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Social Psychology of Education 3: 139, 1999. 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Underestimating Youths Commitment to Schools and Society: Toward a More Differentiated View
THOMAS L. GOOD, SHARON L. NICHOLS and DARRELL L. SABERS
University of Arizona

Abstract. Many media reports contend that American youth are dangerous, self-possessed, and care too little about their personal education or the broader society. Not only are youth criticized, but their teachers and schools are subjected to exaggerated criticism. We argue that the average, undifferentiated view of youth as presented by the media is inaccurate and pejorative. Researchers have added to the chorus of unfounded negative assertions about youth and their schools. As an example, Laurence Steinberg, in Beyond the Classroom, argued that American students levels of academic achievement were woefully inadequate. He argued that students did not do enough homework, that they cheated, and that pervasive, negative peer pressure undermined academic achievement. The purpose of our study was to examine students attitudes and perceptions in three major areas cheating, homework, and peer pressure. Using data from over 700 students drawn from one public high school and one junior high school, our results indicated that students beliefs and norms concerning cheating, homework, and peer pressure varied widely in terms of gender, GPA, and school context. Our data failed to replicate the ndings from Beyond in that (a) our average ndings were more positive than those reported in that study, and (b) we showed that the reporting of average was highly misleading. Our ndings provided evidence that one cannot describe American students in a general, sweeping way. Average statements about youth, especially adolescent youth, are apt to be very misleading.

Introduction Recently, the media has been ravaged by claims of manufactured stories and sloppy work in checking the accuracy of reported data. For example, reporters writing for the Boston Globe and the New Republic have been red for fabricating stories, people, and quotations (McFeatters, 1998). In this paper, we deal with one target of inaccurate media reporting youth and their education. According to much of the media, American youth are dangerous, self-possessed, and care too little about their personal education or the broader society. Descriptions of youth are primarily negative and often present scathing critiques of their behavior and attitudes (e.g., drug-use, physical violence). Contemporary media (television accounts, lms, newspaper and magazine articles, cartoons, etc.) often present youth as lacking in morality and civic responsibility (Giroux, 1996; Youniss & Yates, 1997). Youth are criticized about many aspects of their lives from poor school achievement to low personal morality. Not only are youth criticized, but their teachers and schools are subjected to exaggerated criticism. Although the

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medias excessive condemnation of teachers and schools constitutes an important part of the contemporary social context, the major focus of this paper will be on the representation of adolescents, especially adolescents in school. In this paper, we rst argue that an average, undifferentiated view of youth as presented in the media is both inaccurate and pejorative. We then argue that these undifferentiated views of youth and schools (largely negative in tone and presented void of any context) are not only misleading characterizations but also lead to inappropriate strategies for treating youth and school improvement. The systemic communication of low expectations about the ability and commitment of youth, teachers, and schools has unfortunate consequences for morale, performance, and funding. Further, we examine illustrative examples to show how the media and popular press sometimes present misleading depictions of youth that y in the face of research ndings and illustrate how research reports may contribute to the problem. As an example, we cite a book by Steinberg et al. (1996), Beyond the Classroom, which illustrates problems of undifferentiated reporting. Finally, we present ndings from two studies we conducted that explore students perceptions of and behavioral orientations toward schooling which challenge claims made in Beyond the Classroom and illustrate how educational researchers and social scientists can contribute to poor communication by relying too heavily on the concept of average. Average and Negative Depictions
YOUTH AND SOCIAL ISSUES

One columnist recently contended that television news programming has been instrumental in creating an inaccurate image making America appear to be under siege by armies of teenagers (Jackson, 1997). The medias bias against youth was illustrated in a recent report from the Berkeley Media Studies Group which analyzed roughly 8,000 television newscasts from 26 different stations in California during the Fall of 1993 (Dorfman, Woodruff, Chavez, & Wallack, 1997). This group found that about 68% of the stories that focused on violence concerned youth violence. Further, 84% of those studies focused on only the salient event (the blood and gore) and provided no contextual information about the crime or any societal issues possibly related to youth crime (e.g., the easy availability of guns and alcohol; the absence of after-school programs). Researchers have contended that the impact of media coverage of violence depends on how stories are depicted. For example, Iyengar (1991) identied news stories as either episodic (showing events without contextual information) or thematic (placing incidents in context). Dorfman et al. (1997) described episodic stories as containing mere facts, details, and narrow descriptions of the crime; whereas, in contrast, thematic stories tend to include not only detailed information about the crime but also information about the circumstances surrounding the incident (e.g., was alcohol involved?) as well as information about public prevention and

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community responses to future similar crimes. Clearly, how a story is reported will differentially affect audience opinion about the crime and crime participants. Indeed, Dorfman et al. (1997) stated that when reporting about youth and youth violence, not only were there a plethora of negative, violent stories about youth, but the episodic framing of the story lead audience members to blame youth. The vilication of youth in the public media is mirrored by many citizens pejorative views of youth. In a recent survey conducted by Public Agenda, Farkas and Johnson (1997) reported that adult Americans primarily describe teenagers and children negatively using the adjectives rude, irresponsible, and wild. Although earlier generations have also been critical of adolescent youth, todays critiques not only appear harsher but also have extended downward to include even children. Although the media and citizen opinions might focus attention on youth poverty and abuse and the minimal, unequal, educational resources that many youth are afforded (Biddle, 1997; Good, 1996; Natriello, 1996; U.S. General Accounting Ofce, 1995a, 1995b), the clear tendency is to blame youth not to understand or to help. The Public Agenda survey makes it clear that many citizens do not worry about the limited resources and low investment in attention and opportunity that youth receive; rather, many Americans worry most about youths character decits. If such conclusions were rare isolated events advocacy for youth would be unnecessary. However, many documents conrm that American citizens are actively concerned about the moral values of youth. As a case in point, a 24member, non-partisan panel of leading citizens authored a 1998 report entitled, A call to civil society: Why democracy needs moral truths (Associated Press, 1998). Although this report decried a supposed general decline in the social morality of Americans, part of its focus targeted a supposed lack of morality among American youth. And to combat this, the report called for supporting charter schools, character education programs, and parental school choice. In contrast, the report did not call for more direct investments in youth (e.g., expanded afternoon programs). As suggested above, such depictions of youth are episodic in nature. A more thematic approach might consider a range of social and contextual issues related to youth and their supposed lack of morality. Indeed, the recent saliency of youth crime as reported in the media from an episodic perspective (e.g., the Jonesboro and Springeld murders of teens by teens) suggests that teens are solely to blame for these heinous acts, thus youths morality is rapidly declining. Although teens should be held accountable for their actions, we also suspect that thematic issues lie behind such incidents (e.g., easy access to guns, lack of parental supervision, and need for more school counselors). Thus, attention is focused on youth as scapegoat targets rather than on issues one might do something about such as violence prevention, reducing gun accessibility, and improving community resources. Critics of youth have expressed concerns about youths many putative failings. In particular, youths self-centeredness and irresponsibility have received notable

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comment. However, we cannot nd any data to support the claim that todays youth, as a group, are more self-centered and irresponsible than youth of previous eras. Indeed, the data, if anything, point to a different conclusion. Research evidence, summarized by Youniss and Yates (1997), suggests that todays youth, when given the chance, are actively involved in community service. These researchers examined both early and contemporary studies concerned with community service and the development of social responsibility in youth. They concluded that youth are diverse and highly differentiated in the ways they participate in their community (i.e., some are altruistic and prosocial; others are not). Such a conclusion, based on extant research, is both more differentiated and more positive than citizens perceptions about youth as indicated by Public Agenda poll data we cited earlier. Additionally, results from a New York Times/CBS News Poll (1998) reveal a general commitment by youth to prosocial behavior. For example, when asked how often they lie to their parents, 6% said never, 55% of the sample said hardly ever, 33% said some, and only 4% said a lot. In terms of alcohol and drug use, 86% of the sample reported that they hardly ever or never drink alcohol, wine, or beer. Similarly, 94% of the sample reported that they hardly ever or never smoke marijuana or pot. This suggests that many youth do not have a character decit. Needless to say, these results received scant attention in the national media. Other data provide additional evidence that youth should not be described in monolithic, negative terms. Other 1998 results from the joint New York Times/CBS poll illustrate that students vary in their perceptions of various academic and social attitudes by gender and age. For example, when students were asked whether they thought growing up is harder, easier, or about the same for them than for their parents, 55% of girls (in contrast to 43% of boys) reported that they thought it was harder. When students were asked how positive or negative they felt about themselves, 39% of girls (in contrast to 54% of boys) felt very positive while, at the other extreme, 10% of girls (in contrast to only 2% of boys) reported feeling very negative about themselves. When asked about cheating on an exam, 58% of the total sample reported yes. However, this time students differed signicantly, depending on their age or gender. For example, 53% of girls versus 62% of boys reported they had cheated on a test or an exam, and 52% of 1315 year olds compared with 67% of 1617 year olds reported they had cheated on a test or an exam.

ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

Indeed, the media have painted an unfair, negative, and monolithic picture of youth morality. Another media attack on youth has centered on the supposed lack of achievement motivation and school performance among young persons. At least since the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983 (National Commission for Excellence in Education, 1983), it has been popular to claim that students inadequate performance in public schools constitutes a threat to national security. Sweeping

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criticism of schooling was manifested in the National Education Summit of 1996 where policy makers (including President Clinton) and business leaders met to discuss possible solutions to a supposed national decline in student achievement. One general solution proposed by Summiteers was a call for higher standards for all students (National Education Summit, 1996). However, as suggested by Sabers and Sabers (1996), a call for higher standards for all students is misdirected, and, as Biddle (1997) argued, the call for vague, higher standards fails to address real, underlying problems for many students, such as unequal public school funding. Media generalizations about students supposedly low academic performance (which lead to sweeping and unsuccessful solutions) fail to consider complex mediating variables of student achievement (such as SES and educational resources) as well as wide variation among students. This general (monolithic) and negative reporting on students achievement presents an inadequate picture of students highly differentiated performance in American schools.

TEACHERS AND SCHOOLS

Youth do not stand alone as victims of a largely negative and often pejorative press. Public schools and teachers are also characterized as inadequate by the media. Various policy documents have characterized teachers and schools in terms of average, and these undifferentiated portrayals are labeled and presented by the media as inadequate characterizations embraced, indeed elaborated on, by those media sources. This is unfair and inaccurate. Despite the popular press and some researchers willingness to emphasize average ndings, research evidence repeatedly nds that the performance of American students, teachers, and schools is widely varied (Brookover, Beady, Flood, Schweitzer, & Wisenbaker, 1979; Good & Brophy, 1986; Rutter, 1983). To know one school or a few schools is not the same as knowing all schools in America for contextual problems, student attendance rates, and achievement vary notably from school to school, even in schools that serve similar student populations. Some schools create high levels of student achievement; some schools generate strongly positive attitudes among students; some schools do both; some do neither (Goodlad, 1983). America has both horrible schools (Kozol, 1991) and successful schools (Rose, 1995). And if this were not a sufcient problem, the impact of individual teachers on students achievement also shows wide variation (see, for example, Good & Weinstein, 1986). But this is hardly surprising since teachers vary in the resources and support they receive. Some teachers teach huge classes in unsafe, unattractive buildings with inadequate supplies. Other teachers teach small classes in attractive settings with ample libraries, modern laboratories, and adequate technological support. In some schools (both rich and poor) the efforts of individual teachers are aided by a school climate of support and mutual concern for student learning, but in other schools the collegial climate fosters isolation and negativism (Rosenholtz, 1989).

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Although considerable evidence has appeared suggesting that the media have greatly overstated the general failure of American students in comparison to those in other countries (Berliner & Biddle, 1995; Bracey, 1991; Sandia National Laboratories, 1993), today the media continue to focus on student problems while ignoring student success. Indeed, as Berliner and Biddle (1998) argue, the media has played an overarching role in societys negative and narrow perceptions of youth. They outline specic instances wherein the media is guilty of episodic reporting, not only by failing to comment on contextual issues specic to the story, but also by failing to consider broader cultural and societal issues that have relevance to their reports. Others, too, have commented upon the fact that the media, including even government reports, focus on problems to such an extent that a fair appraisal of American students and their schools is not presented to the public (Gough, 1994). Indeed, an entire book has been published that bears tribute to the irresponsibility of the press when it comes to education (Maeroff, 1998). Although some writers have attempted to bring some of the successes of American education to public attention, the tendency to believe and to report the worst about American youth and their teachers continues. Indeed, some have argued that because of their unrelenting tendency to report only the negative qualities of youth, schools, and teachers, the media have become allies of critics who desire to tear down our public schools (Berliner & Biddle, 1998). Independent of whether a conspiracy or an alliance exists, there are ample data to show that the press is more likely to identify with negative rather than positive aspects of schools and student performance (Rose, Gallup, & Elam, 1997). Further, some claim that the medias distortion of the public school has a negative effect upon citizens beliefs about schools in general but not the perception of schools in their immediate area. Indeed, the authors of a recent Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll conclude that, the low grades given the nations public schools are primarily media-induced. Whereas people learn rst hand about their childrens schools, they learn about the nations schools primarily from the media (Rose, Gallup, & Elam, 1997, p. 47). Recently, the College Board released data which showed that students performance in math was strong and improving while their performance in reading was essentially stable. However, the primary focus of the medias reporting of these recent results has been primarily negative claiming that student performance, although improving in mathematics, is not good enough for the modern world and that grade ination in American schools is rampant. Ironically, news stories about grade ination typically fail to report evidence that many youth appear highly committed to academic achievement. To illustrate, the most recent results from the College Board exams show that the number of youth taking and successfully passing advanced placement exams is at an all-time high. And, in a recent news article it was pointed out that since 1987 the proportion of students with A averages had increased from 28% to 37% (Jameson, 1997). Later, in the same article it was noted that 32,000 students were able to enter college as sophomores or juniors because of their advanced high school work, and that a record 400,000 students

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were entering college with advanced placement credits. Ironically, in this article, no possible connection was made between students receiving As in high school and their advanced placement progress. Is it possible that, in some cases, students actually earned their higher grades? In fact, it seems probable that both things may be true (i.e., there is grade ination, and many students today are exceeding the performance of yesterdays students on advanced placement tests). Yet, the media appear unwilling to deal with complexity, and when they simplify matters, they tend to favor reporting negative slants on youths achievement. As another example of questionable reporting, we cite a headline that appeared on September 1, 1997 in the Arizona Daily Star that preceded a story by Bill Schackner on NAEP test scores which was reprinted from the Pittsburgh PostGazette Although SAT scores fell, number of As increased (Schackner, 1997). This article exhibited at least three problems. Despite its agrantly negative headline, the article revealed that: (a) math SAT scores increased, and (b) reading SAT scores stayed about the same. In addition, although the article discussed issues of grade ination extensively, it (c) failed to report that students made notable progress on advanced placement tests. If we wanted to quibble further, we might also note that high school students scores went up in their math assessment scores (a subject that is taught in high school) and stayed the same in reading (a subject not taught in most high schools). Nor was this the only negatively found media report on the topic. Although some writers were more balanced in their approach (Applebome, 1997), most news stories were decidedly critical in reporting these NAEP results. Or, to cite another example, the recent extraordinary good news that one-fth of American students entering college were eligible for credit through advanced placement was so underreported in the press that we were prompted to obtain the College Board press release on the topic to see if part of the medias interpretation/reporting was due to this primary document (College Board Press Release, 1996). In contrast to newspaper reports, the press release was generally positive in tone. Indeed part of the press release title suggested that the numbers of students obtaining advanced placement credit will increase by 50% by the year 2000. Additionally, the press release included sections on College standards and no grade ination, Participation growing for women and minorities, and Positive role models for teens. Information on these topics was strikingly absent from media reports on students achievement. This suggests that in reporting on grade ination and student achievement, some media writers appear to work hard to recast the news release from a positive and afrming story to one portraying a more negative perspective of youth. It is beyond the scope of this paper to explore in detail the motivation of a public press that exhibits a selective bias for more negative reporting on youth, their teachers, and their schools. This is a complex topic that merits extended treatment elsewhere. Here, we examine only one possible factor that seems to be involved the complexity of educational research and the way educators report their ndings,

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especially when they write for popular audiences. It would appear that the public, press, and social scientists alike need to become more sensitive to diversity to variations among students, teachers, and schools. Given these variations, when it comes to education, the concept of average is often virtually meaningless. To sum up, we have argued for two major conclusions regarding the media. First, current media depictions of youth and education tend to be highly negative in tone. Second, the media tend to describe youth and education in monolithic terms; both are largely described as undifferentiated averages. In many contexts, such depictions are highly misleading. When variability is strikingly large (i.e., when youth behavior is highly variable or there are many good schools and poor schools as well as average schools) portrayals that report only average ndings are highly misleading. Problems in Research Reporting: A Case Example Unfortunately, it is not only policy makers and the media who make sweeping and unfounded policy assertions about youth and their schools. Some researchers also allow themselves to join this chorus of negativism. For example, Laurence Steinberg, the major author of Beyond the Classroom (Steinberg et al., 1996) henceforth referred to as Beyond argued that American students level of academic achievement is woefully inadequate (especially when compared with students in other countries), and this is caused by parent apathy and a peer culture that discourages achievement. Such a conclusion makes questionable assumptions, is negative in tone, and ignores the possibility that youth, their parents, and their peers might differ widely in such matters. Indeed, the reporting in Beyond exemplies the argument that we made earlier about the inadequacies of episodic reporting. Steinberg inadequately described contextual variation within or among schools and students, and this led him to argue that the policy recommendations he proposed should apply to all students and schools. Thus, like the popular press, this publication glamorizes and reies the concept of average. For example, Steinberg wrote: More than one-third of the students we surveyed showed signs of being emotionally disengaged from school, as indexed by measures of mind-wandering, lack of interest, or inattentiveness. Half of the students we surveyed say their classes are boring. A third say they have lost interest in school, that they are not learning very much, and that they get through the school day by fooling around with their classmates. And remember, ours was a sample of average students in average American schools not a sample of high-risk youngsters in high-risk school settings. (p. 71). Although we found it difcult to believe that any sample based on only nine high schools could represent average students in average American schools, we were motivated to explore the technical details of the research sample, ndings, and

