﬁican American and Latino students, found that
fathers’ education was actually negatively correlated with students’ college-prep GPA.
Also, for several of the background variables there was little variability; most students
lived in a suburban area, lived with two parents, and had mothers and fathers who had
completed at least some higher education beyond high school. Additionally, the literature
on Latinos and academic achievement has found other background variables that were not
addressed in this study, such as English proﬁciency, language spoken in the home, and
being held back a grade, to be important students’ academic success (N esman, Barobs-
Gahr, & Medrano, 2001; Waxman, Huang, & PadrOn, 1997).
Time Allocation

There is an abundance of literature that has found that positive and creative use of
out-of-school time by students is related to greater academic success including better
grades (Alva, 1991; Davalos, et al., 1999; Eccles & Barber, 1999; Scales et al., 2000;
Voydanoff & Donnelly, 1999; Waxman, Huang, & Padrén, 1997). In this study, students’
use of their personal time was not found to be a signiﬁcant predictor of high- and low-
achieving students in either the discriminant function analyses or in the logistic
regressions. This ﬁnding is similar to the results of a recent study conducted by LOpez
(2002), which explored the habitual behaviors that Latino high school students reported
practicing on an everyday basis. His study found that there was no clear relationship
between students’ everyday habitual behaviors and their academic achievement (LOpez,

2002)

87

The lack of any signiﬁcant ﬁndings for time allocation in this study may be due,
in part, to the low reliability of this scale for this sample (a = .68). Another reason this
scale may not have been useful in understanding Latino academic achievement is that it
attempts to address a large variety of activities, and so therefore lacks an underlying
general factor for the items in the scale. Students’ use of personal time might be better
examined using several scales that address more speciﬁc kinds of activities and behaviors
that young people may be involved in. It is possible that involvement in certain types of
activities may be more directly related to and predictive of students’ academic
achievement.

Achievement Motivation

Despite the abundance of literature relating achievement motivation to academic
achievement, this relationship was not conﬁrmed for the Latino students in this sample
(Anderson & Keith, 1997; Jessor, Van Den Bos, Vanderryn, Costa, & Turbin, 1995;
Paulson, Coombs, & Richardson, 1990; Scales, et al., 2000); Wentzel, 1993).
Achievement motivation was found to be a signiﬁcant predictor of academic achievement
in the logistic regression using the extreme quartiles split. These results were not
conﬁrmed in the cross validation. So, no conclusions can be drawn ﬁ'om these ﬁndings.

One explanation for this may rest in the cultural ecological model suggested by
Ogbu and his colleagues (Gibson & Ogbu, 1991; Ogbu, 1974, 1991; Ogbu & Matute-
Bianchi, 1986), which distinguishes between voluntary and involuntary minorities.
Voluntary minorities (such as Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Cuban Americans, Filipino
Americans, and West Indians) are immigrant groups who have historically moved to the

United States of their own free will, usually for economic, social, or political reasons.

88

Voluntary minorities, despite possibly facing subordination and exploitation, perceive and
react to schooling positively because they regard their current situation in the US. as
better than their situation in their country of origin. In contrast, involuntary minorities
(such as African Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans)
are groups who have historically been involuntarily and permanently incorporated into
US. society through slavery, conquest, or colonization. Ogbu (1987) refers to these
groups as “caste-like” because their incorporation often resulted in social and economic
subordination. The paradigm suggests that involuntary minorities are unlikely to work
hard in school because they do not wish to assimilate, and because they recognize that,
relative to Whites, they have a limited chance of beneﬁting from education. Ogbu
concludes that “membership in a caste-like minority group is permanent and often arrives
at birth” (p. 91). In general, involuntary minorities may develop oppositional subcultures
and identities resistant to the assimilation process prevalent in schooling.

Related to the development of oppositional subcultures by involuntary minorities
is the effect that peers in this subculture have on students’ achievement motivation. Peers
involved in the oppositional subculture may exert a negative inﬂuence on Latino
students’ motivation to succeed academically. This interaction between peer inﬂuence
and achievement motivation was not examined in this study. This interaction may have
provided greater insight into deﬁning high- and low-achieving Latino students. Although
the cultural ecological model, along with peer inﬂuence, may not explain all of the
variations in school experience that exist within Latino students it may be a useful model

for expanding on in further research on the academic achievement of Latino youth.

89

There are also measurement issues, which may have affected the ﬁndings in this
study. This scale was a short three-item scale, which only had a reliability of .68 in this
Latino sample. While this is slightly better than the reliability based on a national sample
(a = .64; Leffert, et al., 1998), it is not a strong reliability for analyses. Additionally,
three items may not be sufﬁcient for examining school achievement motivation among
Latino students. It may be worthwhile examining students’ academic aspirations because
they have been related to students’ academic achievement (Cheng, 1994; Knight &
Waxman, 1990; Uguroglu & Walberg, 1986). Some educational resilience research has
also suggested examining academic success and achievement motivation in terms of
speciﬁc scholastic areas (i.e. English, math, etc.) instead of as a global outcome
(W axman, Huang, & PadrOn, 1997). A measure of scholastic achievement motivation
with greater reliability and a more comprehensive exarrrination of the construct may yield
more signiﬁcant results in research on the academic achievement of Latino students.
School Aﬂiliation

Students’ afﬁliation or bonding to their school was found to be useful in
classifying Latino students as high- or low-achieving in discriminant function analysis
using a median split and the cross validation of discriminant function analysis for extreme
quartiles split. These results were not found in the analyses with their respective cross
validation sample. As such, conclusions cannot be drawn from these ﬁndings.

School afﬁliation is a complex construct, which incorporates both school factors
as well as the perception of youth (Conchas, 2001). The scale used in this study does not
assess Latino students’ perceptions of institutional impacts that may have an impact on

their school engagement. Particularly important in the school afﬁliation of Latino

90

students is their perception of institutional systems in relationship to cultural processes.
A recent study found that Latino students respond differently to institutional actions
(Conchas, 2001). For involuntary minorities, such as Mexican Americans and Puerto
Ricans, school afﬁliation will also be dependent upon whether students perceive
institutional systems as dismantling the negative effects of school inequality or as adding
to the stereotypes and widening the gap between their situation and that of their peers.
These aspects of school afﬁliation were not addressed in the scale used in this study.
Additionally, the reliability coefﬁcient for this scale was a weak .62. These may have
contributed to the lack of signiﬁcant ﬁndings for school afﬁliation in this study.
Parental Involvement in Schooling

This study did not ﬁnd parental involvement in schooling to be useful in
classifying or predicting Latino students’ as high- or low-achieving. These ﬁndings are
similar to those in Catsambis’s (2001) study of family educational involvement in
secondary education using data form the National Educational Longitudinal Study of
1988, as well as others previously discussed (Bempechat, Graham, & Jimenez, 1999;
Muller, 1995). Catsambis (2001) ﬁnds that some traditional aspects of parent
involvement are not related to students’ academic outcomes.

Similarly, Shumow and Miller’s (2001) recent study found some distinctions in
the relationship between parental involvement and academic outcomes. In their study,
they found that parents of struggling students were more involved with homework and
parents of successﬁrl students were involved more at school than were other parents
(Shumow & Miller, 2001). Interestingly, parents’ academic involvement at home was

associated negatively with young adolescents’ academic grades and a standardized

91

achievement test score (Shumow & Miller, 2001). Parental at-school involvement was
associated with youth’s academic grades, but not the standardized achievement test score
(Shumow & Miller, 2001). These studies point to the complexity of parental involvement
in schooling that was not addressed in this study. Additionally, the reliability for this
scale based on this Latino student sample, was a weak .67.

The lack of signiﬁcant ﬁndings for parental involvement in schooling may also

‘ ‘5’

have been due in part to the underlying focus of the questions included in this scale. It is

fl“ ‘
.I'

widely accepted in the literature on parent involvement as well as in public perception
that “parental involvement” supports achievement in schooling. Although, just how the
involvement of parents contributes to academic achievement is not so easily agreed upon.
The role of parental involvement in children’s education has become a central issue in
educational policy and research. The goal of most educational research on parental
involvement efforts is to ﬁnd out how to make children more “ready” for school and how
to improve academic achievement by supporting school initiatives at home. But parental
involvement with children relative to education can take many forms and depends on a
wide variety of factors, such as ﬁnancial and human resources, motivation, time
constraints, basic relationship between parent an child, and the willingness to engage
parents in the process of schooling (Jones & Velez, 1997). The contexts for parental
involvement can be the home, the school, and/or families within their cultural group and
the broader society (Jones & Velez, 1997).

Because the overriding focus is on promoting academic achievement, most of the
literature is concerned with how to involve parents whose children are at greatest risk of

not achieving academically - youth from economically or educationally “disadvantaged”

92

families who tend to be from racial and ethnic minority groups (Kerbow & Bernhardt,
1993). Many of the recent programs and policy initiatives focus on increasing parental
involvement of minority parents in the education of their children, or at least to promote
educators’ version of what parents should be doing to help educate their children (Jones
& Velez, 1997). The underlying assumption is that the level or type of involvement from
minority parents is inadequate and is somehow contributing to their children’s lack of

success in school. Despite this, there is also a growing awareness that cultural values and

 

behaviors are factors that affect just how parents involve themselves in the education of
their children. These differences, inherent among racial/ethnic groups, are other factors
complicating the study of parent involvement and how it affects academic achievement.

These cultural differences were not examined in the scale used to assess parental
involvement in this study. In fact, the items predominantly represent educators’
expectations for parental involvement. Jones and Velez’s (1997) study of Latino parents
and students, found that parents were involved in students’ schooling in ways other than
those described as being important by educators’. Their study suggests that schools are
failing to take advantage of the resources inherent in the close relationships between
Latino children and parents (Jones & Velez, 1997). A parental involvement scale that
addresses a variety of both at-home and in-school parental involvement as well as the
cultural differences in parental involvement may provide a more coherent understanding
of how parental involvement in schooling affects Latino students’ academic success.
Family Support

All abundance of literature has reported that family support is associated with

higher grades and higher standardized test scores (Bisnaire, Firestone, & Rynard, 1990;

93

Cauce, Felner, & Primavera, 1982; Christenson, Grounds, & Gomey, 1992; Eccles, Early,
Fraser, Belansky, & McCarthy, 1997; F eldman & Wentzel, 1990; Glasgow, Dombush,
Troyer, Steinberg, & Ritter, 1997; Masselam, Marcus, & Stunkard, 1990; Rosenthal &
Feldman, 1991). This relationship was not found in this study of Latino students. A
recent study by LOpez, Ehly, and Garcia-Vézquez (2002), of acculturation and social
support and academic achievement in Mexican and Mexican American high school
students had similar results. They found that perceived parental support was not related
to students’ grade point averages (L6pez, Ehly, & Garcia-Vézquez, 2002).

As was the case with several of the other scales included in this study, the family
support scale may not address all of the aspects related to family support, particularly the
cultural differences, that may exist for Latino families. Research has shown that Latino
parents develop ties to community organizations, bothfor material support and help with
children’s future goals (Alva, 1991). These aspects of family support were not explored
in this study. The scale included in this study examines social support in a general
manner. It does not have items that address the social support families may provide to
students speciﬁcally towards academic challenges and goals. This scale does not assess
mother and father’s support independently either. Some research has found mother and
father’s support to be related to different aspects of academic achievement (Kenny, et al.,
2002). Additionally, variables, such as capital resources (Gordon, 2000) and parental
educational (Cooper, et al., 2002), that may have been found to affect the level and kind
of support were not examined in relation to their effect on family support. A scale
addressing a more speciﬁed model of family support, including cultural variations,

considering mother and father’s support separately, and examining support speciﬁcally

94

provided for academic achievement, may better attend to the relationship between family
support and Latino academic achievement.
School Support

Although it makes logical sense, and studies have shown that a relationship exists
between teacher and school support and the Latino students’ academic achievement, the
relationship was not found in this study. Just as in the case of family support, there are
measurement reasons that may at least partially explain why this variable was not found
to be a useful classiﬁer or predictor of Latino academic achievement.

This scale measures the general concept of support from people at school. It does
not differentiate between support provided by teachers and support provided by
classmates. Neither does it focus on support provided by people at school directly related
to academic challenges or goals. A scale, which included these aspects, may have found
a more signiﬁcant relationship between school support and academic achievement.

While there is research to support the relationship between school support and
Latino academic achievement, a recent study on Aﬁican American and Latino youth
found that students’ viewed teachers as one of their greatest challenges (Cooper, et al.,
2002). This study of 120 students in outreach programs indicated that teachers were
infrequently cited as providing support and were often cited as providing difﬁculties
(Cooper, et al., 2002).

Another factor that may affect the relationship of school support and academic
achievement of Latino youth is the distrust of the school system as a means for social
mobility, as suggested by Ogbu’s (Gibson & Ogbu, 1991; Ogbu, 1974, 1991; Ogbu &

Matute-Bianchi, 1986) cultural ecological model. Given that there is an under-

95

IFS-r.
1

representation of Latinos as teachers and administrators in public schools across the
country, it would seem reasonable that Latino students may feel distrustful of those who
form part of the school system. Furthermore, if oppositional subcultures exist at the
school, the inﬂuence of classmates on academic success may be a negative one, rather
than one of support.
Other Adult Support

Although it was hypothesized that other adult support would be signiﬁcantly
related to Latino students’ academic achievement, particularly given the signiﬁcance of u
these relationships for families of color (Harrison, Wilson, Pine, Chan, & Buriel, 1990; 1
Kenny & Perez, 1996), this factor was not found to be useful in the prediction of
academic achievement or in the classiﬁcation of students as high- and low-achieving.
This scale did not speciﬁcally examine other adult relationship towards academic
achievement, which would be more useful in analyses of its effect on Latino academic
success. Also speciﬁc cultural differences that may exist for Latinos are not examined
using this scale. The limited amount of research examining this construct in Latino
academic achievement points to a gap in the literature the merits further investigation.

Cooper and her colleagues (2002) reported similar ﬁndings in their study of
Aﬁican American and Latino youth in outreach programs. Despite contact with program
personnel, they found that program staff was the least cited source of support (Cooper, et

al., 2002). Furthermore, support from these nonrelated adults was not signiﬁcantly

related to academic outcomes including grades.

96

Peer Inﬂuence

Peer inﬂuence was found to be signiﬁcantly related to Latino academic
achievement in several of the data analyses; cross validation of the discriminant function
analysis using median split, cross validation of the logistic regression using median split,
and both the discriminant function analysis and cross validation of discrimnant function
analysis extreme quartiles. Peer inﬂuence was shown to be useful in classifying Latino
students as high- or low-achieving. This ﬁnding mirrors research which has found that
for Latino adolescents, peers are relatively more inﬂuential on their academic
achievement than even parents (Steinberg & Darling, 1993).

This ﬁnding points to the importance of peers in the lives of Latino adolescents.
This echoes the magnitude of the effect of oppositional subcultures set forth in Ogbu’s
(Gibson & Ogbu, 1991; Ogbu, 1974, 1991; Ogbu & Matute-Bianchi, 1986) cultural
ecological model. Latino students and their peers may be involved in negative behaviors
in deﬁance of the systems they distrust. This scale addressed predominantly these
negative inﬂuences of peer behavior. Further studies examining the positive aspects of
peer inﬂuences may shed greater light on this construct.

Predictive Model of Academic Achievement

The predictive model of Latino academic achievement was tested using two
criteria to divide students into high- and low-achieving groups. The ﬁrst method, by
which students were considered either as high or low achieving, was based on whether
they are above or below the median on self-report of grades. The second scheme used to

divide the students into high- and low-achieving youth was to categorize those students in

97

If—T‘T—T

the upper quartile of self-report of grades as high-achieving, and those students in the

lower quartile of self-report of grades as low-achieving.

The use of two criteria for grouping students had a dual purpose. The ﬁrst was to
examine whether results from the analyses would be dependent on the way students were
grouped. In part, the ﬁndings of this study do expose that different results may occur
simply on the basis of the criteria chosen for grouping students. Since, most of the results
could not be conﬁrmed, how these grouping criteria affected the results is not known. 1
The second reason for utilizing two grouping criterion is that there is no agreed- L
upon way in the literature for deciding which students are to be considered high-
achieving and which are to be considered low-achieving. The use of the two criteria was
done in the hOpes of ﬁnding the most parsimonious results. Some general patterns that
emerged were that analyses conducted using the median split criteria were more likely to
ﬁnd little or no signiﬁcant results. This is probably due to the inclusion of students who
are not actually high- or low-achievers, but instead just average students, in the analyses.
The extreme quartile split criteria seemed to produce results that truly reﬂected
differences between high-achieving and low achieving students. But since few of the
results of these analyses could be conﬁrmed, no general conclusions can be drawn from
them.
The predictive model of Latino academic achievement proposed by this study
incorporated all the previously mentioned internal and external factors. The proposed
ecological model of Latino students’ academic achievement was not conﬁrmed in this
study. One external factor, peer inﬂuence, was conﬁrmed through discriminant function

analysis as a useful classiﬁer of Latino students into high- and low-achieving groups.

98

Further research on this construct may prove useﬁll in understanding the magnitude of the
relationship between peer inﬂuence and the academic achievement of Latino youth.
Limitations of the Current Study

There are several facets of this study that may have contributed to the lack of
signiﬁcant ﬁndings in the results. Limitations of this study should be acknowledged.
First, is the issue of the data in this study consisting of a secondary data, which was
collected for other types of analyses. This data was collected as part of an effort to unite
communities to improve the lives of local youth. This leads to several issues that affect
the results of this study.

One issue is that the Hispanic/Latino sample included in this study is not
completely representative of the Hispanic/Latino adolescent population in Michigan.
Most notable is the lack of participants from urban schools. This led to little variance and
skewness (this is a statistical term) on several of the measures included in this study,
which leads to another issue: scales used in this study were not created to assess students’
internal and external factors in relationship to academic achievement. Instead, they were
created predominantly as a checklist of the types and amount of protective factors (assets)
and of risk indicators and behaviors. Furthermore, Search Institute has never released
their scoring method for the scales included in the ABS or for the ABS as a whole.
Scoring in this study was then based solely on sums of scales. This may not be the best
use of these scales especially for examining predictive relationships.

Another issue related to the use of Search’s ABS items is the availability of only
one measure of academic success. While grades have often been used to examine

academic success, self-report of grades may contain exaggerations due to students

99

 

wanting to make themselves appear more successful then they actually are. Grades are
also a limited View of what academic success means. There is a large body of research
that examines students who stay in school as examples of success in relation to those who
drop out. Other researchers examine students who go on to higher education.
Standardized test scores are also becoming the one of the most common ways to rate
students in public schools. Several “magnet” public schools, schools centered on certain
academic subjects, music, art, or racial/ethnic cultures, are also using portfolios more and
more often as measures of student progress. Grades may not represent quantity of
knowledge (LOpez, et al., 2002). So the use of only one measure of academic
achievement provides a narrow view of the ways in which Latino students may achieve.

Another concern is that the use of only one indicator of success, grades, may not
accurately reﬂect the construct of educational resilience or being successful over time
despite having educational risk factors (W axman, etal., 1997). Second, a number of
variables that may be related to grades were not assessed or controlled. Grades are often
seen as subjective, because teacher and student variables may inﬂuence them. Students
who show some effort may receive higher grades than those who do not (LOpez, et al.
2002)

Additionally, the ABS was validated and normed with a predominantly White
national sample. The instrument used, although ﬁtting the need and uniqueness of the
investigation, was not normed on this particular ethnic group. Not only did several of the
scales included in this study have low reliabilities for this sample of Latino youth (a <
.70), but the ABS as a whole does not measure several constructs that are critical for

research with Latinos (e. g. acculturation).

100

 

As an example, one of the most important constructs for Latinos that the ABS
does not measure is acculturation. Acculturation is the process that results in the
modiﬁcation of the culture of a group or an individual as a result of contact with a
different culture (Redﬁeld, Lenton, & Herskovits, 1936). For Latinos, who are in contact
with the dominant/majority culture in addition to their native culture, acculturation is a
signiﬁcant psychological process. The acculturation level of Latinos has been linked to
almost every possible outcome of interest, including academic achievement (e. g. LOpez,
Ehly, & Garcia-Vazquez, 2002). Cultural factors such as “marianismo,” the belief that
women’s roles are that of mother and wife, as well as “fatalismo” (“destino”), the belief
that one’s life is in the hands of God, may also play a role in the academic achievement of
Latino youth and are not assessed by the ABS. Other cultural differences that may be
found in the constructs themselves are not measured by the ABS. In fact, the ABS has
very little cultural content. This leads to a weak measure for most minority groups, and in
this case for Latino adolescents.

Finally, the ABS only includes a limited amount of choices for students to self-
identify themselves by race or ethnicity. In this case, students with a Spanish or Latin
American heritage could only identify as Hispanic/Latino and could not specify country
of origin or country of heritage. This may lead to some confounding (more stats jargon)
results in analyses, since it is well known that there are large differences among
subgroups of the Hispanic/Latino population in the United States when it comes to
several outcomes, including academic achievement. Increasing awareness about these
differences has pointed to the inappropriateness, in many situations, of making

generalizations about students from Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban or South American

101

 

backgrounds (F ashola, Slavin, Calderém, & Duran, 2001). For example, Mexican
American and Central American children drop out at almost three times the rate of Cuban
American and South American children, who are near the national average dropout rate
(General Accounting Ofﬁce, 1994). The fact that all Hispanic/Latino students are
considered as a group in this study may have led to inconsistent or non-signiﬁcant results.
Nevertheless, it is important to consider the characteristics of Latino students as a whole,

for on average they perform much worse then non-Hispanic White students on measures

if“’"""!

of academic achievement.

A limitation common to many studies is the generalizability of the results. The
sample is unique to Michigan public school districts and may not be a true representation
of Latino high school students throughout the country. An additional aspect of this study
that may be Viewed as a limitation of the study is that there is no comparison group used
in analyses. While this means that any ﬁndings from this study cannot be presumed to be
signiﬁcant for Latinos only, the purpose of this study was to evaluate factors which have
already been found to be signiﬁcantly related to academic achievement with other groups
(i.e. White adolescents). Much of the current research in the area of resilience is moving
towards examining within group differences, but comparisons between groups may lead
to ﬁlrther insights as to whether signiﬁcant ﬁndings are culturally related or universal.

Strengths of the Current Study

Although there are few signiﬁcant ﬁndings in this study, there are certain
strengths, which should be addressed. The ﬁrst is that there are no studies, that the author
is aware of, which look at all of the individual and external factors examined in relation

to the academic achievement of Latino youth. Given the growing epidemic of lack of

102

achievement and the general failure of programs in place to alleviate this problem, more
research is needed that takes a similar focus. Secondly, the study also has a large sample
Size given the questions that were addressed. Although the Latino sample may not be
fully representative of the national sample, the study does have a wide range in sampling
representing several areas in Michigan.

Thirdly, this study provides a method and means for evaluating and potentially
revising the appropriateness of the ABS for use with Latino youth populations. This
measure has been used with several different racial-ethnic groups, including Latinos, but
little to no evaluation has been done to examine the effectiveness and appropriateness of
using the ABS with these groups. This study provides the ﬁrst step in investigating this
area further. There is a need to ensure that the measures used with minority groups are
appropriate, particularly when looking at issues of education and Latinos, in order to
guarantee cultural competence and a correct ﬁt between racial/ethnic groups, areas of
study, and results.

Implications for Further Research

The lack of academic achievement for Latino youth is well acknowledged as a
pressing national issue. In spite of several years of academic reforms, little change has
occurred in the Situation of Latino adolescents. They continue to have lower graduating
rates then their peers, are less academically successful, and only a small percentage of
Latino students attend and complete college. As the largest minority youth group,
problems facing these youth will affect the entire nation. Despite the growing concern
over Latino academic achievement, a comprehensive model of their academic

achievement has yet to be established.

103

 

The purpose of this study was to not only examine possible predictors of academic
success for Latino youth, but also to create a predictive model of Latino academic
achievement. Although the predictive model of Latino academic achievement was not
conﬁrmed in this study, the ﬁndings point to further research that should be conducted.

Firstly, the usefulness of peer inﬂuence in classifying high- and low-achieving

students suggests that greater attention needs to be paid to the socializing experiences that

3

youth have in school. Peers may be undermining both the goals and expectations of

T-A: 0": ‘ -Xt'.

parents, and the aim of teachers (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Steinberg, Dombusch, &

‘E
1

Brown, 1992). This also points towards the need for schools to take into consideration
the distrust that many involuntary minorities may have of the system as a whole. If this
distrust were dealt with, peer inﬂuences might have less of a negative effect, and possibly
a positive effect, on students’ academic achievement. But in order for this to happen,
large-scale institutional changes may have to be made. Further research, particularly
research that focuses on the effect of peer inﬂuence on academic achievement speciﬁcally
(not just positive and negative inﬂuence in general), as well as research that focuses on
the positive aspects of peer inﬂuence, would serve to clarify the relationship of peer
inﬂuence to the academic achievement of Latino adolescents.

Secondly, most of the factors that have been found to have a relationship to
academic achievement in other groups did not show signiﬁcant relationships to academic
achievement in this sample of Latino youth. While this may, in part, have been due to
measurement issues, it also points toward the need to examine if these factors are
culturally universal, if they may not translate to other cultures, or if there are inherent

cultural differences that affect these factors, whether it is in how these factors are

104

operationalized or how they interact with other cultural variables. A sample, that
included more urban and low SES Latino youth, could be utilized to more adequately
analyze a model of Latino academic achievement. Research expanding on Ogbu’s
(Gibson & Ogbu, 1991; Ogbu, 1974, 1991; Ogbu & Matute-Bianchi, 1986) cultural
ecological model in order to build a predictive model of minority achievement may be

particularly useﬁrl in the area of research into the academic achievement of Latinos. In

J
4|

addition, in-depth interviews of both high- and low-achieving students could be

conducted to investigate if factors other than those included in this study are associated

- ———1——.—— ~
Jﬂ.. 'As. .4! -a
1 I

with their academic achievement and with their perceptions of academic success.

Finally, longitudinal research may provide a clearer picture of how both individual
and external factors affect Latino students’ academic achievement. Academic
achievement, particularly as measured by grades, may change extensively over time. This
is particularly true when examining differences in grades between middle school and 9th
grade. There may also be students who are late bloomers and for whom academic success
does not occur until the very end of their high school career. But this would not be
visible using cross sectional data.

Given the lack of conﬁrmation for these ﬁndings, more research is needed to
understand what internal and external factors affect academic achievement among Latino
youth. As the disparity between the academic achievement of Latino adolescents and
their peers, particularly White adolescents, continues to widen, the negative effects of this
disparity will take a larger and larger toll on the nation. Unfortunately, current models
and programs have not made signiﬁcant changes in this gap. Further research is needed

to understand this complex issue. A continuing focus on those factors that are amenable

105

to change as well as on those factors related to success and not failure, are likely to lead

to results that will have implications for policy, programs, schools, and communities.