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methodology on which Beyond was supposedly based. Accordingly, we explored all the cited articles found in an Appendix in Beyond, which, according to the author, These articles contain technical details about the research design and data analysis (p. 199). In our examination of all listed publications, we could not nd adequate descriptions of the sample or data analysis. In particular, we found no detailed information about within- and between-school variations on the dependent measures nor variation across types of students in different settings. Although Beyond offered some general insights, we judge that its conclusions and policy recommendations were strikingly unjustied and overgeneralized. However, despite our conclusion that the policy statements were too general, often unsupported by data, and in some cases atly wrong, the book quickly proved to be attractive both to the media and educational policy makers (see, for example, Leslie, 1996; Shanker, 1996a, 1996b). Indeed, we wonder if the averages reported in the book describe any individual school in his sample adequately. Unfortunately, claims made in Beyond often paraphrased negative and monolithic judgments about youth that appear frequently in the media today. When describing their supposed results about students cheating, for example, Steinberg wrote: Two-thirds of the students in our sample say they cheated on a school test during the past school year. [And] nearly nine out ten students in our sample say they copied someone elses homework some time during the past year. (p. 18) Such reporting is inherently misleading because there is likely to be variation in both how students dene concepts like cheating (e.g., letting someone copy my test vs. copying someone elses test) and the degree to which they engage in different types of cheating. In addition, they gloss over important denitional issues. Do students dene cheating the same way as adults? And does the type of cheating engaged in differ markedly among students, as it does among adults (who might cheat by underreporting earned income, not paying a parking ticket, exceeding the speed limit, or engaging in seriously illegal or immoral acts). Thus, to make sweeping claims about students cheating without investigating such variations seems irresponsible. Further, it seems likely that the degree of student cheating however dened will vary sharply from student to student, as well as from school to school. Cheating is but one example of the many factors that Steinberg used in exploring youths attitude toward school (other of the many issues raised included students excessively cutting school, parents failure to press students for good grades, low rates of student academic engagement, too little homework, etc.). Another conclusion reached by Steinberg was that the peer culture (as studied in nine American high schools) did not support student achievement, and there was little that parents or schools could do about the situation. Steinberg wrote, The adolescent peer culture in contemporary America demeans academic success and scorns students who try to do well in school. Schools are ghting a losing battle against a peer

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culture that disparages academic success (p. 19). As part of the data provided to defend this argument, Steinberg argued: Fewer than one in ve students say their friends think it is important to get good grades in school. Less than one-fourth of all students regularly discuss their school work with their friends ... nearly 20% of all students say they do not try as hard as they can in school because they are worried about what their friends might think. (p. 19) To conclude that peer groups exert an almost intractable and pernicious effect on students achievement seemed to us both premature and likely wrong. Studies of schools as learning communities have consistently shown wide variation in how students perceive and react to school environments (Battistich, Solomon, Watson, & Schaps, 1997; Shouse, 1996; Solomon, Battistich, Dong-Il, & Watson, 1997). Serious scholarship on peer groups and peer cultures has provided clear evidence that peer cultures have important inuences on student attitudes toward school and academic work. But, peer attitudes toward school work do not constitute a monolithic and unalterable set of forces. Bank (1997), in a comprehensive review of youth in school settings, argued that peer cultures take different forms and that youth are also inuenced by parents and by schools. On the basis of Beyond, many media sources endorsed policy recommendations for schooling and adolescents we thought to be misguided (Leslie, 1996; Shanker, 1996a, 1996b). Thus, it seemed important (a) to examine possible variability in adolescents attitudes toward school more closely, and (b) to assess whether Steinbergs pejorative descriptions of youths attitudes and academic behavioral patterns could be supported. Purpose of This Study The purpose of our study was to examine students attitudes and perceptions in three major areas of focus including cheating, homework, and peer pressure. In Beyond, Steinberg claimed that students do not do enough homework, they cheat, and that pervasive inappropriate peer pressure undermines high student achievement claims that mirror negative judgments about youth frequently made in the media. These claims seemed to us to be overly negative and to ignore variability associated with such forms of youth behavior. Nor were these claims the only examples of negatively toned, overly simple generalizations to be found in Beyond. Indeed, Appendix A provides other examples from Steinberg illustrating these types of claims. We could not take up all of these issues, however, but we decided to assess Steinbergs claims about youth cheating, homework completion, and susceptibility to peer inuence with a new sample of students and high schools. In our study, we addressed two research questions. First, to what extent do the negative conclusions reported by Steinberg about homework, cheating, and peer pressure apply in the new schools we studied. Second, would we nd signicant and substantial variations for these issues among students who differed by schools

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they attended as well as by common demographic features frequently found in research on youth. Our choice of independent variables for our study was straightforward. As noted earlier, considerable evidence has appeared suggesting that youth conduct differs among schools, so we chose two, different schools for our study. In addition, we decided to focus on two demographic variables gender and level of prior academic achievement. Reasons for these latter decisions should be set forth.
GENDER RELATED DIFFERENCES

For some time it has been well known that students attitudes toward school differ as a function of gender. Tenenbaum (1940) collected essays on the topic, Do you like school? from 639 sixth- and seventh-grade students. The ndings indicated that, in general, students liked school; but girls reported more positive affect towards school than boys. Roughly two-thirds of girls had distinctly positive attitudes towards school as compared to slightly less than one-half of the boys. Similar gender ndings have continued to be reported over time (e.g., Jackson, 1968). Further, related ndings have suggested that female students nd schools fairer than do males (e.g., Nichols & Good, 1998). In marked contrast to female students more favorable perceptions of school, a substantial literature has suggested that female students, as a group, receive less academic support from teachers than do male students. Given that researchers continue to nd different patterns of teacher feedback to students and different forms of assigned academic tasks on the basis of student gender, studies that wish to explore students perceptions of schooling should certainly examine gender as a mediating factor (see Jones & Gerig, 1994; Jones & Wheatley, 1990).
PRIOR ACHIEVEMENT

Oddly, despite the obvious fact that some students are consistently more likely to experience academic success, strong relationships between student satisfaction with school and academic achievement have been difcult to establish. In part, this may reect the fact that academic success is but one source of satisfaction in schools. Students are more than academic learners, they are also social beings (McCaslin & Good, 1996). Indeed, in some cases, a students academic success may come at the expense of social relationships (e.g., complying with the teachers request to correct a friends wrong answer may irritate the friend). Similarly, some high-success students may become bored in school, etc. Jackson (1968) tried to explain the absence of a relationship between school satisfaction and achievement this way: Perhaps were attitudes to interact with achievement, they may have to be extreme, and extreme attitudes, either positive or negative, may be much rarer than is commonly thought" (p. 81). However, as Jackson also noted, the lack of a documented relationship between academic

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success and school satisfaction merits our continued attention because it appears to contradict our common sense. And, although the relation between student satisfaction and student achievement may be complex, a substantial eld of research has appeared exploring the effects of student aptitude and achievement on numerous school-related dispositions (see, for example, Gustafsson & Undheim, 1996; Snow, Corno, & Jackson, 1996). This suggested that differences in prior achievement among students will mediate students beliefs and behavior if one asks about specic aspects of school rather than general, normative statements about school and schooling. When students school experiences are placed in a specic context, students behaviors and perceptions (e.g., peer support for academic activity) may be sharply mediated by prior achievement status. To summarize then, in the research we report, we examined how students in a new sample of schools responded to questions about homework, cheating, and peer pressure and how those responses varied depending on the school they attended, their gender, and the level of their prior achievement.