106

-iﬁﬂi‘ "1.7-AV. .!
i x

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Wang, M. C. & Gordon, E. W. (Eds.). (1994). Educational resilience in inner—city
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Wang, M. C., Hartel, G. D., & Walberg, H. J. (1999). Psychological and Educational
Resilience. In A. J. Reynolds, H. J. Walberg and R. P. Weissberg (Eds).

Promoting positive outcomes: Issues in children's and families' lives. (pp. 329-
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Waxman, H. C., Huang, S. L., & Padron, Y. N. (1997). Motivation and learning
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-J

I

1‘... hﬂilkmw-ﬂ

Wentzel, K. R. (1989) Adolescent classroom goals, standards for performance, and
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Wentzel, K. R. (1993). Motivation and achievement in early adolescence: the role of
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Wentzel, K. R. (1996). Social and academic motivation in middle school: Concurrent and
long-term relations to academic effort. Journal of Early Adolescence, 16(4), 390-
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Wenz-Gross, M., & Siperstein, G. N. (1997). Importance of social support in the
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Werner, E. E. (1989). High-risk children in young adulthood: A longitudinal study from
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Werner, E. and R. Smith (1992). Overcoming the odds: High risk children ﬁom birth to
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Whiting, B., & Edwards, C. (1988). Children of diﬂerent worlds: The formation of social
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Winﬁeld, L. F. (1991) Resilience, schooling, and development in African-American
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121

 

APPENDICES

122

,5...—

APPENDIX A

NUMBER OF SCHOOL DISTRICTS CONDUCTING SEARCH SURVEYS
IN THE SIX REGIONS OF MICHIGAN

LAI‘. J ‘11

T;

123

  

 

Search Surveys: 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

Search Surveys: 7

 

 

 

 

 

 

/ 3

 

 

 

 

Search Surveys: 6 s )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

J

\, I
I I1
"11111..

A
1
.J

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Search Surveys: 5 Search Surveys: 5

 

 

 

 

 

 

124

APPENDIX B

SEARCH INSTITUTE PROFILE OF STUDENT LIFE:
ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS (ABS)

125

LA.

 

 

SEARCH INSTITUTE PROFILES OF STUDENT LIFE

 

Attitudes and Behaviors

Your answers on this questionnaire will be kept strictly conlidential. DO NOT put your
name on this lorm. It has no code numbers, so no one will be able to tind out how you or
anyone else answered. Your school will receive a report that combines many students'
answers together. Theretore. no one will be able to connect your answers with your name.

This is not a test you take lor school grades. You are just being asked to tell about
yoursell. your experiences, and your leelings. Please be as honest as you can.

IMPORTANT MARKING DIRECTIONS

  
 

  

g ly any answer you wish to change. _
e a y stray marks on the Iquestronnaire

  

e 1996. Search Institute. Thresher Square West. 700 South Third Street. Suite ZIO, Minneapolis, MN 55415

126

 

1. How old are you?
0 it or younger O 16
O 12 O 17
O 13 O 18
014 O throlder
O 15

2. What is your grade in school?
0 5th 0 9th
0 6th 0 10th
0 7th 0 11th
0 8th 0 12m

3. What is your sex?
0 Male 0 Female

4. How do you describe yourselt? It more than one,

mark each that applies to you.

0 American Indian

0 Asian or Paciﬁc Islander (tor example, Cambodian,
Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Vietnamese)

0 Black or African American

0 Hispanic, Latino or Latina (tor example, Cuban American,
Mexican American, Puerto Rican, or other Latin American)

0 White

‘Some oi the questions in this survey ask about your...

parents- in this survey, "parents (and V’iather LT:

......

mother”) reIer to .the adults who are'. now most?

L.responslble tor raising you. They could be taster parents
L stepoparents or relatrveslgtlardians' lt- yod live jn a phe— 3

parent _tamlly, answer [or thal adult. - 1;.37 . J'- at“ one. __~,- 13.1.." 25517 ‘

5. Which one of the following best describes your
family?
0 I live with two parents.
0 I live in a one-parent lamlly with my mother
0 I live in a oneparent lamily with my lather.
0 Sometimes I live with my mother and sometimes with
my lather.

How important is each at the following to you in your lite?
Mark one answer for each.

Not Somewhat Not Ouite - WM

Want important Sure Important tripartant
6. Helping other - .
people ............ g ..... O ..... Q
7. Helping to reduce S}? E331;
hunger and poverty- is?
in the world ....... Q ..... O .....
8. Helping to make :2 5.35;
the world a better :‘3 :4?
place in which to i; ﬁg:
live ............... _"__ ..... O ..... Q

 

 

 

Not Hot
- Important SUI.
9. Being religious or ‘
spiritual . .......... Q.
to. Helping to make go?
sure that all people "‘i
aretreatedtairty... g.
t 1. Getting to know a; 53,;
people who are g§§ a}:
at a different race :23 $3
than I am ......... t9 ..... O .....
12. Speaking up for if: 353
equality (everyone g; 51‘;
should have the ”if ‘é‘
same rights and FEE 1,321;
opportunities) ..... 0 ..... O ..... LE?
13. Giving time or .3 :‘u’;

... {‘1

4'1?" ‘
limo .1
m
l.

 

      

money to make '3... “
life better tor 3} 5:3;
other people . ..... Q ..... O ..... a -, s
14. Doing what I 1.51% 3 g»;
believe is right %1 E; g
even it my friends £33 £2? 2;;
makelunotme ...Q ..... O ..... ..... O .....
15. Standing up for 4;; g: g};
what I believe, E;_ 5' 57::
even when it's ,5}: r" “i;
unpopular to do so . :O ..... O ..... Q ..... O ..... Q
16. Telling the truth, :2.‘ .f gig
even when It's not l - I“
easy .............. .O- ..... O ..... Q ..... O ..... O
1 7. Accepting 7:? ‘3 ESE:
responsibility tor ‘ "3: 3‘
my actions when .I I 5.3, (:1:
I make a mistake if :_-
orgetintrouble...Q ..... OWQ ..... O ..... Q
18. Doing my best even E‘ __ ;_; i.
when l have to do 33‘}; {3:1 é}. ‘
a job I don't like . . . O ..... O ..... O ..... O ..... Q
, = * .- =~ *3 S—c db’ti“ _
an ., «m ..;;,w LSBOUTss-wgwm $525?” «Is

19. On an average school day, about how much time do you
Spend doing homework outside oi school?
0 None 0 1 hour
0 Hall hour or less 0 2 hours
0 Between hall an hour and O 3 hours or mOre
an hour

20. What grades do you earn in school?

0 Mostly As 0 Mostly Cs
OAbouthaIt As and hall 85 OAbouthalleandhalle
0 Mostly 85 0 Mostly Os

0 About hall 85 and hall Cs 0 Mostly below 05

127

 

 

 

 

 

 

For each at the following, mark 293 response. z{Remindér' ill: this ‘pairents {and Either : or
How often does one ol your parents . . . ? A'mother") reieg to; the 3Q”? who are now most
M So“ nrespimsmle lor igisigg you; g sf .. .ﬁw‘ ._.;_;_, 5f- -. ; :5“; 2.;
Often Olten times Seldom Never
21. Help you with your school . . -
work ........................ QMO.§MOQ ‘
zzrallt to you about what you 5:? . $3 9;; '
aredoinginschool ........... OQOEE) .
23.Askyouabouthomework ..... 600g '
24. Go to meetings or events at Sit: 3.5.5 {3? '
yourschoolQOQOO Howmuchdoyouagreeordtsagreewiththelollowing? '
Choose 21¢: answer lor each. '
Strongly llot Dis- Strongly ’
Agree Agree Sure agree Disagree '
How much do you agree or disagree with the lollowing? 36. On the whole, I like myselt. . . . . Q . . 0. .E) ..O Q I
Mark one answer lor each. 37. N is against my values to 4“- , 5’: 557:5 l
_ 5mg” M my 5mg” drink alcohol while I am a .1: ...; '7 .7; -
Agree Agree Sure agree Disagree teenager. .................... Q . . O . . Q . . O . . O l
25. At school I try as hard as l : - _ : 38. I like to do exciting things :3“ ‘ 3, '
cantodomybestwork ....... W009 evenittheyaredangerous....Q ...00....00 l
26. My teachers really care about £5? :33 ‘64.: 39.1“ times. I think lam no 3%?” 3:1: 1
me .......................... "3.0. [3.0.9 goodalan. .................. O..O..O..O. 0‘ .
27. it bothers me when ldon‘t if?! : 40. l get along well with my 3‘ ' 1‘: ; -
dosomethingwell ............ ONO.@....00 parents. ..................... 0.....00....00 l
28. I get a lot at encouragement ‘ ‘11:"? 72- 41. All in all, I am glad I am me. .. .0 . . 0 . .0 .. 0 . . O l
atmyschool ................. O..O..O..O..'O 42.Heel|donothavemuchto 5 l
29. Teachers at school push me :jj'! Ed .~_. be mild 0'. ----------------- ,O - - O - - O - - O . . O '
tobethebestlcanbe ........ O..0.. ..0..0 43.11Ibreakoneolmyparents' "- ‘3 ' I
30_ My parents push me yo be 1.1:}: 31:31:37 rules, I usually get punished. . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 .. 0 . . 0 0
thebestlcanbe ............. O..O..O..O..O 44.Myparenlsgivemehelp '
andsupportwhenlneedit....0 ...00....00 '
45. It is against my values to ‘ |
have sex while lam a 0
31. During the last tour weeks, how many days at school teenager. .................... 0 . . 0 0 . . 0 . . 0 I
have you missed because you skipped or “ditched?" 46. In my school there are clear I
0 None 0 4 - 5 days rules about what students " ' l
Otday 06-10days canandcannotdo ............ 0..0..0..0..0 U
0 2 days 0 11 or more days 47.l care about the school I go ' 7 ~ . 0
03days to ............................ O..O..O....OO 0
48. My parents often tell me they ‘ l
loveme. ..................... 0......”0000 I
49. In my lamily. l leel useful is- ~ 0
For each 01 the following, mark 9_n_g answer. and important. ............... 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 I
How often do you _ , _ ? 50. Students in my school care 7 E: " L '
aboutme. ................... 0...00..0..0 I
Usually Sometimes Never 51. in my lamily, there are clear '- _’-" f ~ -
32. Feel bored at school ............... O ..... 0 ..... 9 rules about what I can and Yr I
33. Come to classes without bringing E ‘ . 1:213 cannot do. ................... O . - O - - O -- O . - O '
paper or something to write with . . .Q ..... 0- . . . . Q 52. In my neighborhood. there ' E} a, .: e
34. Come to classes without your a“ are a lot at people who can if 4' ¥ a -
homeworklinished ................ pf ..... O ..... Q aboutme ...................... Q ~O--f....;--O--.Q, -
35. Come to classes without your $5.: 553% 53- M "'1 WW. "9'70” ‘. E3733. §~ '
books ............................ G ..... 0 ..... 7.: _ knows that you'll get in {'17: 375' .‘ U
- trouble tor using alcohol 5 {373‘ j: '
orotherdrugs ................ QMOQHOD I
54.11 one or my neighbors saw ' 5:1: -
me do something wrong, he if?" f. '
or she would tell one at my §~, g; 35 '
parents. ..................... D...0 0....0b I
I
.
.
I I IIIIIII I-

128

 

on walls, etc.) ................

60. Playing on or helping

with sports teams at

school or in the

community ............. O . .
. In clubs or organizations
(other than sports) a_t
school (tor example,
school newspaper,
student government,
school plays, language
clubs. hobby clubs,
drama club, debate, etc.) . O . .
in clubs or organizations
(other than sports) outside
oi school (such as 4-H,
Scouts, Boys and Girls
CIubs,YWCA,YMCA) ....O . .
Reading lust lor lun (not

6

d

62.

63.
64. Going to programs,

groups. or services at

a church. synagogue,

mosque. or other

religious or spiritual

place ................... O . .
Helping other people

without getting paid

(such as helping out at

a hospital, daycare

center, lood sheli, youth
program, community

service agency, or

doing other things) to

make your city a better

place ior people to live . . O . .
. Helping lriends or

neighbors .............. O . .
Practicing or taking

lessons in music, art,

drama, or dance. alter

school or on weekends . . O . .

65.

57.

part at your school work). 0 . .

G..O..

.0

3-‘
Never Once Twice Times
55. Been a leader in a group or 3‘- BE"
organization ................. Q . . O . . . O
56. Stolen something irom e ‘2: a?
store ........................ QMOQWO
57. Gotten into trouble with the .33 ff?
police ....................... ...OQ...O
58.l-lit or beat up someone ....... Q .. O .., .. O .
59. Damaged property just lor iun :5. 5‘;
“ST-Y 331?
(such as breaking windows, ;f ax;
scratching a car, putting paint {7"}; ”f

Number oi Hours

0..

b

earn-v.- .,,; i - .
3 an . -
I ‘ _ . A:

..l‘

1,.

w‘k
it

war

«(;frl‘ ’
" In A ,. ‘

My“
, ,.

s
‘- r L r
_.| .‘t-<eL» t: i '
e

O

2

0..

b

@330

.0..

d
3 ~69“?-
‘|.-‘ l “
.-n ,3,
I

1

During the last 12 months, how many times have you . . . 7

or
3

ii

.3

m
.u

C
339‘ ohm .

A

wer v-
.,,

z igiwf
ﬁning." £31“

I
b"
1. l a

During an average week, how many hours do you spend . . . 7

tier

3-5 6-10 lore

”iii"

“Au: 3,
‘ .‘ -".

Ja- a: m.

(“J t-v- .
y.

"$737394"? ”7",
(mama: 313.3:

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S L

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“. I 'l .e: W 1
who. -.da' .

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ei

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'0,

e
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‘1', ‘ O ' I
. ‘ ... .
.‘n- . 44'” -'i".

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l.’ I
ll-I‘l

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FMAI’IIR" Jai-

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E3: r. ., ,

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‘v'
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ii.

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1

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129

68.

69.

70.

73.

74.

75.

76.

79.

Not A

Think about the people who know you well. How do you
think they would rate you on each oi these?
Pe0plewho knowmewould saythatthiele...

Some-
thtle what Oule

ludi

Little Utah Liele Like“ Ute”.

Knowing how to

say 'no" when

someone wants

me to do things i

know are wrong or

dangerous ........ ..... O .....

Caring about other if?)
people's ieelings . .6 ..... O .....
Thinking through 5”:
the possible good 3::
and bad results oi LE

ditlerent choices
belore I make

5““, 2'3)"
7'“ a‘ ‘1 '

decisions ......... E) ..... O .....
71. Saving my inoney ‘gj:

ior something $3;

special rather it":

than spending it t a

all right away ...... Q ..... O .....
72. Respecting the :37;

values and belieis
at people who are 'f_
oi a dilierent race I:
or culture than I 172,-:
am

Giving up when
things get hard tor I , V
me ............... O

I

r, vﬂi

Staying away irom f ;

people who might , -:

get me in trouble . . O ..... O .....
Feeling really sad ...

when one oi my ‘

iriends is unhappy . Q ..... O .....
Being good at '

making and 3",:

keeping friends . . . .O

77. Knowing a lot . .

about people at $7;

other races ........ Q ..... O .....
7a. Enjoying being 15:

_~
\.
4

with people who . ,
are oi a ditlerent _‘-:“

race than i am ..... O ..... O .....
Being good at 3:3;
planning ahead . . . .Q ..... O .....
Taking good care oi is
my body (such as, #5,;

eating loods that 23:,-
are good tor me, E:
exercising regularlyEE;

:1,
and eating three 5:3;

good meals a day) Q ..... O .....

E3

2'
. iii. it

3134 'p

\
J

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Jan

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re».
.‘ I ...'

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1.!

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...”)

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e h . If

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‘1 . ;.
a" .

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r,’f ."

ri eel'.e'-II ..‘ '1.
nets-2." «I «ma
ue-\'

AT;
4‘.-

 

5"-

lnthis sectm nwg aslfyou about alﬁéohol an? other drugs“

mess: aris‘wé'r. behestlv‘.‘.Béjhemhe‘r.‘i”9‘uiare. gateway.
gout your name on this“ ldrm, so no one will _éyer be abigtgg
, :teil homyou answ'ﬁed “#33:,“ =_ *1 “V h ;it‘. -’i“ “Fifi" ’-

9%.!
‘m q_~‘ _'\.-

\jﬂ

i

How many times, it any, have you had alcohol to drink . . . ?

 

Number 01 Times
0 I 2 3.5 6—9 10-19 2839 40+
81. In your
liletime ...... OGDOGOO
82. During the S3: {:2— 33?:
last 12 “" i as? '5:
mon__t__hs ...... O. O O. G O. .0. 0.. .
83. During the ‘ T124 5‘1?
last 30 days. .0. .0.. 0.. 0.. 0.. ;. ...O

84.Think back over the last two weeks. How many times
have you had ﬁve or more drinks in a row? (A ‘drink'
is a glass oi wine, a bottle or can at beer, a shot glass
oi liquor, or a mixed drink.)

0 None 0 3 to 5 times
0 Once O 6 to 9 times
0 vace 0 to or more times

85. It you came home lrom a party and your parents lound
out that you had been drinking. how upset do you think
they would be?

0 Not at all upset
O A little upset
0 Somewhat upset

0 Very upset
0 Extremely upset

How many times, it any. have you smoked cigarettes . . . 7

Number oi Times
0 1 2 3-5 6.9 10-19 2039 40.

' 86. in your . .
liletime ...... O..Q..O.._O..O..Q..O..Q

87. During the ‘“ ‘ if;
last 12 _9. ; f}:
months ...... 0900000

88. During the .-- ,- _ . 31;. :T
i_a_st30days..O.-Q..O..Q..O..'O..O._Q

89. During the last two weeks, about how many cigarettes
have you smoked?
0 None 0 About 1 pack per day

0 Less than 1 cigarette per day 0 About 1-1/2 packs per day

Q 1 to 5 cigarettes per day Q 2 or more packs per day
0 About 1/2 pack per day

 

How many times, it any, have you used marijuana (grass.
pot) or hashish (hash, hash oil) . . . ?

 

Numberoi‘l'lmes
0 I 2 3-5 69 1049 20-39 ‘00
90.inyour
tireiimo......O..'(3§..O..G O O..O ,
91. During the E: ,f; _ , iii
last 12 1 .“ ~ -. .;
months ...... OOOOQOO

How many times, ii any. have you used cocaine (crack, coke,
snow, rock) . . . ?

Number at Times

0 l 2 :rs ss' 10-19 2039 to.

92.lnyour - __
l___iietime. ....O. O..O On On QMOQ

93. During the “gig f_..5;
last 12 7;: Z."-j:-i _‘i‘ __
months ...... OOOOOOOO

During the last 12 months, how many times have you . . . ?

S or
3 - 9 More
Never Once Twice Times Times
94. Been to a party where other . _ _
kidsyourageweredrinking...O .. O .. O .. O .. O
95. Driven a car after you had

been drinking ................ 0.. O. .0.. 0.. O
96. Hidden in a car whose driver
had been drinking ............ 0.. O. .0.. O. .0

How many times, it any, have you snitied glue, breathed the
contents oi aerosol spray cans or inhaled other lumes in
order to get high . . . 7

Number oi Times

0 l 2 3~5 69 ilH9 20-39 40¢
97. During the
l_a____st 12
_m_onths ...... 00000000
98. During the
last30days. .O O.- O O O O.- O -O

99. in an average week, how many times do all oi the people
in your iamily who live with you eat dinner together?
0 None 0 4 times a week
0 Once a week 0 5 times a week
0 Twice a week 0 6 times a week
0 Three times a week 0 7 times a week

130

pm..- man‘s-l
'2

 

100. How often did you feel sad or depressed during the {as}

 

month?
0 All of the time 0 Once in a while
O Most of the time Q Not at all

0 Some of the time

101. Have you ever tried to kill yourself?
0 No .
0 Yes, once
0 Yes. twice

0 Yes, more than two times

102.
'made love”)? .
O No - SKIP TO QUESTION 104
0 Once
O Twice
O 3 times
0 4 or more times

103. When you have sex. how often do you and/or your
partner use a birth control method such as birth control
pills, a condom (rubber), foam, diaphragm, or IUD?

O Never 0 Often

O Seldom 0 Always

0 Sometimes

How many times. if any, in the last 12 months have you

used . . . ‘7
Number of Times

0 I 2 3.5 5-9 1049 2039 40+

104. Chewing
tobacco or _ .
snuff ........ OOOOOQOO
105. Heroin , .j' '
(smack, horse. ’1, :
skag) or other ;; j :11)
narcotics like 3; ;__
opium or 1: 3:3 "‘
morphine ....O .. 0.. O .. 0.. 0 ~26” O...
106.Alawan ...... 00000009
107 PCP or Angel ‘4 ’“
Dust ........ OOOOOOQ
108.LSD('"acid). 0.. O .O..Q..O..Q..O..©
109. Amphetamines _ ', ,fof. » $3.,
(for example, 9,» 5’2 :39: £3:
upperws. - {.2
speed. bennies, :54; g; i; a?
deities) without .':-' .... :3}. {ii
a prescription 3'3 :9 ‘52:; gig
fromadoctor.O..0 O ‘....()k , ONE

-. ...-... ...

Have you ever had sexual intercourse ("gone all the way,"

 

How much do you agree or disagree with the following?
Mark one answer for each.
Strongly Not Dis- Strongly
Agree Agree Sure agree Disagree'
110. Sometimes i feel like my life

hasnopurpose. ..... . ........ é” OHQHOE
111. Adults in my town or city 713‘ if?! jig,
makemefeelimportant. ...... D. 0906
112. Adults in my town or city C 3.4, ,1}; '3
listentowhatlhavetosay. ...Q .. O ”,0 .. O ..Q
113. I'm given lots of chances to 531:; 52.: '1
help make my town or city a 3‘ 57:.
better placeinwhichtolive. . .0 .. GHQ” O ...Q
114. Adults in my town or city don‘t ‘: E: 3:
careabout peoplemyage. ....Q .0 ':Q” 0 . Q
115. in my town or city, I feel like I f_ , ;53 .1‘
mattertopeople. ............. @0000
116. When things don‘t go well for _T Z3:
me, I am good at finding a 5 6:53,
way to make things better. ....Q“ Q ..9.. O. .9
117. When I am an adult, I'm sure 1 -;‘; , '3; n;
will have a good life. ......... O . . O. .0.. O. .O
4:8eminder in this survey, , ¥parents' (and “father, ;or

mother) refer to the adults who are; now mast

responsrble tor raisingyou. :1 -'.‘~ 4.5:}, '5,‘

During the last 12 months, how many times have you . . . ?

5 or
34 More

Never Once Twice Times Times
118. Taken part in a fight where a

group of your friends fought

another group ............... O. ..O. 0.. 0.. O
119. Hurt someone badly enough

to need bandages or a doctor. 0.. 0.. 0.. 0.. O
120. Used a knife, gun or other

weapon to get something
fromaperson ................ O..O..O..O..‘O

121. If you had an important concern about drugs, alcohol,
sex, or some other serious issue, would you talk to your
parent(s) about it?

0 Yes
0 Probably
Q I'm not sure

0 Probably not
O No

122. How much of the time do your parents ask you where
you are going or with whom you will be?
0 Never 0 Most of the time
Q Seldom 0 All of the time
Q Some of the time

131

 

 

Among the people you consider to be your closest friends.
howmanywouldyou say...?

A
‘ None Few Some Most All
123. Drink alcohol once a week or

more ........................ Q . . O .
124. Have used drugs such as ;3

marijuana or cocaine ......... .62.. .
125. Do well in school ............. "9.. O
126. Get into trouble at school ..... ...-O

 

How often do you teel alraid oi . . .

Once
in a Some-
Never While limes Often Always
127. Walking around your W . '
neighborhood? ............... §MO .QHOgg
128. Getting hurl by someone at ‘53. % E~"
yourschool? ................. (30:30.33;
129. Getting hurt by someone in :- {13; 2:31? :53
- 1 >~ -:
yourhome? .................. @00@

130. On the average, how many evenings per week do you go
out to activities at a school. youth group. congregation,
or other organization?

00 O3 06
Oi 04 O7
O2 05

13

d

. On the average, how many evenings gr week do you go
out just to be with your triends without anything special

todo?

OO 03 06
Ol 04 O7
02 05

132. Imagine that someone at your school hit you or pushed
you tor no reason. What would you do? Mark o_ne answer.
0 I'd hit or push them right back.
0 I‘d try to hurt them worse than they hurt me.
0 I'd try to talk to this person and work out our dltterences.
O I'd talk to a teacher or other adult.
0 I'd just ignore it and do nothing.

 

How much do you agree or disagree with the lollowlng?
Mark 913 answer tor each.

133. Students help decide what
goesonlnmyschool.
134.ldon'tcarehowldoln

135. l have lots 01 good
conversations with my

parents. ..................... O
136. It I break a rule at school. I'm 7 .. “i
sure to get in trouble .......... ' . . O . 9
137. My parents spend a lot oi time 1;:
helpingotherpeople .......... ‘ .dwoa
138. l have little control over the $.13; 35
things that will happen in iny g); 131;:
lite ................. . ......... ..Q....0;

 

During the last 12 months. how many times have you . . . 7

Sor
3" More
Never Once Twice Times Times

139. Carried a kniie or gun to

protect yoursell. ............. Q . . O . . 0.. O. .O
140. Threatened to physically hurt {:33 .95" ~
someone ................... QOQ O. .Q
141. Gambled (tor example boughtsf A.. {if ‘
lottery tickets or tabs, bet 5,2,. :5 -.
money on sports teams or :35; ,_ ﬂ :3:
cardgames,etc.) ............. OM00..OHO

The tollowing questions ask about the adults you know.
When answering these questions. don't count your parents
or relatives.

How many adults have you known tor two or more years
who . . . ?

3 or s or
o 1 2 4 more

142. Give you lots 01 encouragement “ _ .. _
whenevertheyseeyou ....... 900032
143. You look torward to Spending 1,35; {3.1, :4;
timewith .................... 0000
144. Spend a lot or time helping “ :fz‘ -
otherpeople ................. £2 OHQHO :2
145. Do things that are wrong or f"; 3}; ET:
dangerous ................... .... . O .. . . O Q
146. Talk with you at least once a "it; '~'~ “337

month ....................... “_..O..n__‘ .O
I I ...-... I
132

   

 

 

 

— On an average school day, how many hours do you spend . . . ?

Cor
"' #1:: l 2 3 More
- ' None tl-lour Hour Hours Hours Hours
—
— 147.WatchingTV orvideos...f§3.. O “Q” 0 Hg 0
- 148.At home with no adult 1:?» f?“ t,‘_:3
therewithyou .......... QOQOQO

— 149. Have you ever been physically harmed (that is, where
someone caused you to have a scar, black and blue
marks. wells, bleeding, or a broken bone) by someone in
your family or someone living with you?