Method
PROCEDURES

Data for the study were collected in two public schools in a Southwestern city one a junior high, the other a senior high school and similar techniques were used for gathering data in the two venues. High School. The data we gathered were part of a larger study exploring youths attitudes. Four questionnaires were developed to obtain a wide range of information from students (and to assess how variations in asking questions might inuence student responses). The items we now report appeared on one of the four forms that were distributed. Permission to conduct the study was obtained from both the principal of the high school and the superintendent of the school district. Parents were informed about the questionnaire study in writing and given the opportunity to refuse their childs participation, and less than 1% did so. Each student was asked to ll out only one form, and procedures were set so that forms were assigned to students randomly. Students were also given Scantron answer sheets to be used for indicating their answers. All questionnaires were handed out on a Thursday morning during second period, because this was reported to be one of the peak attendance times during the week. Upon administration, students were asked to provide honest, thoughtful responses to all questions. Junior High School. In contrast to the high school study, one questionnaire was used that explored students attitudes on a variety of topics including cheating, homework, and peer pressure. Permission was obtained from the principal and the superintendent of the school district. Parents were informed about the questionnaire study in writing and given the opportunity to refuse their childs participation, and

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less than 1% did so. Teachers were given the questionnaire and Scantron answer sheets with a four-day time period to administer it to their students.
PARTICIPANTS

High School. In all, 347 students out of approximately 1,750 students in the school provided data for this study. Student participants were enrolled in Grades 9 through 12. Fifty-two percent were female, and 48% were male. Approximately 4% were African-American, 6% were American-Indian, 3% were Asian-American, 23% were Hispanic-American, 50% were Caucasian-American, 6% were Inter-racially mixed, and about 8% of the students reported their ethnicity as other. Students socioeconomic status was estimated by how they paid for lunch: 46% reported they paid full price, 6% paid reduced price, 15% received a free lunch, 6% brought their lunch, and 25% reported other. Junior High School. Participants included 358 students from the junior high school which was the feeder school for the high school also used in this study. Students ages ranged from 12 to 15 years. Fifty-two percent were male, while 48% were female. Four percent indicated their ethnicity as Black, 25% Hispanic, 2% Native American, 63% White, and 6% reported other as their ethnicity. We again used how students paid for their lunch as a general indicator of SES, and 43% of the students reported that they paid full price, 10% paid reduced price, 25% received a free lunch, 8% brought their own lunch, and 14% indicated other.
INSTRUMENT

Although the questionnaires given to high school and junior high school samples differed in other respects, items analyzed for purposes of this study were the same in both surveys. Items included in the analyses pertained to homework, cheating, and peer pressure perceptions. Specically, there were seven homework items which probed students for information regarding various ways they might dene homework as well as their behavior patterns pertaining to (including the value they placed on) homework see Appendix B (e.g., How many hours per day [on average] do you spend on homework?; It is still considered homework when I nish assignments during school time; If I dont nish homework, it is usually because I dont have time). Similarly, students were asked to indicate how they dened cheating as well as their behavior regarding cheating based on six items see Appendix C (e.g., It is cheating if I copy someone elses test; It is cheating if I copy someone elses homework; I usually cheat on my homework assignments). Lastly, students were asked to indicate their level of agreement based on six items relating to peer pressure see Appendix D (e.g., I am not doing as well as I could because my friends would make fun of me; If I spend a lot of time doing homework, my friends will make fun of me; In terms of academics, I feel pressure to perform in school like my friends). As indicated in the Appendices,

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most questions were to be answered by choosing a response from a four-category, Likert-type scale. Identity of the school in which respondents were enrolled was generated by study-design information. Information about gender was provided by students in response to a questionnaire. Junior high school students were asked to indicate their average prior grade in school (GPA) and were given the ve choices of A, B, C, D, or Below D. High school students were asked to indicate their prior cumulative GPA, and these were transcribed into the following ranges: 3.6 to 4.0 = A; 3.1 to 3.5 = B; 2.6 to 3.0 = C; 1.5 to 2.5 = D; and Below 1.5 = Below D.

ANALYSIS

Central Tendencies and Variations. To examine central tendencies and variations in responses, we computed mean scores for each relevant category of respondents. These are displayed in the tables to be found below. The degree of variation in responses may be difcult to judge from these tables, however, so we also prepared gures for three crucial variables which display that variation. These are also provided below. Main Effects. We examined the data for interactions but did not nd any beyond chance levels; therefore, only main effects are discussed here. For both schools, independent sample t tests were conducted to compare female and male responses to items regarding homework, cheating, and peer pressure. One-way analysis of variance tests were conducted to compare students who differed by prior GPA across all dependent variables. Effect Size. We used two different measures of effect size to represent the magnitude of our ndings for variation. The rst, Cohens d, was used to assess the sizes of standardized mean difference between the two categories of gender. The second was one of two roughly equivalent measures of covariation, the point-biserial correlation, r, and eta. When assessing the independent variable of gender, this second measure was the point-biserial correlation (r) between gender and the dependent variable. When assessing the independent variable of academic achievement, more than two response categories were involved, so we used eta to represent effect size. Presenting Cohens d and r together in Tables 1, 3, and 5 (concerned with gender) enables the reader to interpret the effect sizes for Tables 2, 4, and 6 (concerned with prior GPA) when Cohens d is not appropriate. Although eta and r are not strictly comparable because they involve differing formulas (see Murray & Dosser, 1987), the interpretations of these two statistics are close enough to Cohens criteria. Cohen (1988) suggested that one may use the same standards for interpreting the size of eta and r, namely: small = .1, medium = .243, and large = .371. These conventions correspond to the values of .2, .5, and .8 respectively for the d statistic that was also developed by Cohen.

UNDERESTIMATING YOUTH
50

15

40

Percent

30

20

sex: % response
10

M: 52.2% F: 47.8% agree disagree strongly agree

strongly disagree

Figure 1. Response Distribution of Homework by Gender in JHS: If I dont nish my homework, its because I dont care.

Results
HOMEWORK

Table 1 reports means and standard deviations for males and females in both the high school and junior high school for the seven homework items, and Table 2 reports the same data broken down by categories of prior GPA. These tables reveal two major effects: average responses to questions about homework were a lot less negative in tone than those claimed by Steinberg; and those responses varied a good deal as a function of school, gender, and prior GPA. It may be difcult to see these effects in Tables 1 and 2, however, so we have also drawn up four gures that display response distributions for one of the homework variables, If I dont nish homework, its because I dont care. (see Figures 14) In addition, Tables 1 and 2 display statistics that access the directions and sizes of differences among mean responses we found for types of students. To illustrate, female students reported that they spent signicantly more time doing homework than did males in both schools. Of the remaining six items, males and females differed signicantly on two items in junior high and four in high school. Within the junior high, males indicated a higher level of agreement than did females for item H4 (If I dont nish my homework, it is usually because I dont care), while females indicated a higher level of agreement on item H5 (Homework helps me learn). Within the high school sample, females indicated a higher level of agreement on items H3 (If I dont nish my homework, it is usually because I dont have time) and H5 (Homework helps me learn). In contrast, males reported a higher level of agreement on item H4 (If I dont nish my homework, its because I dont care). Finally, in the high school sample, although both males and females

16

Table I. Homework Responses: Means, Standard Deviations, Cohens d, and Point Biserial Correlations Junior high Male (N = 179) M SD d .246 .061 .144 .385 .247 .119 .124 High school Male (N = 164) M SD d .290 .156 .302 .346 .463 .266 .021

Female (N = 160) M SD H1: How many hours per day do you spend on homework H2: It is considered homework when nished during school time H3: If I dont nish homework, its because I dont have time H4: If I dont nish homework, its because I dont care H5: Homework helps me learn H6: Ill get good grade if I do my homework H7: If I was assigned better homework I would learn more

Female (N = 175) M SD

2.26 2.82 2.90 1.78 2.90 3.31 2.58

1.19 .79 .93 .89 .87 .76 .93

1.99 2.88 2.76 2.15 2.67 3.21 2.45

1.05 .95 1.01 1.02 1.07 .84 1.12

.177 .031 .072 .189 .122 .060 .062

2.17 2.83 2.98 1.97 2.86 3.20 2.39

1.14 .80 .86 .84 .84 .71 .83

1.85 2.97 2.70 2.29 2.45 3.00 2.41

1.07 .95 1.02 1.04 .94 .83 .96

.144 .078 .150 .170 .226 .132


THOMAS L. GOOD ET AL.

.011

Note: Item H1 is based on the scale 1 = less than 1 hr, 2 = about 1 hr, 3 = about 2 hrs, 4 = about 3 hrs, 5 = over 3 hrs; H2-H7 based on the scale 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = agree, 4 = strongly agree. Independent samples t tests (two-tailed) were conducted to compare female and male means within each school where p < .05; p < .01; p < .001. Cohens d = [X F X M ] / [SDpooled ].