0 Never 0 4 - 10 times
O Once C) More than to times
0 2 - 3 tlmes

d
0"
O

. How many times in the last 2 years have you been the
victim of physical violence where someone caused you
physical pain or injury?

O Never 0 3 times
C) Once C) 4 or more times
0 Twice

-‘
U"
-.Q

.Where does your iamily now live?
0 On a larm
O In the country. not on a term
0 On an American Indian reservation
C) In a small town (under 2,500 in population)
0 In a town ol 2,500 to 9,999
O In a small my (10000 to 49.999)
0 in a medlum SIZE City (50000 to 250,000)
O In a large Cll’y (over 250 000)

_a
U‘
N

. How many years have you lived in the city where you
now live?
O All my Me
O 10 years or more, but I've lived in at least one other place
0 5 — 9 years
0 3 . 4 years
0 t - 2 years
0 Less than 1 year

 

133

154.

155.

156.

153. How often do you binge eat (eat a lot of food in a short

period ot time) and then make yourselt throw up or use
laxatives to get rid ot the food you have eaten?

0 Never

0 Once in a while

0 Sometimes

O Often

Have you ever gone several months where you cut
down on how much you ate and lost so much weight
or became so thin that other people became worried
about you?

0 Yes

O No

What is the highest level oi schooling your lather (or
step-lather or male loster parent/guardian) completed?
0 Completed grade school or less

0 Some high school

0 Completed high school

O Some college

0 Completed college

0 Graduate or prolesSlonal school alter college

0 Don't know. or does not apply

 

What is the highest level at schooling your mother (or
step-mother or lemale loster parent/guardian) completed?
0 Completed grade school or less

O Some high school

0 Completed high school

0 Some college

0 Completed college

0 Graduate or prolessronal school alter college

0 Don't know, or does not apply

Data Recognition Corp-153345

 

APPENDIX C

FACTOR ANALYSES

134

‘ F“:

 

Table C-l
Factor loadings of peer inﬂuence items

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Items Included (Among the people you consider to be your closest friends, Factor Loading_
how many would you say. . .?) Factor 1 ,
Drink alcohol once a week or more .80
Have used drugs such as marijuana or cocaine .93
Do well in school .27
Get into trouble at school .57
Table C-2
Factor loadings of school afﬁliation items
Items Included Factor Loading__ git
Factor 1 If
How often do you feel bored at school? .47 ,
How often do you come to classes without bringing paper or something to .58 3..
write with?
How oﬁen do you come to classes without your homework ﬁnished? .50
How often do you come to classes without your books? .63
During the last four weeks, how many days of school have you missed .40
‘ because you skipped or “ditched”?
I care about the school I go to? .51
Table C-3
Factor loadings of achievement motivation items
Items Included Factor Loading__
Factor 1
.68
I don’t care how I do in school
Have used drugs such as marijuana or cocaine .68
Do well in school .57
Table C-4
Factor loadings of parent involvement in schoolinﬁems
Items Included (How often does one of your parents. . .?) Factor Loading__
Factor 1
Help you with school work .35
Talk to you about what you are doing in school .62
Ask you about homework .36
Go to meetings or events at your school .15

 

135

 

Table C-5
Factor loadings of family support items

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Items Included Factor Loading__
Factor 1

My parents push me to be the best I can be .51

I get along well with my parents .79

My parents give me help and support when I need it .80

My parents often tell me they love me .76

In my family, I feel useful and important .72

I have lots (igood conversations with my parents .75

Table C-6

Factor loadings of school support items

Items included Factor Loading—
Factor 1

My teachers really care about me .74

I get a lot of encouragement at my school .79

Teachers at school push me to be the best I can be .61

Students in my school care about me .45

Table C-7

Rotated factor loadings of other adult support items

Items Included Factor Loading__

Factor 1 Factor 2

In my neighborhood, there are a lot of people who care about me .56

Adults in my town or city make me feel important .90

Adults in my town or city listen to what I have to say .81

In my town or city I feel like I matter to people .65

Adults in my town or city don’t care about people my age .42

How many adults have you known for two or more years who give you
lots of encouragement whenever they see you (don’t count parents or
relatives)?

How many adults have you known for two or more years who you look
forward to spending time with (don’t count parents or relatives)?

How many adults have you known for two or more years who talk with
you at least once a month (don’t count parents or relatives)?

.79

.84

.70

 

136

Table C-8
Rotated factor loadings of time allocation items

 

Items Included

Factor Loading

 

Factor 1

Factor 2

Factor 3

 

On an average school day, about how much time do you
spend doing homework outside of school?

During an average week, how many hours do you spend
playing on or helping with sports teams at school or in the
community?

During an average week, how many hours do you spending
clubs or organizations (other than sports) at school?

During an average week, how many hours do you spend,
in clubs or organizations (other than sports) outside of
school?

During an average week, how many hours do you spend
reading just for fun (not part of your school work)?

During an average week, how many hours do you spend
going to programs, groups, or services at a church,
synagogue, mosque, or other religious or spiritual place?

During an average week, how many hours do you spend
helping other people without getting paid to make your
city a better place for people to live?

During an average week, how many hours do you spend
helping friends or neighbors?

During an average week, how many hours do you spend
practicing or taking lessons in music, art, drama, or dance,
after school or on the weekends?

On the average how many evenings per week do you go
out to activities at a school, youth group, congregation, or
other organization?

On an average school day, how many hours do you spend
watching TV or videos?

.13

.10

.21

.58

.56

.29

.13

.21

.17

.12

.30

.21

.10

.37

.66

.55

.21

.05

.05

.11

.45

.40

.09

.05

.00

.18

.13

.28

.59

.19

 

137

 

APPENDIX D

ADMINISTRATION MANUAL FOR ABS

 

 

138

Administration Manual

 

Search Institute
Proﬁles of Student Life:
Attitudes and Behaviors

 

Tthanks Building
ear C 615 First Avenue NE.
Suite 125
—— Minneapolis, MN
INSTITUTE 55413 .

1 800-888-7828

Revised 1/2003

139

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Page
I. GENERAL INFORMATION
Search Institute ...................... 1
The Framework of Developmental Assets 1
The Survey Search Institute Proﬁles of Student Life:
Attitudes and Behaviors (A&B) 1
Survey Purpose ............ -. .. 1
Grade Levels ............. - ................................................................. 2
Survey Content ...................................................................................................... 2
Time Required ......... - - ......................................................... ' ...... 3
What’s Included in the A&B Survey Report ............................................ , ............... 3
The Role of Youth in the Survey Process .............................................................. 4
II. QUES'ITONS ABOUT SCIENTIFIC QUALITY
Confidentiality Issues ............................................................................................. 5
Reliability and Validity ............................................................................................ 6
Data Quality ........................................................................................................... 6
Comparing Data Across Time ................................................................................ 6
Use of the Survey as a Pre.Post Measure or
Program Evaluation Tool ........................................................................................ 7
III. PREPARATION FOR SURVEY ADMINISTRATION
Selecting Your On-Site Survey Coordinator .......................................................... 8
Selecting Survey Participants ........................................................ 8
Administering to Students with Special Needs ...................................................... 9
Parent Consent ...................................... 10
Student Consent ....................................................... 12
Choosing the Survey Date ................................................................................... 12
Survey Administrators ................................. 12
Materials Needed ................................................................................................. 13
IV. MAILING THE COMPLETED SURVEYS
Shipping Instructions ............................... 14
V. DISSEMINATION OF SURVEY DATA AND REPORT FINDINGS
Confidentiality of Survey Clients, Data, and Reports 15
Dissemination of Survey Findings and Copyright Information 15

APPENDICES
A. Checklist for Survey Coordinators
B. - Classroom Administration Instructions

C. Sample Active Parental Consent Letter and
Sample Passive Parental Consent Letter

D. Fact Sheet for Parents
E. Informational Resources Regarding Parent Consent
F. Survey Administration Form

140

I. GENERAL INFORMATION

 

 

This manual gives you a complete view of the procedures involved in administering the survey Search
Institute Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors (MB). The quality of the results depends on
the quality of the administration. Therefore, the information that follows is a valuable foundation for a
careful and successful survey administration.

Not all of the information in this manual may be relevant to your particular setting. The manual intends to
guide your efforts and answer questions as you proceed.

 

SEARCH lNSTITUTE

THE FRAMEWORK OF
40 DEVELOPMENTAL ASSETS

THE SURVEY OF SEARCH INSTITUTE
PROFILES OF STUDENT LIFE:
Arm'uoes AND BEHA vrons (Asa)

SURVEY PURPOSE

Founded in 1958, Search Institute is an independent. nonprofit,
nonsectarian organization whose mission is to advance the well
being of children and adolescents by generating knowledge and
promoting its application.

To accomplish this mission, the institute generates, synthesizes,
and communicates new knowledge, convenes organizational and
community leaders, and works with state and national
organizations to support the healthy development of children and
adolescents.

Developmental assets represent the positive relationships,
opportunities, skills and values that promote the positive
development of all children and adolescents.

The developmental assets framework grew out of Search
Institute’s research over the past decade. The theoretical
underpinnings of the framework reside in the research pertaining
to risk and resiliency, prevention, and health promotion.

Search Institute Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes Behaviors
(A818) was developed in 1989, with major revisions made in 1996.
It is a 156-item survey that measures eight principal asset
domains: support, empowerment, boundaries and expectations,
constructive use of time, commitment to learning, positive values,
social competencies, and positive identity.

In addition to measuring developmental assets. the survey also
measures eight thriving indicators (succeeds in school, helps
others, values diversity, maintains good health, exhibits
leadership, resists danger, delays gratification, overcomes
adversity), five developmental deficits (alone at home, TV
overexposure, physical abuse, victim of violence, drinking
parties), and 24 risk-taking behaviors (such as chemical use,
sexual involvement, antisocial behavior).

The survey is intended to provide baseline aggregate data on
which to base development of asset-building strategies and the
creation of positive new visions and actions for the youth in your
community. The A68 survey provides communities with a portrait

141

 

 

GRADE LEVELS

SURVEY CONTENT

of the developmental assets, deficits, risk behaviors, and thriving
indicators of their 6th- to 12th-grade youth. The survey has
become a catalyst for hundreds of communities participating in
Search lnstitute's Healthy Communities 0 Healthy Youth initiative.
This national effort seeks to motivate and equip individuals,
organizations, and their leaders to join together in nurturing caring
and responsible children and adolescents.

In addition to its use as a community mobilization tool for building
developmental assets, the survey also has been used to:

~Assist state and local educators in monitoring indicators related
to student well-being;

-Set priorities and strategies for programs and services;
oProvide a common framework for cross-sector collaboration;
oProvide data for grant writing;

oProvide data for reports to funding agencies; and

oProvide a "youth voice” in organizational and community
planning.

The survey is designed for students in grades 6 through 12. Any
combination of these grades may be surveyed. The size of your
student population in these grades will help determine how many
students you survey and whether you survey all students in
participating grades or a random sample of students. For more
information, see “Selecting Survey Participants”, page 8.

Note: Although grade 5 is listed on the survey for those
occasions when 5th-grade students are in a combined class with
6th«graders, the survey is not intended to be used with students in
5th grade. Search Institute has not conducted any field tests to
determine the survey's age-appropriateness for this grade level.
In addition, the A&B survey report is designed to report data for
grades 6 through 12 only. Surveys marked as grade 5 are
eliminated from the dataset and not included in the A&B report.

The content of the survey is supported by an extensive literature
review of over 800 scientific articles and reports on adolescent
development, risk and resiliency factors, and prevention. The
items contained in the survey (including risk behavior items
represent a wide range of experiences facing our nation's 6

through 12'" grade youth.

On occasion a community or school has requested permission to
eliminate certain items from the survey. Because both the survey
scanning and report processing methods use automated
procedures, requests to modify the survey or report cannot be
accommodated. Search Institute cannot process any surveys in
which items have been covered in any way. In addition, students
may not be instructed to skip speciﬁc questions as this interferes
with the scoring processes for the report. If survey items are
eliminated or if students are instructed to skip specific items, the
organization contracting the survey study will still be responsible
for paying for the surveys, even though no reports will be
processed.

142

 

 

TIME REQUIRED

WHAT'S INCLUDED IN THE
A53 SURVEY REPORT

Enlisting Support. The amount of time needed to gain broad-
based support and/or consensus for administering the survey
varies by community. Enabling community members to hear the
experiences of a significant number of youth is a key contribution
the school district can make toward creating a supportive
environment in which youth can thrive. In order to play that role
well, school districts will find it helpful to engage several
community representatives—including parents and youth—to help
plan the administration process.

Ordering Materials. Search Institute will send the surveys and
administration materials within two weeks of receiving your written
order.

Survey Administration. The survey contains 156 questions and
takes approximately 50 minutes to administer. Students in the
upper grade levels may complete the survey in less time; students
in lower grades may need more than 50 minutes. Consider the
reading level of your students and allow more time for those who
may need it, e.g., students for whom English is a second
language.

When more than one school building is involved in a study,
Search Institute recommends that data be collected across all
sites within a two-week time period.

Report Processing. Completed surveys are returned to Search
Institute for processing. Reports are mailed approximately 10
weeks from the time Search Institute receives all surveys for your
study. If your study involves use of the survey across multiple
sites, Search Institute needs to receive data from all sites before

.survey processing can begin. If subreports are to be provided for

each site, surveys must be separated and identified by each site.
See ‘Shipping Instructions" on page 13.

The A&B survey report (titled Developmental Assets: A Profile of
Your Youth) is 80 pages in length and includes the following;

An overview of the developmental assets framework, 3
description of how your study was conducted, and suggestions for
using the report findings.

. Analysis of the levels of external assets, internal assets, and
deficits as reported by your students. Data are presented by
total sample, gender, and grade. (See additional related
information on page 5, third paragraph under Confidentiality
Issues.)

. Analysis of the levels of 24 risk-taking behaviors, 10 high—risk
behavior patterns, and 8 thriving indicators as reported by
your students. Data are presented by total sample, gender,
and grade. (See additional related information on page 5,
third paragraph under Confidentiality Issues.)

. Analysis of the relationship of 24 risk-taking behaviors, 10
high-risk behavior patterns, and 8 thriving indicators by four
categories of asset levels: 0—10 assets, "-20 assets, 21—30
assets, and 31-40 assets. Also included are the average

143

 

THE ROLE OF YOUTH IN
THE SURVEY PROCESS

number of 24 risk-taking behaviors and the average number
of eight thriving indicators by each of these four asset levels.

Concluding remarks about the opportunities communities
have for enhancing the positive development of youth, the
importance of fostering developmental assets, and steps for
taking action.

Four Appendices: Individual item frequencies; item mapping
to assets, deficits, thriving, and risk behaviors; a bibliography
of the research undergirding the developmental assets
framework; and a partial listing of Search lnstitute's print and
video resources

Nine-page Executive Summary

The value of youth involvement in your survey process and
information sharing cannot be overstated. Youth involvement at
all levels of the process can shift the tone from youth as 'sources
of data' to “knowledge generators" and provides a means for
giving them a stronger voice in their school and community.
Students can be involved through the entire survey process
including planning, administration. dissemination, and action
implementation. For example, youth can:

Present or co-present the reasons for using the survey to the
school board or other relevant decision makers

Convey the assets message as well as the intent and
purpose of the survey to their fellow students

Assist the classroom survey administrators

Present or co—present survey results at a town meeting,
school assembly, local service groups. etc.

Serve on an ongoing planning and implementation task force

144

ll. QUESTIONS ABOUT SCIENTIFIC QUALITY

 

 

Several factors are involved in determining the scientific quality of a survey instrument. The issues most
often raised by communities considering use of the A&B survey are listed below.

 

CONFIDENTIALITY Issuss Student anonymity. Search Institute takes great care to ensure
that no individual students answers will be traced back to her or
him. Students do not put their names on the survey, and there
are no hidden identification numbers on the form itself. Thus the
survey is done anonymously. (An exception to this rule occurs if
the survey is used in a longitudinal study that requires tracking
participants over time. Special arrangements must be made in
advance with Search Institute.)

 

To additionally maintain student anonymity, all completed surveys
are put into one envelope per classroom. Each classroom survey
envelope ls sealed at the end of the class period. Envelopes are
returned to Search Institute, where the surveys are prepared for
scanning.

All findings are reported in aggregate form by total group, gender,
and grade. No individual student data are presented. If the
number of students in a particular grade is fewer than 30, the data
from that grade are either suppressed or merged with data from
the nearest grade. Gender data will not be reported if there are
fewer than 30 students in either gender category. When it is
necessary to suppress data for a grade or gender, responses
from those students _a_rg included in the “total group' percentages.

Because of the minimum requirements for reporting data by grade
and gender, final sample sizes of fewer than 100 students means
there will be missing data throughout the report. Search Institute
recommends that the full report be purchased when the final
amregate sample size is greater than 100 students. For
subgroup remrts of 50-100 students, an Executive Summary may
be purchased instead of the 80-page subreport. (Note: An
Executive Summary may not be ordered in place of the initial
aggregate report.) No report will be prepared on groups of
fewer than 50 students.

To ensure data quality a computerized check ls made on each
survey to look for inconsistency in survey responses, number of
survey items not answered, etc. Surveys that do not meet the
quality checks are eliminated from the dataset. Your report is
based on the surveys that remain in the dataset after these quality
checks have been made. The percentage of surveys eliminated
from a dataset is typically about 5 to 8 percent of the total number
of surveys received. This percentage tends to be somewhat
higher in larger urban school districts.

Note: If the total sample size for the aggregate report is fewer
than 50 students, Search Institute will not run the report. The
contracting organization will be responsible for the cost of the
surveys even though no report is run. To protect the

145

 

RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

DATA QUALITY

COMPARING DATA ACROSS TIME

confidentiality of students, completed survey forms will not be
returned to the school or contracting agency.

Reliability refers to the degree to which something is measured
consistently over time.

Validity Is the degree to which a procedure measures what it is
intending to measure.

Many of the items used in this survey have an extensive history
through Search lnstitute's work. Other items have been
deveIOped in other studies. For example, many of the items
regarding alcohol and other drug use are from the study entitled
Monitoring the Future (conducted by the Survey Research Center,
Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, Michigan). Some items were developed through a process
of pilot testing, pre—testing, and question revision.

As with most instruments dealing with anonymous self-reported
data, there is no direct, objective validation of the items used.
However, a considerable amount of evidence strongly indicates
that self-report questions produce largely valid data.

A Technical Overview for the A&B survey is available from Search
Institute. The Overview includes information on scale definitions,
validity, and reliability.

Schools often ask how they can know that the data are accurate
or, in other words, how they can know that students answered
truthfully. Might students have lied or greatly exaggerated their
responses? _

Over its 40 years of doing survey work, Search Institute has built
into its computer programs ways of eliminating surveys that seem
Invalid. A88 surveys are eliminated from a dataset when (1)40 or
more questions are not answered, (2) the surveys contain
disparate information on similar items, (3) there are excessively
unrealistic responses to key items, (4) there are inconsistencies
within time frames, and (5) a grade level other than those
Intended to be surveyed has been marked. Also, one item is
included as an intentional way of assessing student honesty. The
percentage of surveys eliminated from a dataset is typically about
5 to 8 percent of the total number of surveys received. This
percentage tends to be somewhat higher in large urban school
districts.

In very rare cases, it may be the judgment of Search Institute that
the quality of the data is such that a report should not be
released. Search Institute will discuss me implications of data
quality with the contracting agency before a final decision is
made.

Very often a school or community wants to administer the A88
survey at more than one point in time to assess the effectiveness
of a particular program or initiative. In assessing change over
time, several things must be kept in mind.

. The A&B survey was not designed as a program evaluation
tool, and therefore it is limited in its effectiveness as an

146

USE OF THE SURVEY AS A
PRE-POST MEASURE OR
PROGRAM EVALUATION TOOL

evaluation instrument. It is intended to provide a community
with baseline and trend data on groups of students.

. When the A88 survey Is administered at more than one point
in time, it is appropriate to make comparisons in percentages
for the same grade at two different points in time (e.g., 10th-
graders in spring 2002 to 10th-graders in spring 2004).
However, comparing the same student class over time (e.g.,
10th-graders in spring 2002 to 12th—graders in spring 2004) is
problematic. Results for a class may change in unpredictable
ways due to factors such as an inﬂux of new students,
students moving away, and/or students dropping out. These
changes affect the comparability of the data. (See also Use
of the Survey as a Pre-Post Measure or Program Evaluation
Tool below.)

. The statistical significance of a difference in percentages is
influenced by a number of factors such as the size of the
group being surveyed and the response options being
considered for comparison. Therefore, although differences
between percentages may seem significant (such as 5% or
10%), they may not be statistically significant.

The A88 survey was designed to provide aggregate-level data for
individual communities. It was not designed as an individual
assessment instrument or as a program evaluation tool. Some of
the difficulties that would be encountered in using the survey as a
pre-post measure or as a program evaluation tool follow.

Student anonymity. Because of the sensitive nature of the
questions, students complete the survey anonymously; therefore.
it is not possible to follow individual student responses across
survey administrations. This makes pre-post measures or
evaluation of program effectiveness difficult as student
populations probably change between the two (or more) survey
administrations due to the addition of new students, absenteeism,
school dropouts, or mobility of students.

Measurement issues. For simplicity of communication with
communities, developmental assets are measured dichotornously
(that is, students either 'have" or 'do not have" the asset). While it
is possible for changes to occur in the level of assets between the
two (or more) survey administrations, the changes likely will not
be at a level that can easily be measured by the survey or that will
affect the overall mrcentagg of youth reporting a particular asset.

Evaluating specific programs. When measuring the
effectiveness of a program, questions about the specific program
elements need to be asked. It is unlikely that the items contained
in the A88 survey are sufﬁcient for that purpose. In addition,
because the survey scanning and report processes are
automated, program-speciﬁc items cannot be added to the A88
survey.

147

III. PREPARATION FOR SURVEY ADMINISTRATION

 

I The following steps are critical for conducting a quality study using the A88 survey.

 

SELEc'nIIc YOUR Orr-SrrE
SURVEY COORDINATOR

SELECTING SURVEY PARTICIPANTS

It is important for the organization contracting the survey study to
select 9gp; on-site survey coordinator who will be the contact
person for Search lnstitute's survey staff. Your community’s on-
site coordinator (in collaboration with your survey task force
and/or school district) will:

. Select the grade levels to be surveyed

. Determine appropriate parental consent procedures on the
basis of relevant federal or state laws and school district
policies (e.g., use of passive vs. active parental consent)

. Schedule the survey administration date

. Ensure appropriate communication to staff, students, parents,
and community members

. Notify survey administrators of date and procedures

. Ensure delivery of blank surveys to apprOpriate school
buildings and/or classrooms, and clarify instructions

. Collect completed surveys, complete the survey
administration form, and ship them to Search Institute

. Distribute copies of the report(s)

The survey coordinator may be someone from a school, an
organization sponsoring the survey, or a community volunteer. In
those cases where the survey is being conducted as part of a
large community effort, the survey coordinator will need to have
good communication skills with the school district and other
sectors of the community. Note that this person may be guided
by others involved in the survey planning process.

The A88 survey may be administered to students in grades 6
through 12. For smaller schools or school districts, you will want
to survey all students in each participating grade. For studies
Involving large school districts, counties, or states, you may want
to consider drawing a sample.

You may use one of the following methods for selecting
participants:

. Survey all students in grades 6 through 12

. Survey all students in selected grades (e.g., 6, 8. 10, 12)

. Draw a random sample of classrooms

. Draw a random sample of students using an enrollment roster

If all students are to be surveyed, you may select a certain class
period (e.g., 2nd hour) at which time all students are given the

148

 

ADMINISTERING TO STUDENTS
WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

survey regardless of the subject area they are generally taught
during that period. Another method is to select a subject that al
students in particular grade levels must take and administer the
survey during that particular subject, regardless of class period.
Choose the method that allows for as close to 100 percent of the
students being surveyed as possible. Avoid class periods during
which students are more apt to be absent, such as first period or
at the end of the day (when some students are dismissed for jobs
or off-campus classes).

For larger school systems, a random sample may be used. In the
random sample process, the most critical task of the coordinator
is to ensure that the students selected to participate are
representative of all students in the grade levels involved. The
quality of the study hinges on this process, so great care needs to
be taken. There are two basic approaches to random sampling:

(1) Sampling Students. In this method, you randomly select as
many names as you need for the study from the roster of all
students at a designated grade level. Search Institute can help
you determine the number of students to survey and the method
for selecting students. Using this method means that the selected
students will need to be released from their regular class activity
and gathered in one location for the survey administration.

(2) Sampling by Classroom. To determine the number of
classrooms needed, first consult with Search Institute regarding
an adequate sample size. If, for example, it is determined that
250 8th-grade students should be surveyed, determine the
number of classrooms this number represents. If there are
approximately 25 students per classroom, you will need about 10
classrooms of 8th-grade students. Select a class subject that all
8th-grade students must take, regardless of achievement level
(e.g., English, Social Studies). To randomly select these ten
classes, assign numbers to all of the classes in that subject area.
write each number on a separate piece of paper, mix up the
numbers, and select ten numbers. It is very important to select
classes randomly and equally important not to select a
subject deslgned for specific achievement levels.

Search Institute will work with you to design a sampling frame for
your study. This is particularly important when, in large studies,
individual school reports may be requested in addition to an
overall aggregate report. The number of students surveyed will
depend upon the type of report(s) to be generated.

Sp‘eclal administration procedures may be necessary in some
cases, such as students with learning or physical disabilities or for
whom English is a second language.

Because of the sensitive nature of the A88 survey and the
potential self-report of illegal behavior, the primary concern in
survey administration must be to maintain the anonymity of each
student's responses. In some cases, a disability (such as
blindness) may prevent a student from participating, since it would
not be possible for her or his responses to be anonymous with a
paper—pencil survey format and since other formats (such as
computer or Braille versions) are not available. In other cases,

149

 

 

PARENT CONSENT

special arrangements may be made to facilitate participation.
Some examples follow.

Students with learning disabilities (L0). The survey
administrator may read the survey aloud to a group of students or
to an individual. To protect the students' answers from being
seen, a screen may be used to separate the survey administrator
from the students. It Is important that students with learning
disabilities take the survey in a room with minimal distractions.

In addition to reading the survey aloud, the survey administrator
may define words or concepts not understood by the student(s).

It may be that the students will need assistance only through the
first few questions, until they are comfortable with the survey
format. In this case, the survey administrator may read aloud the
first few questions and response options, and after that, be
available to answer questions of individual students. For larger
groups of students with special needs, perhaps more than one
person could be available in the room to respond to Individual
student questions.

Students for whom English Is a second language (ESL).
Currently the A88 survey is available In English only. While a
school may want to verbally translate the instructions as well as
the questions and response options, Search Institute cannot
guarantee the scientific quality of data collected through this
process. Search Institute does not allow translated versions of
the survey to be provided to students in print and subsequently
transferred to the English form. This method jeopardizes student

anonymity, data quality, and copyright.