Table II. Homework Responses by Reported Academic Grades: Means, Standard Deviations, and Eta Values Junior high school A B C D Below D (N = 94) (N = 123) (N = 91) (N = 20) (N = 6) M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD Eta 2.41 2.90 2.92 1.65 3.08 3.35 2.57 1.26 .87 .92 .86 .87 .83 .97 2.13 2.94 2.86 1.92 2.79 3.29 2.48 1.05 .78 .95 .91 .92 .69 1.01 1.99 2.71 2.69 2.18 2.66 3.31 2.48 1.06 .94 .97 .91 .99 .74 1.06 1.59 2.95 2.75 2.57 2.18 2.91 2.77 1.01 1.00 1.33 1.36 1.29 1.19 1.23 1.14 2.17 3.17 3.29 2.14 2.29 1.57 .38 1.17 1.33 .95 1.22 .95 .79 .226 .154 .102 .324 .251 .216 .153

UNDERESTIMATING YOUTH

Grade Means and standard deviations

H1: How many hours per day do you spend on homework H2: It is considered homework when nished during school time H3: If I dont nish my homework, its because I dont have time H4: If I dont nish my homework, its because I dont care H5: Homework helps me learn the material H6: I will get a good grade if I do my homework H7: If I was assigned better homework I would learn more

Grade Means and standard deviations

High school A B C D Below D (N = 63) (N = 116) (N = 81) (N = 60) (N = 14) M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD Eta 2.40 2.98 3.00 1.92 2.78 3.11 2.41 1.17 .77 .98 .89 .82 .73 .83 2.08 2.87 2.87 1.98 2.76 3.13 2.32 1.14 .98 .94 .87 .87 .72 .85 1.84 2.87 2.65 2.23 2.57 3.02 2.35 1.03 .93 .94 .97 .92 .75 .94 1.88 3.03 2.75 2.45 2.62 3.12 2.69 1.34 .84 .97 .99 .97 .88 .94 1.29 2.80 3.33 2.53 2.00 3.07 2.80 .47 1.01 .72 1.25 1.04 1.22 1.82 .222 .082 .170 .219 .180 .054 1.171

H1: How many hours per day do you spend on homework H2: It is considered homework when nished during school time H3: If I dont nish my homework, its because I dont have time H4: If I dont nish my homework, its because I dont care H5: Homework helps me learn the material H6: I will get a good grade if I do my homework H7: If I was assigned better homework I would learn more

Note: Item H1 is based on the scale 1 = less than 1 hr, 2 = about 1 hr, 3 = about 2 hrs, 4 = about 3 hrs, 5 = over 3 hrs; H2-H7 based on the scale 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = agree, 4 = strongly agree. One-way analysis of variance calculated by reported GPA where p < .05; p < .01; p < .001.

17

18
50

THOMAS L. GOOD ET AL.

40

Percent

30

20

sex: % response
10

M: 48.7% F: 51.3% agree disagree strongly agree

strongly disagree

Figure 2. Response Distribution of Homework by Gender in HS: If I dont nish my homework, its because I dont care.
70 60 50

Cum GPA: % response < D: 2.0% D: 6.3% C: 27.3% B: 36.1% A: 28.4% agree strongly agree disagree

Percent

40 30 20 10 0

strongly disagree

Figure 3. Response Distribution of Homework by GPA in JHS: If I dont nish my homework, its because I dont care.

generally agreed with item H6 (Ill get a good grade if I do my homework), respectively, females agreed more strongly than males. Within the junior high school, students differed with respect to reported grades on items H1, H4, H5, and H6. Students with higher GPAs indicated that they (a) spent more hours per day on their homework, (b) more strongly disagreed that if they did not nish their homework, its because they did not care, (c) more strongly agreed that homework helps them learn the material, and (d) more strongly agreed

UNDERESTIMATING YOUTH
50

19

40

Cum GPA: % response Percent


30

< D: 4.3% D: 18.6%

20

C: 24.1%
10

B: 34.2% A: 18.8% agree strongly agree disagree

strongly disagree

Figure 4. Response Distribution of Homework by GPA in HS: If I dont nish my homework, its because I dont care.

that they will get a good grade if they do their homework. Within the high school, students differed signicantly by prior GPA category on items H1, H3, H4, H5, and H7. In comparison to students with lower GPAs, students with higher GPAs said they (a) spent more time on homework, (b) more strongly disagreed that if they did not nish their homework, it is because they did not care, (c) more strongly agreed that homework helps them learn the material, and (d) more strongly disagreed that if they were assigned better homework, they would learn more. Furthermore, students who indicated their average grade was an A or Below D more strongly agreed that if they did not nish their homework, it was because they did not have time.
CHEATING

Means and standard deviations calculated for six cheating items are reported for gender in Table 3 and prior GPA in Table 4. In addition, Figures 5 through 8 display response distributions for one of the cheating variables, I usually cheat on exams. As can be seen again in these tables and gures, the cheating responses we found were far less negative in tone and far more variable than ndings claimed by Steinberg. In addition, within both schools, students differed according to gender on items C2 and C3 (see Table 3). In both cases, female means were higher than male means indicating a stronger level of agreement by females that it is cheating if they copy someones elses test (C2) and if they let someone else copy their test (C3). Students in junior high school with higher prior GPAs also agreed more frequently with items C1, C2 and C3 (It is cheating if I copy someone elses homework;

20

Table III. Cheating Responses: Means, Standard Deviations, Cohens d, and Point Biserial Correlations Junior high Female Male (N = 164) (N = 175) M SD M SD d C1: Cheating if I copy someone elses homework C2: Cheating if I copy someone elses test C3: Cheating if I let someone else copy my test C4: Cheating if I let someone copy my homework C5: I usually cheat on tests C6: I usually cheat on my homework assignments 3.07 3.52 3.25 2.86 1.60 1.81 .80 .70 .85 .88 .77 .81 2.91 3.35 2.96 2.76 1.73 1.97 High school Female Male (N = 176) (N = 164) M SD M SD d .81 .65 .80 .88 .78 .82 2.76 3.33 2.96 2.65 1.71 1.98 .94 .164 .87 .380 .99 .363 .96 .108 .93 .136 .83 .039

r .082 .186 .179 .054 .068 .020

.91 .181 .090 2.90 .87 .213 .106 3.62 .97 .305 .151 3.29 .97 .106 .053 2.75 .87 .156 .078 1.59 .95 .177 .088 1.94

Note: Items C1-C6 are based on the scale 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = agree, 4 = strongly agree. Independent samples t tests (two-tailed) were conducted to compare female and male means within each school where p < .05; p < .01; p < F X M ] / [SDpooled]. .001. Cohens d = [X

THOMAS L. GOOD ET AL.

UNDERESTIMATING YOUTH

Table IV. Cheating Responses by Reported Average Grades: Means, Standard Deviations, and Eta Values Junior high school A B C D (N = 95) (N = 123) (N = 88) (N = 19) M SD M SD M SD M SD 3.11 3.59 3.40 3.01 1.40 1.68 .76 .68 .75 .81 .61 .75 3.00 3.48 3.00 2.66 1.69 1.90 .81 .69 .90 .96 .79 .91 2.99 3.38 3.02 2.81 1.70 2.00 .87 .82 .95 .92 .85 .89 2.73 3.19 2.91 2.82 2.10 2.32 1.24 1.05 1.30 1.14 1.12 1.25

Grade Means and standard deviations

Below D Eta (N = 6) M SD 1.86 1.86 2.15 2.33 3.00 2.57 .89 1.22 1.07 1.37 1.15 .79 .215 .311 .246 .164 .317 .212

C1: It is considered cheating if I copy someone elses homework C2: It is considered cheating if I copy someone elses test C3: It is considered cheating if I let someone else copy my test C4: It is cheating if I let someone else copy my homework C5: I usually cheat on exams C6: I usually cheat on homework assignments

Grade Means and standard deviations

High school A B C D (N = 64) (N = 117) (N = 82) (N = 59) M SD M SD M SD M SD 2.96 3.83 3.35 2.69 1.33 1.77 .84 .42 .76 .88 .59 .81 2.88 3.53 3.19 2.73 1.52 1.82 .84 .75 .89 .88 .77 .73 2.83 3.36 3.00 2.65 1.84 2.16 .85 .88 .97 .93 .88 .79 2.68 3.17 3.03 2.68 1.85 2.14 .89 .86 .89 .98 .94 .86

Below D Eta (N = 13) M SD 2.60 3.00 2.53 2.80 2.53 2.23 1.18 1.31 1.36 1.26 1.36 1.17 .115 .285 .193 .040 .315 .219

C1: It is considered cheating if I copy someone elses homework C2: It is considered cheating if I copy someone elses test C3: It is considered cheating if I let someone else copy my test C4: It is cheating if I let someone else copy my homework C5: I usually cheat on exams C6: I usually cheat on homework assignments

Note: Items C1-C6 are based on the scale 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = agree, 4 = strongly agree. One-way analysis of variance calculated by reported GPA where p < .05; p < .01; p < .001.

21

22

THOMAS L. GOOD ET AL.

60

50

40

Percent

30

20

sex: % response M: 52.2% F: 47.8% agree disagree strongly agree

10 0

strongly disagree

Figure 5. Response Distribution of Cheating by Gender in JHS: I usually cheat on exams.


60

50

40

Percent

30

20

sex: % response M: 48.7% F: 51.3% agree disagree strongly agree

10 0

strongly disagree

Figure 6. Response Distribution of Cheating by Gender in HS: I usually cheat on exams.

It is cheating if I copy someone elses test; and It is cheating if I let someone else copy my test) than those with lower GPAs (see Table 4). Similarly, students in high school with higher GPAs more strongly agreed with items C2 and C3 (It is considered cheating if I copy someone elses test and It is considered cheating if I let someone else copy my test). In terms of students cheating behavior, in

UNDERESTIMATING YOUTH
70 60 50

23

Cum GPA: % response < D: 2.0% D: 6.3% C: 27.3% B: 36.1% A: 28.4% agree strongly agree disagree

Percent

40 30

20 10 0

strongly disagree

Figure 7. Response Distribution of Cheating by GPA in JHS: I usually cheat on exams.

80

60

Cum GPA: % response < D: 4.3%

Percent

40

D: 18.6% C: 24.1%
20

B: 34.2%
0

A: 18.8% agree strongly agree disagree

strongly disagree

Figure 8. Response Distribution of Cheating by GPA in HS: I usually cheat on exams.

both the high school and the junior high school, students with a higher GPA stated a higher level of disagreement with items C5 and C6 (I usually cheat on exams and I usually cheat on homework assignments) than those students with lower GPAs.

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70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

THOMAS L. GOOD ET AL.

Percent

sex: % response M: 52.2% F: 47.8% agree strongly agree disagree

strongly disagree

Figure 9. Response Distribution of Peer Pressure by Gender in JHS: If I get good grades, my friends make fun of me.

PEER PRESSURE

Means and standard deviations were calculated for six peer pressure items and are reported for gender in Table 5 and prior GPA in Table 6. In addition, Figures 9 through 12 display response distributions for one of the peer pressure variables, If I get good grades, my friends will make fun of me. As can be seen again in these tables and gures, the peer pressure responses we obtained were far less negative and far more variable than ndings claimed by Steinberg. In addition, in both schools, females more strongly disagreed than males that they are not doing as well as they could because their friends would make fun of me (P3) if they made good grades, their friends will make fun of me (P4), and that if they spent time on homework, their friends make fun of me (P5). In contrast, females more strongly agreed than males that if they get good grades, their friends are happy for me (P6). Males and females in the high school also differed signicantly on an additional item in which females more strongly disagreed that they felt pressured into other activities by my friends (P2). Responses from students in both the high school and junior high school indicated a broad range of disagreement that they felt peer pressure to underperform in school (see Table 6). In junior high school, students with higher prior GPAs more strongly disagreed with items P3 and P5 than students with lower GPAs (I am not doing as well as I could because my friends would make fun of me and If I spend a lot of time doing homework, my friends will make fun of me). Similarly, students with higher prior GPAs more strongly agreed that their friends would be happy for them if they received good grades (P6). In high school, students with higher GPAs more

UNDERESTIMATING YOUTH

Table V. Peer Pressure Responses: Means, Standard Deviations, Cohens d, and Point Biserial Correlations Junior high Female Male (N = 154) (N = 168) M SD M SD d P1: I feel pressure to perform like my friends in academics. P2: I feel pressured into other activities by my friends. P3: I am not doing as well as I could because friends make fun of me. P4: If I get good grades friends will make fun. P5: If I spend time on homework, friends make fun of me. P6: If I get good grades, friends are happy for me. 2.18 2.15 1.49 1.46 1.54 3.37 .98 .93 .79 .73 .79 .79 2.33 2.20 1.85 1.81 1.86 2.80 .99 .93 1.02 1.01 1.02 1.03 .155 .063 .392 .393 .362 .637 High school Female Male (N = 167) (N = 153) M SD M SD d 2.10 1.90 1.51 1.46 1.52 3.40 .91 .82 .76 .77 .79 .70 2.19 2.24 1.76 1.69 1.75 3.00 .91 .97 .89 .86 .89 .80 .096 .378 .301 .280 .276 .529

r .079 .032 .192 .193 .178 .303

r .048 .185 .149 .139 .137 .256

Note: For items P1-P6 the scale is 1 = strongly disagree 2 = disagree 3 = agree and 4 = strongly agree. Independent samples t tests (two-tailed) were F X M ] / [SDpooled]. conducted to compare female and male means within each school where p < .05; p < .01; p < .001. Cohens d = [X

25

26

Table VI. Peer Pressure Responses: Means, Standard Deviations, Eta Values, and Frequencies Junior high school A B C (N = 90) (N = 112) (N = 85) M SD M SD M SD 2.33 2.08 1.37 1.44 1.43 3.35 .99 .89 .69 .84 .73 .84

Grade Means and standard deviations

D (N = 20) M SD

Below D (N = 6) M SD Eta

% No 61 67 84 84 85 21

P1: I feel pressure to perform like my friends academics P2: I feel pressure to behave like my friends P3: If I dont do well, my friends will make fun of me P4: If I get good grades, my friends make fun of me P5: If I spend time on my homework, my friends make fun of me P6: If I get good grades, my friends are happy for me

2.27 1.01 2.24 .98 2.25 1.02 1.67 .52 .090 2.27 .92 2.18 .94 1.95 1.12 2.50 1.05 .112 1.65 .83 1.95 1.07 1.86 1.11 2.33 1.37 .262 1.65 .86 1.77 .98 1.81 1.03 1.83 .75 .153 1.78 .94 1.82 1.00 2.05 1.16 1.83 .75 .202 3.04 .97 2.98 1.00 2.67 1.02 2.00 .89 .245

Grade Means and standard deviations

High school A B C (N = 60) (N = 108) (N = 78) M SD M SD M SD 2.08 1.99 1.38 1.33 1.52 3.29 .93 .87 .71 .62 .78 .76 2.12 2.06 1.61 1.45 1.55 3.27 .85 .87 .79 .72 .79 .69 2.13 2.05 1.79 1.65 1.66 3.18 .90 .86 .87 .77 .76 .73

D (N = 54) M SD

Below D (N = 13) M SD Eta

% No 69 66 80 80 80 16

P1: I feel pressure to perform like my friends academics P2: I feel pressure to behave like my friends P3: If I dont do well, my friends will make fun of me P4: If I get good grades, my friends make fun of me P5: If I spend time on my homework, my friends make fun of me P6: If I get good grades, my friends are happy for me

2.20 .99 2.77 1.09 .145 2.23 1.04 2.23 1.17 .092 1.79 .92 1.69 .95 .182 1.91 1.01 1.92 1.32 .252 1.86 1.01 1.85 1.21 .147 3.09 .85 2.69 1.18 .164

THOMAS L. GOOD ET AL.

Note: For items P1-P6 the scale is 1 = strongly disagree 2 = disagree 3 = agree and 4 = strongly agree. One-way analysis of variance calculated by reported GPA where p < .05; p < .01; p < .001.

UNDERESTIMATING YOUTH

27

80 70 60 50

Percent

40 30

sex: % response
20 10 0

M: 48.7% F: 51.3% agree strongly agree disagree

strongly disagree

Figure 10. Response Distribution of Peer Pressure by Gender in HS: If I get good grades, my friends make fun of me.

80

60

Cum GPA: % response < D: 2.0%

Percent

40

D: 6.3% C: 27.3%
20

B: 36.1%
0

A: 28.4% agree strongly agree disagree

strongly disagree

Figure 11. Response Distribution of Peer Pressure by GPA in JHS: If I get good grades, my friends make fun of me.

28
80

THOMAS L. GOOD ET AL.

60

Cum GPA: % response < D: 4.3%

Percent

40

D: 18.6% C: 24.1%
20

B: 34.2%
0

A: 18.8% agree strongly agree disagree

strongly disagree

Figure 12. Response Distribution of Peer Pressure by GPA in HS: If I get good grades, my friends make fun of me.

strongly disagreed on items P3 and P4 (I am not doing as well as I could because my friends would make fun of me and If I get good grades, my friends will make fun of me). In addition, students responses of strongly disagree and disagree were collapsed into one singular category labeled no, and the percentages of students who fell into this category are also reported in Table 6. In general, students indicated that they did not feel pressure by their friends to underperform in schools.