In all cases, consult with your school district's ESL or L0 program
coordinator.

Under newly enacted federal law known as the No Child Left
Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), the type of consent required for a
study in the public school setting depends on whether the study is
funded in whole or in part by any program administered by the
US. Department of Education. Note that the consent
requirements below apply only to public schools and educational
institutions that receive funding from the US. Department of
Education. These requirements do not apply to schools which do
not receive federal funding.ln general, one of the following two
methods for obtaining parental consent must be used.

. Passive consent (opt out) is requested when parents are
asked to fill out a form or call the school if they do 92! want
their child to participate in the study. Consent is assumed if no
such request is made.

. Positive (or active) consent is requested when parents are
informed that they _m_us_>t return a signed permission slip for
their child to participate in the study. Consent cannot be
assumed if no form is returned.

If the study is funded in whole or in part by any program
administered by the US. Department of Education, the school
must obtain “the prior written consent of the parent'—-i.e., the
“positive consent" of the parent as defined above.

150

SSH

 

PARENT CONSENT
(cont.)

lfthestudyisnotfundedinwholeorinpartbyanypl’ogfam
administered by the US. Department of Education, the school
must give parents the opportunity to ”opt out” of the study—la,
obtain “passive consent“ as defined above. In addition, NCLB
requires that schools establish, In consultation with parents,
written policies which require that:

1. parents are notiﬁed and have an opportunity to inspect
related materials, whenever a survey will be given that has
been created by a third party or may touch on protected
categories of sensitive information;

2. parents receive annual notice of procedures, at the
beginning of the school year, for exercising their rights under
these notification and inspection policies;

3. parents may “opt out” of participation in third~party surveys
(non-Dept. of Ed. funded) containing any of the sensitive
subject areas outlined in NCLB.

Regardless of the method required, Search Institute recommends
that parents be as fully informed as possible about the survey.
Information that is shared with parents should include:

. Why the survey is being done;
0 How and when it will be administered;

0 In what format the findings are reported (i.e., in aggregate form
only, not by individual students);

0 Whether (or how) the findings will be shared with the
community at large;

a That a student's grades will m); be affected by her or his
participation or nonparticipation; and

o How nonparticipating students wil be handled (e.g., removed
from the classroom to a study hall).

When positive consent is required, additional pre-survey lead time
is needed for receiving signed consent forms. Initial response
rates tend to be low, so follow-up procedures are generally
needed. The quality of the data is dependent on a high response
rate.

As noted above, under federal law, students have the right to
refuse participation. Encourage parﬁcipation by noting the
importance of the study, how the information will be used, and
methods for ensuring anonymity. Do not mandate participating.
(See Administration Instructions, Appendix 8.)

The survey coorcﬁnator should provide survey administrators with
the names of students for whom parental consent has not been
received. Special arrangements may be made to remove
students to another setting or nonparticipating students may be
instructed to study at their desks.

Sample positive and passive consent letters for parents (which
are intended to be adapted to fit your study) are found in

151

 

STUDENT CONSENT

CHOOSING THE SURVEY DATE

SURVEY ADMINISTRATORS

Appendix C. A one-page fact sheet (Appendix D) about Search
Institute and the survey may be duplicated and sent to parents.

Please note that local regulations and state law may also govern
the administration of student surveys. School administrators are
strongly encouraged to review these laws and regulations before
proceeding with the study.

For more information regarding federal legislation on parental
consent, see the resources listed in Appendix E.

As part of the survey administration procedures, students are
informed that the survey is voluntary. In addition students are
informed that they may skip items if they so choose. Encourage
participation by noting the importance of the study, how the
information will be used, and methods for ensuring anonymity, but
do not mandate participation. Students are also told that this is
not a survey they take for school grades. (See Administration
Instructions, Appendix 8.) $39.: however, th_at students canggt
be instructed to skip sgcific items on the survey as this lnterferes
with the scoring and analysis of the report. Search Institute wil
not process surveys for students who have been given such
instructions.

For more information regarding federal legislation on parent and
student consent, see Appendix E.

Several factors will inﬂuence when the survey administration
should take place, Including the length of time required for
approval by key decision makers, amount of time needed for
parental consent, and the school calendar.

Choose a time (1) that is not immediately following summer
vacation or a major holiday period, (2) when the greatest
percentage of students will be in school (not on a field trip or
involved in a special program), (3) when it is most convenient for
teachers to have the survey done in their classrooms, and (4)
when it does not interfere with or conflict with other surveys being
conducted with the same population.

Let all people potentially affected know the date well in advance.
If several schools are involved in a study, coordinate times so that
administration dates are within the same general time period
(within two weeks, if possible).

For each classroom chosen to participate in the survey, the
survey coordinator needs to designate a survey administrator.
Most often survey administrators are classroom teachers or
school counselors. You may also use volunteers or other school
personnel, but they should be comfortable in a classroom setting
and able to maintain a serious atmosphere during survey
administration.

If at all possible, the survey coordinator should provide an
opportunity for survey administrators to get together and discuss
both the administration procedures and the survey. If a meeting
of this type is not possible, a copy of the survey and
administration instructions should be distributed to survey
administrators in advance of the survey data. An important

152

MATERIALS NEEDED

element in the success of the survey process is helping survey
administrators understand the importance of the survey Itself, as
well as the importance of following the survey administration
procedure.

If the survey administrator is someone other than the classroom
teacher, the coordinator may determine whether the teacher
should also stay in the classroom.

For each survey session/classroom, the survey coordinator
provides to the survey administrator the following materials:
oSUrvey forms (1 per student);

oPencils (#2 or softer; 1 per student);

-A large envelope (1 per classroom); and

oAdministration Instructions (1 per classroom, Appendix 8).

In order to protect the anonymity of students, all survey forms are
placed in the envelope at the end of the survey administration
session. The envelope is sealed in front of the students and
ultimately returned to Search Institute for processing.

If it is helpful to your check—in process, the survey coordinator
may request that each survey administrator write the following
information on the envelope:

oSchool name (if more than one is participating in the study);
oSurvey administrator's name;

oDate;

Subject and class period; and

Grade level(s) in classroom.

This Is particularty helpful and may be essential if more than one
school is participating in the study. If more than one school
participates and individual school reports are to be prepared,
each envelope M be clearly marked with the school name.
Also enclose a cover letter detailing the specific reports being
requested.

153

IV. MAILING THE COMPLETED SURVEYS

 

The final task is to collect all the envelopes from the survey administrators and ship them to Search

Institute.

 

SHIPPING INSTRUCTIONS

After all survey envelopes have been returned to the survey
coordinator, he or she then needs to complete the two-sided
Survey Administration Form. (Use the one enclosed in your
original shipment from Search Institute or copy the form found in
Appendix F.)

. Processing of your report will be delayed if the Survey Administration Form(s) is not included with

your shipment.

. If individual school reports are to be generated, surveys must be separated and labeled. Also,
enclose a cover letter detailing the specific reports being requested.

Place survey envelopes in one or more boxes and ship to Search
Institute using a carrier that allows you to track your packages
should they be lost in transit (e.g., UPS, certified mail, the water
used by your school district).

Ship to Search Institute at the following address:

Search Institute
The Banks Building
Attn: Survey Services Department
615 First Street N.E., Suite 125
Minneapolis, MN 55413

Your report(s) will be mailed to the survey coordinator
approximately 10 weeks after all completed surveys are received
at Search Institute.

Note: As indicated on the classroom survey administration
Instructions, in order to maintain the confidentiality of student
responses, survey forms are destroyed 90 days after they have
been scanned. Requests to return completed survey forms to the
school or other agency/individual will not be accommodated.

154

V. DISSEMINATION OF SURVEY DATA AND REPORT FINDINGS

 

 

Dissemination of survey data and report findings is at the discretion of the contracting party. The
following information outlines Search lnstitute's commitment to maintaining confidentiality and the
contractor’s authority regarding dissemination of survey findings.

 

CONFIDENTIALITY OF SURVEY CLIENTS

DATA, AND REPORTS

Search Institute will treat all survey reports as confidential. The
Institute will not release the names of organizations/schools that
use the survey, raw data or copies of report(s) without prior
written permission to do so. Because the date upon which the
report is based can be used to advance the understanding of
adolescent development, Search Institute reserves the right to
add the data from your study to its larger developmental assets
database.

DISSEMINATION OF SURVEY FINDINGS

AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Your survey report (titled Developmental Assets: A Proﬁle of Your
Youth) is copyrighted by Search Institute. You may photocopy
and distribute your report in its entirety for informational and
educational purposes. In addition, figures 1 through 19 may be
reproduced or adapted to other formats (such as brochures, web
sites, PowerPoint presentations) provided that Search Institute is
cited as the source of the information and the developer of the
framework of developmental assets.

The text and appendices contained in the full report may not be
reproduced as part of any adaptations, mechanical or electronic.

The Executive Summary is also copyrighted by Search Institute.
You may photocopy, adapt and distribute your Executive
Summary in print and electronic formats for informational and
educational purposes provided that Search Institute is cited as the
source of the information and the developer of the framework of
developmental assets.

155'

 

 

Appendix A
Appendix 8

Appendix C

Appendix D

Appendix E

Appendix F

APPENDICES

Checklist for Survey Coordinators
Classroom Administration Instructions

Sample Active Parental Consent Letter
and
Sample Passive Parental Consent Letter

Fact Sheet for Parents

Informational Resources Regarding Federal
Parent Consent Requirements

Survey Administration Form

156

 

APPENDIX A

CHECKLIST FOR SURVEY COORDINATORS

157

Search Institute Proﬁles Institute of Student Life;
Attitudes and Behaviors

Checklist for Survey Coordinators

The following checklist is intended to be used as a guide to assist survey coordinators in implementing the Search
Institute Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors survey. The numbers in parentheses refer to page
numbers in the administration manual. While there are some basic and very important steps to follow when
administering the survey, you may find that not all of these steps apply to your situation, or you may need to add
additional steps. Extra space has been provided at the end of each section for that purpose. While there is an
implied order in these steps, each community study will vary to some extent. Remember that it is very important to
refer back to the administration manual for a more thorough explanation of the survey process.

 

Checklist for Implementation of the Attitudes and Behaviors Survey

 

Steps for Implementation School School School Notes

 

 

 

 

 

DiscussioniBuy—inlApproval for Survey Administration (These groups are suggestions. Some may not
apply to your study, and/or you may need to add others.)

 

Parent QTOUJS (PTA/PTO)

 

Youth

 

 

Accountability committees

 

Local coalitions/task forces

 

Faith institutions

 

Law enforcement/government

 

Business sector

 

School board

 

Superintendent(s)

 

Principals

 

Teachers

 

Other:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parent Consent (Please refer to pages 10-11 and Appendix E in the administration manual. it will be
important to determine whether or not parental consent Is mandated. at a federal, state or local level.)

 

Decisions re: parent notiﬁcation or consent

 

Methods for notifying parents (letter, newsletter,
consent form)

 

Survey available for parent review

 

Contact person assigned to answer questions
from parents

 

If needed: follow-up procedures determined

 

Other:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sampling of Students (Although surveying the total population is preferable, sampling may be a more .
feasible option in some circumstances. Refer to pages 8-9 in the administration manual for further .
information. Search Institute will provide assistance In determininLn adequate sample size. )

 

Obtain student count by grade for each
participating school

 

Discuss options with Search Institute re:
sampling by school, grade, classroom, roster

 

Determine method for survey administration
(e g., by class subject, class period, etc.)
Other:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

158

Checklist for Survey Coordinators
Page 2

 

Logistics of Administration (Refer to the noted pages in the administration manual for further
Information.) ' , . -

 

Parent notiﬁcation/permission performed (pg.
10-11 and Appendix C)

 

Survey coordinator(s) recruited (pg. 8)

 

Classroom teachers recruited/briefed (pg. 12
and Appendix B)

 

Accommodations made for special needs
students (ESL, LDJ (pg. 9—10)

 

Date(s) selected for administration (pg. 11)

 

Pencils, envelopes, surveys provided to
classroom administrators (pg. 12)

 

Decisions made re: types of reports needed
(e.g., by county, district, school building)

 

Preparation made for shipping completed
surveys to Search Institute (pg. 13)

 

Other:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sharing survey results with others (Detennlne the audiences and methods for disseminating survey
results. See Section V, page 14, Dissemination of Survey Data and Report Findings.)

 

Audiences:
Educators/administrators

 

Parents

 

Youth

 

Committees

 

Community leaders

 

Faith institutions

 

Media

 

Community-at-Iarge

 

Other

 

 

 

 

Methods:

 

Town meeting(§)

 

News media

 

School newsletter/letter to parents

 

School assembly

 

Other:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

159

APPENDIX B

CLASSROOM ADMINISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS

 

 

160

Search Institute Proﬁles of Student Life:
Attitudes and Behaviors

Classroom Administration Instructions

 

 

Note: In a study of this kind, it is important to have a standardized administration format so that procedures are
consistent across the study. Therefore, where verbal instructions are given below, try to give them as written. I
You may simplify language when appropriate.

 

Introductory Procedure

1) As quickly as possible after the class period begins, bring the class to attention. Students should be given
about 50 minutes to complete the survey. Although many students may ﬁnish In less time, it Is particularly
important to allow students in lower grade levels adequate time for completing the survey.

2) If you are not the students' regular classroom teacher, introduce yourself (or be introduced by the teacher)
and begin by saying:

 

. Our school is involved in a very important study of student attitudes and behaviors. The
purpose of this study is to help our school and town better understand the needs of our
young people. By taking this survey seriously and by answering honestly, you play an
important role in this effort.