EFFECT SIZE RESULTS

If one compares effect sizes for the two tables concerned with homework, it can also be seen that the effects of gender (Table 1) are smaller than the effects of prior academic achievement (Table 2) at both the junior high and high school levels. (To examine this effect, compare the point-biserial correlations, r, in Table 1 with the etas in Table 2.) For items concerned with cheating, the effects of gender (Table 3) are again smaller than those of prior academic status (Table 4), but the difference is more pronounced in the junior high school. However, the relative effects of gender and prior GPA are similar when it comes to peer pressure in both schools (see Tables 5 and 6). In general, the effect sizes we found tended to fall between Cohens categories of small and medium, but Cohen cautioned that effects of this size should not be minimized; thus ... these values may represent stronger degrees of association than they seem (Cohen, 1988, p. 532).

UNDERESTIMATING YOUTH

29

Discussion Our study shows that students responses about their school experiences are generally quite positive and reect a wide variation of attitudes and perceptions. In addition, we found that students beliefs and norms about cheating, homework, and peer pressure differ signicantly when analyzed by gender and prior GPA, and these responses also vary depending on whether students are in junior high or high school. Clearly, our data fail to replicate those claimed by Steinberg in Beyond in two important ways. First, our average ndings are more positive than those he reported. Second, we show that reporting averages is highly misleading when it comes to cheating, homework, and peer pressure, since students vary in their responses about these matters.
DIFFERENTIATED RESULTS

Our study provides evidence that students vary not only with respect to how they dene homework, but also in terms of their reported behavior related to homework. For example, our respondents varied according to reasons they provided for nishing homework. Males more strongly agreed than females that when they failed to nish their homework, it was because they did not care. Further, we found differences between the high school and junior high school contexts suggesting that the school environment is far from a monolithic culture. One notable nding stems from Table 1 in which we found aggregated means that were highly similar among junior high and high school students (If I dont nish my homework, its because I dont have time; M = 2.17 for junior high and M = 2.16 for high school). However, upon closer examination, one discovers that high school students responses differed with respect to gender while, in contrast, gender did not affect junior high school students responses signicantly. This illustrates how reporting averages fails to portray variations among types of students that may be important. Further, we also found that students with lower prior GPAs were more likely to think that homework does not help them learn and to do less of it than students with higher prior GPAs. Three major themes emerged from our analysis of cheating. First, students seem to vary with respect to how they dene cheating. In both high school and junior high school, male and female students differed with respect to how they dened cheating whether it means to copy a test or let someone else copy their test. Although the pattern suggests some general agreement, signicant differences suggest that male and female students interpret cheating behavior differentially. Second, in both samples students as a group strongly disagreed that they usually cheat on tests or on homework assignments. Third, students with lower prior GPAs reported that they were more likely to condone cheating and to engage in the practice than students with higher prior GPAs. In general, we found that students did not feel pressure from peers to get good grades. However, responses to questions about peer pressure varied widely based

30

THOMAS L. GOOD ET AL.

on characteristics of gender, GPA, and school setting. Importantly, variation in responses within the junior high school differed markedly from variation within the high school. This suggests that the two school environments studied created cultures which differentially embodied cultures of peer support. Furthermore, the overall pattern of data obtained in our two schools revealed a result that is strikingly at odds with that portrayed in Beyond (and often in the media). Our respondents judged that peers actually support students academic achievement. Thus, students lack of engagement and disinterest in school because of peer pressure as suggested in the media and reported by Steinberg in Beyond were simply not evident in our study. Only future research that includes more schools (with varying locations, size, student populations, etc.) will resolve this issue and enable one to obtain a more precise and defensible picture of the effects of peer pressure on academic achievement.
AVERAGED RESULTS

Had we chosen to report our data at the average student level, we would have ignored important differences in students responses that varied as a function of their gender and prior GPA. Had we chosen to present an average prole of students in the school, we would have misrepresented the data as did Steinberg in Beyond although in an opposite direction. For example, we would have underestimated issues like the prevalence of cheating and the degree of negative peer pressure to underperform in schools that we found. Although students in our two schools were generally less susceptible to peer inuence than what reports in Beyond would suggest, our data make it clear that some students report that they are, indeed, responsive to peer pressure. Future analyses will doubtlessly qualify such issues in other important ways for example, the studies should examine how students income level or race are associated with students beliefs about cheating, homework, and peer pressure. Additionally, it is important to note that even within a single-school setting, variation between classes can be signicant. For example, upon closer examination of students responses to the statement I usually cheat, we found that in one classroom the distribution of responses was spread over all four choices of strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree; whereas, in another classroom, the majority of responses were divided sharply between disagree and strongly disagree. Additional research will likely reect other complexities that will not allow for simple conclusions and simple policy recommendations.
SUBSEQUENT RESEARCH

Future research should focus on at least two main themes. The rst would examine how students dene concepts such as peer pressure, homework, and cheating. Students likely differ in their perceptions and understanding of what homework and

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cheating entail, and, therefore, policy recommendations based on unidimensional denition will apply in some settings and for some students but not for others. In this respect, questions such as how often do you do your homework fail to address the different perceptual frameworks from which individual students answer. Although this is a shortcoming of survey research in general, we nd it irresponsible to suggest broad conclusions based on simple, unidimensional evidence. Thus, we hope our study begins a discussion and examination of how students understand and dene these constructs and serves as a starting point on which more in-depth studies can be built. In particular, we plan subsequent follow-up interview studies that will generate fuller understanding of the variation in student beliefs presented in this paper. For example, it seems clear that students in both schools in this study did not feel that they had to hide their smarts to gain peer approval. Why is this? In what way might peer culture be supportive of achievement rather than debilitating? Others, too, have noted that the inuence of peer culture on students attitudes toward schooling can vary from school to school (see Bank, 1997). It is also important to begin to understand why peer groups create different atmospheres for school performance and how those atmospheres are created and maintained. Research on this topic might help us to understand peer cultures and generate hypotheses and strategies for making peer groups more tolerant and more supportive of academic goals. Some have argued that part of the reason school reform efforts have been uneven and policy makers recommendations have been ineffective is because, fundamentally, they are not based on an understanding of students (McCaslin, 1996). It is clear that students are social beings as well as academic learners and that, if educators are to plan intelligent educational policy for students, it is necessary to conceptualize programs in part by listening to and learning from students while at the same time educators stimulate, teach, and lead them (McCaslin & Good, 1996). However, to attempt to understand and respond appropriately to students requires, at a minimum, that we stop looking at students and youth as an undifferentiated group.

CONCLUSION

Our ndings provide strong reasons to argue that one should not describe American students in broad, negative, sweeping terms. Aggregate, average statements about youth, especially negative statements about adolescent youth, are apt to be very misleading. Authors who choose to write about schools, whether in the popular press or in journals, need to move beyond a wide paint-brush approach that attempts to characterize (often negatively) American students in a single stroke. Researchers need to understand and build future research and subsequent policy decisions on the premise that there is extraordinary variation in perception and performance both within and among schools.

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The executive editor of the New England Journal of Medicine recently argued that popular publications of medical ndings often excessively distort the phenomenon studied, and, hence, provide misleading policy recommendations. She wrote: So what should we make of the bombardment of news about health risk? The short answer is that we should be a lot more skeptical ... we should wait until the risk is conrmed by other research and then ask ourselves how the ndings apply to us as individuals. (Angell, 1997) In accordance with this advice, educational researchers must present data about variation in their ndings so that readers can determine the appropriateness of results to individual students and contexts. The plethora of recent articles criticizing youth and public schools often distort the phenomena discussed or studied, and we need to do a better job in the educational community of recognizing that educational principles and research concepts apply in some contexts more than in others. Reporting on educational issues is a complex matter because of the multiple contexts in which education unfolds. As we have argued, there is enormous variety in the quality of schools in America. Not only are schools vastly different, there are notably different environments within schools. Reporters who want to get the story correct are going to have to work hard at going beyond episodic depictions of youth and schools. Indeed, understanding and reporting on variations among youth and educational contexts likely results in more responsible and thematic journalism. Reciprocally, educational researchers must become much more sympathetic to the complexities that educational writers face and work in ways that do not patronize those writers but help them to understand and, in essence, to encourage them to deal with the complexities. The direct consequences of a media policy that consistently advocates the work ethic, morality, and high achievement of American youth are arguably clear. Given negative general descriptions of youth as selsh, indifferent, and uncommitted to self or society, it is easy for citizens (and especially legislators) to blame students (especially students who come from poor economic areas with little political clout) for their plight. Blaming youth makes it possible for legislators to deny the need for making minimally adequate investments in youth (e.g., after-school programs or even adequate school buildings). However, we suspect that the indirect cost of such policies is massively expensive. In addition, one cannot help but wonder if the motivation for educational achievement of some youths is actually depressed by media accounts that describe them as unmotivated and immoral and their teachers and schools as among the worst in the industrialized society. Many youths, like their parents, are insulated from these arguments because their day-to-day, rsthand experiences in their schools has convinced them that the schools facilities and curricula are good if not excellent, and that many of their teachers are competent, educated, and committed to the social and academic development of their students. Still, we believe the medias (and many educators) consistent tendency to describe

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youth in both negative and monolithic terms has negative consequences for society at large. Among other things, it presumably dilutes societys willingness to invest in youth as social beings. More research on these critical issues is warranted.