. There are a couple of important things you need to know. The survey is ﬁlled out
anonymously. This means there are no identification numbers on the survey and you
should not put your name on the survey booklet. No one will know which survey booklet
you ﬁlled out, and therefore no one can know how you answer these questions. Also the
survey is voluntary which means you do not have to take it, and you may skip an item if
you choose. This is not a test you take for school grades.

. I will now give each of you a survey form. Please do' not open it until i tell you to do so.
Remember: The survey is not a test, and it is important that you answer the questions
honestly.

3) Then, ask the students to follow along as you read the two paragraphs on the front page of the survey.

. Your answers on this questionnaire will be kept strictly confidential. DO NOTput your
name on this form. It has no code numbers, so no one will be able to find out how you
or anyone else answered. Your school will receive a report that combines many
students’ answers together. Therefore, no one will be able to connect your answers with
your name.

. This is not a test you take for school grades. You are just being asked to tell about
yourself, your experiences, and your feelings. Please be as honest as you can.

4) When done reading the paragraphs, continue by saying:

. At the end of the class period, I will ask you to place your survey in this envelope [hold
up the envelope]. Then I will seat the envelope. Neither I nor anyone else in this school
will look at the surveys. They will be sent to Search Institute in Minneapolis. All of the
surveys will be scored together to give an overall picture of our school. Then the
surveys will be destroyed.

 

. Look, now, at the section called “Important Marking Directions. "

161

Search Institute Proﬁles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors
Administration Instructions - 2

5) Read these instructions aloud.

. Use black lead pencil only.

. Do NOT use ink or ballpoint pens.

. Make heavy black marks that fill the circle.

. Erase cleanly any answer you wish to change.

. Do not make any stray marks on the questionnaire.
6) Then say:

if you have any questions during the survey, raise your hand, and i will try to answer them.
You have [if of] minutes to do the survey. If you finish early, remain in your seat and use
your time to study. If you do not finish the survey, I will collect it anyway at the end of the
period. You may begin.

Concluding Procedure

1) During the survey period, announce when there are 10 minutes remaining and when there are 5 minutes
remaining.

2) Collect all surveys by the end of the period. When the bell rings, all survey forms should be in the envelope.
Seal the envelope in front of the students. Do not make special arrangements for students to ﬁnish later or
on their own. The hard and fast rule Is to collect all forms by the end of the period.

3) After you seal the envelope. thank the class for its help.

Final Instructions

1) If requested by the survey coordinator, label the envelopes in the Upper left-hand comer with the following
information:
- School name
. Your name
- Date
- Class period and subject
- Grade level(s) in classroom

2) Return the envelope to the location designated by the survey coordinator.

Additional Directions
1) If a student comes in late, you may let her or him take the survey if at least 20 minutes remain.
2) If a student does not want to take the survey, that is her or his right. Do not mandate participation. Your

survey coordinator may have a designated room or location for nonparticipating students. If not, ask the
student to study quietly at her or his desk.

162

APPENDIX C

SAMPLE ACTIVE PARENTAL CONSENT LETTER
AND
SAMPLE PASSNE PARENTAL CONSENT LETTER

163

Sample Active Parental Consent Letter

 

l Note: This letter is intended to be placed on school letterhead. Information in L1 is to be provided by the school.

Dear Parent or Guardian:

On [date], our school [district] will conduct a very important study on the needs, attitudes and behaviors of
our students in grades I |.

The survey is titled Search Institute Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors. It will provide our
school and community with a wide range of information, such as how students spend their time, their
perceptions of school and community life, and their participation in a wide range of risky behaviors. Most
important, the survey will tell us the extent to which our students are experiencing developmental assets.
Developmental assets are the “building blocks" of positive relationships, opportunities, skills and values
that young people need to grow into healthy caring, and responsible adults. The survey results wﬂl help
all of us as we seek to address the developmental needs of our youth. [Give specifics about how the
information will be used, how it will be shared with others, and/or information on your local Healthy
Community - Healthy Youth initiative, if applicable. ]

Additional information

0 Students will be given one full class period in which to complete the survey. The surveys are
completed anonymously. No one will know how individual students respond to the questions.

0 All students within each classroom place their completed surveys into one envelope. The envelope is
then sealed. All envelopes from our school are sent directly to Search Institute (Minneapolis) for
processing. No one at our school will review any of the completed surveys.

- The ﬁnal report will present ﬁndings by the total group, by grade, and by gender. No individual
student data are reported.

Students are told that their participation is voluntary and that they can skip items if they so choose.
The survey is not a test they take for school grades, and their grades will not be affected if they
choose not to participate. Nonparticipating students will be [e.g., asked to go to a study hall; asked to
study quietly at their desk].

In order for your child to participate in the study, we must receive your signed consent. The form at the
bottom of this page allows you to say yes or no to your child's participation. Please give serious
consideration to this request. The value of a study of this kind depends upon the participation of every
student. If no consent form is received from you, your child cannot participate in the study.

A copy of the survey is available for your review in the [location] between [days and time]. [A stamped
envelope is provided for your convenience in returning this consent form] Consent forms must be
returned by [date]. If you have any questions, please contact [person and title] at [phone, days, times].
Thank you.

Sincerely,

Name
Title

 

Cl Yes, I give permission for my child to participate in the Attitudes and Behaviors survey.

D No, I do not give permission for my child to participate in the Attitudes and Behaviors survey.

 

 

 

Child's name (please print) Grade level
School
Parent's signature Date

 

 

164

Sample Passive Consent Letter For Parents

 

l Note: This letter is intended to be placed on school letterhead. Information in [ ] is to be provided by the school.

 

Dear Parent or Guardian:

On [date], our school [district] will conduct a very important study on the needs, attitudes, and behaviors
of our students in grades I ].

The survey is titled Search Institute Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors. it will provide our
school and community with a wide range of information. such as how students spend their time, their
perceptions of school and community life, and their participation in a wide range of risky behaviors. Most
important, the survey will tell us the extent to which our students are experiencing developmental assets.
Developmental assets are the “building blocks" of positive relationships, opportunities, skills and values
that young people need to grow into healthy caring, and responsible adults. The survey results will help
all of us as we seek to address the developmental needs of our youth. [Give speciﬁcs about how the
information will be used, how it will be shared with others, and/or information on your local Healthy
Community - Healthy Youth initiative, if applicable.)

AdditimLWomaﬁon

- Students will be given one full class period in which to complete the survey. The surveys are
completed anonymously. No one will know how individual students respond to the questions.

0 All students within each classroom place their completed surveys into one envelope. The envelope is
then sealed. All envelopes from our school are sent directly to Search Institute (Minneapolis) for
processing. No one at our school will review any of the completed surveys.

. The final report will present findings by the total group, by grade, and by gender. No individual
student data are reported.

Students are told that their participation is voluntary and that they may skip items if they so choose.
The survey is not a test they take for school grades, and their grades will not be affected if they
choose not to participate. Nonparticipating students will be [e.g., asked to go to a study hall; asked to
study quietly at their desk]. '

Please give serious consideration for your child to participate in this study. A copy of the survey is
available for your review in the [location] between [days and time]. The value of a study of this kind
depends upon the participation of every student.

If you do not want your child to participate, you must return the form at the bottom of this letter by [date].
If no form is received. your child will be asked to participate in the study.

If you have any questions, please contact [person] at [phone, days, times].
Thank you.
Sincerely,

Name
Title

 

Please withdraw my child from participation in the Attitudes and Behaviors survey.

 

 

 

Child's name (please print) Grade level
School
Parent‘s signature Date

 

 

165

APPENDIX D

FACT SHEET FOR PARENTS

166

Fact Sheet for Parents Regarding
Search Institute Proﬁles of Student Life:
Attitudes and Behaviors

Search Institute

Founded in 1958, Search Institute Is an independent nonproﬁt, nonsectarian organization whose mission
is to advance the well being of children and adolescents by generating knowledge and promoting its
application. To accomplish this mission, the Institute generates, synthesizes, and communicates new
knowledge, convenes organizational and community leaders, and works with state and national
organizations to support the healthy development of children and adolescents.

Search Institute Proﬁles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors Survey (MB)

The A&B survey provides schools and communities with a portrait of the attitudes, behaviors, and needs
of its youth. The survey has been administered in over 1000 communities and to well over 1 million
students in urban, suburban, and rural settings. The survey contains 156 questions about school climate.
parent and school boundaries and expectations, and structured time use, and a wide range of risky
behaviors.

Common Concerns
Some of the questions parents may ask are these:
By taking the survey, will my child be encouraged to try some of the risk behaviors it addresses?

There is no evidence to indicate that asking questions about risk behaviors encourages young people to
become involved in those behaviors. Also, there are many federal regulations speciﬁcally addressing the
protection of people involved in research of all types, including survey research conducted in public
school settings. Protection of parent and student rights is very important to Search Institute and we
comply with all appropriate federal regulations. We also take great care to provide information about
applicable federal regulations to any organization using our survey service.

How do you know whether students are answering truthfully?

Search Institute uses several methods for looking at each survey to determine whether students are
answering truthfully. For example, the computer looks for inconsistencies In the way students respond to
similar questions, unrealistically high substance use, and too many unanswered items. Surveys with
these kinds of problems are not used in the report ﬁndings. The percentage of surveys removed from
individual school or community studies has remained consistent over time and generally falls into the 5 to
8 percent range. When too many surveys are being eliminated, the resulting data may not be of good
quality; and Search Institute may make the decision that a report cannot be generated.

Will anyone know how my child answers the quesdons?

Anonymity is a very important issue for surveys like this. In its 40 years of work in this area, Search
Institute has created careful procedures to ensure that no student's results can be traced back to an
individual student. Students do not put their names on the surveys and there are no hidden Identiﬁcation
marks on the surveys. Thus, the surveys are completed anonymously.

As students complete their surveys, they place them in one envelope that is sealed at the end of the class
period. The survey coordinator collects the envelopes from each class and ships them to Search Institute
for analysis.

All ﬁndings are reported in aggregate form only by combining student responses by grade and by gender.
No individual student responses are reported.

167

APPENDIX E

INFORMATIONAL RESOURCES REGARDING
PARENT CONSENT

168

Informational Resources Regarding
Parent Consent

Family Policy Compliance Ofﬁce
US. Department of Education

400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC. 20202-4605
http'J/www.ed.govlofiices/OM/fpcol

State Departments of Education, for example:
www.isbe.state.il.uslnclbldefault.htm
www.cde.ca.gov/prlnclbi
www.emsc.nysed.gov/deputy/nclbl
www.state.nj.uslnjdedlgrantslnclb
www.pde.state.pa.uslnclb/siteldefault.asp

00000

169

APPENDIX F

SURVEY ADMINISTRATION FORM

170

Search Institute Proﬁles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors
Survey Administration Form

(This form must be returned with your completed surveys.)

Survey Coordinator Information

 

 

 

 

 

 

Name Title

Org Address

City State ZIP
Phone Fax

 

 

School Representative Information (if different from above)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Name Title

School Address

City State ZIP
Phone Fax

 

 

Please provide the following Information for m school participating in the survey.

School or Grades in Date Agency Type'

Agency Name City/T own Zip County Building Admin (circle one)
Pu Pr R N
Pu Pr R
Pu Pr R
Pu Pr R
Pu Pr R
Pu Pr R
Pu Pr R
Pu Pr R
Pu Pr R

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ZZZZZZZZ

 

What grade levels were surveyed?
(Check all that apply and provide estimated numbers.)

0 Grade 6 Estimated it of students in grade Estimated it surveyed
D Grade 7 Estimated it of students in grade Estimated it surveyed
D Grade 8 Estimated it of students in grade Estimated it surveyed
D Grade 9 Estimated it of students in grade Estimated # surveyed
D Grade 10 Estimated it of students in grade Estimated it surveyed
CI Grade 11 Estimated it of students in grade Estimated it surveyed
CI Grade 12 Estimated if of students in grade Estimated ii surveyed
‘Aoency type:
Pu = Public school Pr = Private, nonreligious school R = Private, religious school N = Nonschool agency

(over)

171

Survey Administration Form

Page 2

Which of the following methods did you use to select participants?

Cl

C]

All students surveyed in speciﬁed grades.

Random sample of students

 

Describe method of randomly selecting students:

 

Random sample of classrooms
Course(s) selected for survey administration:

 

 

Average number of classrooms selected oer grade:
Describe method of randomly selecting classrooms:

 

 

Did you experience any difficulties in conducting the survey? (Check all that apply and ﬁll In the

blanks.)

0
CI

0

No
High absenteeism in grade(s) due to:

 

 

Lack of student cooperation due to:

 

Lack of teacher cooperation due to:
Other:

 

 

 

Did you Inform parents of the study and/or request signed consent forms?

D

D

No notiﬁcation/consent process was used.

Yes, parents were informed of the survey administration.
Describe method used (e.g., newsletter, take-home letter):

 

Yes, passive consent was used, in which parents were given the option of withdrawing
their child from the study.
Grade level(s) for which passive consent was used:
Number of consent letters mailed:
Number of students withdrawn from the survey

 

Yes. active consent was required for students to participate.
Grade level(s) for which permission was required:
Number of consent letters mailed:

Number of students granted permission to participate:

 

172

 

 

The Banks Building

searCl I 615 First Avenue NE.
Suite 125

Minneapolis.MN
INSTITUTE 55413

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phone: 612-376-8955
Toll Free: 1-800-888-7828
Fax: 612-376-8956

Administration Manual
Search Institute Proﬁles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors

Copyright © 2003 Search Institute, Minneapolis, MN. All rights reserved.

173

 

 

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