References
Angell, Marcia (1997, May). Overdosing on health risks. The New York Times Magazine, E4445. Applebome, Peter (1997, August 31). U.S. government is expanding role in school policy. New York Times, A1, A14. Associated Press. (1998, May 28). U.S. must regain its morality for democracys sake, panel writes. The Arizona Daily Star, A8. Bank, Barbara J. (1997). Peer cultures and their challenge for teaching. In B.J. Biddle, T.L. Good, & I.F. Goodson (Eds.), The international handbook of teachers and teaching, Vol. 2. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer, pp. 879937. Battistich, Victor, Solomon, David, Watson, Marilyn, & Schaps, Eric (1997). Caring school communities. Educational Psychologist, 32, 137151. Berliner, David C. & Biddle, Bruce J. (1995). The manufactured crisis: Myths, fraud and the attack on Americas public schools. New York: Addison-Wesley-Longman. Berliner, David C. & Biddle, Bruce J. (1998). The lamentable alliance between the media and school critics. In G. Maeroff (Ed.), Imaging education: The media and schools in America. New York: Teachers College Press. Biddle, Bruce J. (1997). Foolishness, dangerous nonsense, and real correlates of state differences in achievement. Phi Delta Kappan, 79(1), 813. Bracey, Gerald (1991). Why cant they be like we were? Phi Delta Kappan (October), 104117. Brookover, Wilbur B., Beady, Charles, Flood, Patricia, Schweitzer, John, & Wisenbaker, Joe (1979). School social systems and student achievement: Schools can make a difference. New York: Praeger. Cohen, Jacob (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavior sciences. (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. College Board Press Release (August, 1996). Almost one-fth of students entering four-year colleges are eligible for credit through advanced placement. Available at http://www.collegeboard.org/press/arch9697/960 822c.html. Dorfman, Lois, Woodruff, Katie, Chavez, Vivian, & Wallack, Lawrence (1997). Youth and violence on local television news in California. American Journal of Public Health, 87 (8), 13111316. Farkas, Steve & Johnson, Jean (with Duffett, A. & Bers, A., 1997). Kids these days: What Americans really think about the next generation. Public Agenda, pp. 150. Giroux, Henry A. (1996). Hollywood, race, and the demonization of youth: The kids are not alright. Educational Researcher, 25, 3135. Good, Thomas L. (1996). Educational researchers comment on the Education Summit and other policy proclamations from 19831996. Educational Researcher, 25(8), 46. Good, Thomas L. & Brophy, Jere E. (1986). School effects. In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd. ed.). New York: Macmillan, pp. 570604. Good, Thomas L. & Weinstein, Rhona (1986). Schools make a difference: Evidence, criticism, and new directions. American Psychologist, 41, 19001907. Goodlad, John I. (1983). A place called school: Prospects for the future . New York: McGraw-Hill. Gough, Pauline (1994). Shame on the press. Phi Delta Kappan, 75, 355. Gustafsson, Jan-Eric & Undheim, John (1996). Individual differences in cognitive functions. In D. C. Berliner & R. Calfee (Eds.) Handbook of educational psychology. New York: Macmillan, pp. 186242.

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Iyengar, Shanto (1991). Is anyone responsible?. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jackson, Derrick (1997, September). TV exaggerates juvenile crime scaring public. Arizona Daily Star, A17. Jackson, Philip (1968). Life in classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. Jameson, Tonya (1997, August). SAT math scores rise, verbal static. Arizona Daily Star, 1, A9. Jones, M. Gail & Gerig, Thomas (1994). Silent sixth-grade students: Characteristics, achievement, and teacher expectations. Elementary School Journal, 95, 169182. Jones, M. Gail & Wheatley, J. (1990). Gender differences in student-teacher interactions. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 27, 861874. Kozol, Jonathan (1991). Savage inequalities: Children in Americas schools. New York: Crown. Leslie, Connie (with Riggins, K.). (1996, July). Will Johnny get As? Newsweek, 128(2), 72. Maeroff, Gene (Ed.). (1998). Imaging education: The media and schools in America. New York: Teachers College Press. McCaslin, Mary (1996). The problem of problem representation: The Summits conception of student. Educational Researcher, 25(8), 1315. McCaslin, Mary & Good, Thomas L. (1996). Listening in classrooms. New York: Harper Collins. McFeatters, Dale (1998, June 28). Lies the press told us: Media whoppers dont compare to the real life of Washington. The Arizona Daily Star, 13E. Murray, Leigh & Dosser, David A. (1987). How signicant is a signicant difference? Problems with the measurement of magnitude of effect. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 34(1), 6872. National Commission for Excellence in Education (1983, April). A nation at risk: The imperatives for educational reform. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Commission for Excellence in Education. National Education Summit (March, 1996). [On-line] Available: http://summit96.ibm.com. Natriello, Gary (1996). Diverting attention from conditions in American schools. Educational Researcher, 25(8), 79. New York Times/CBS News Poll (April, 1998). National Teenagers Survey. Nichols, Sharon & Good, Thomas L. (1998). Students perceptions of fairness in school settings: A gender analysis. Teachers College Record, 100(2) 369401. Rose, Lowell, Gallup, Alec, & Elam, Stanley (1997, September). The 29th annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of publics attitudes toward the public schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 79(1), 4156. Rose, Mike (1995). Possible lives: The promise of public education in America. Boston: Houghton Mifin. Rosenholtz, Susan (1989). Teachers workplace: The social organization of schools. New York: Longman. Rutter, Michael (1983). School effects on pupil progress: Research ndings and policy implications. In L. Shulman & G. Sykes (Eds.), Handbook of teaching and policy. New York: Longman, pp. 3 31. Sabers, Darrell & Sabers, Donna (1996). Conceptualizing, measuring, and implementing higher (high or hire) standards. Educational Researcher, 25(8), 1921. Sandia National Laboratories (1993). Perspectives on education in America: An annotated brieng. Journal of Educational Research, 86(5), 259310. Schackner, Bill (1997, September 1). Although SAT scores fail, number of As increased. Arizona Daily Star, A1, A9. Shanker, Albert (1996a, June 2). Disengaged students. The New York Times, E7. Shanker, Albert (1996b, June 9). Succeeding in school. The New York Times, E7. Shouse, Roger (1996). Academic press and sense of community: Conict, congruence, and implications for student achievement. Social Psychology of Education, 1, 4768.

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Snow, Richard, Corno, Lyn, & Jackson III, Doug (1996). Individual differences in affective and conative functions. In D.C. Berliner & R. Calfee (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology. New York: Macmillan, pp. 243310. Solomon, Daniel, Battistich, Victor, Dong-Il, Kim, & Watson, Marilyn (1997). Teacher practices associated with students sense of the classroom as a community. Social Psychology of Education, 1, 235267. Steinberg, Laurence (with Brown, B. B., & Dornbusch, S. M.). (1996). Beyond the classroom: Why school reform has failed and what parents need to do about it . New York: Simon & Schuster. Tenenbaum, Samuel (1940). Uncontrolled expressions in childrens attitudes toward school. Elementary School Journal, 40, 670678. U.S. General Accounting Ofce (1995a). School facilities: Conditions of Americas schools. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofce. U.S. General Accounting Ofce. (1995b). School facilities: Americas schools not designed or equipped for the 21st century. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofce. Youniss, James & Yates, Miranda (1997). Community service and social responsibility in youth. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.

Biographical Notes Thomas L. Good is a professor in educational psychology at the University of Arizona. He serves as editor of The Elementary School Journal. He is currently studying issues of teacher and student expectations in classroom settings and youths beliefs about medias representation of youth and education. Sharon L. Nichols is a doctoral student in educational psychology at the University of Arizona. She recently published in The Elementary School Journal and Teachers College Record. Her research interests are focused on factors of student motivation and adolescent identity development. Darrell L. Sabers is a professor and head of the educational psychology department at the University of Arizona. He serves as consulting editor of The Journal of Special Education and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment. His research interests include assessment of students and quantication of research ndings.

36 Appendix A: Examples of use of Averages in Beyond

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Our best estimate is that the average teenager spends between 20 and 25 hours per week socializing with friends, and this does not include the large amount of time at school that is spent in social activities (p. 178). This leaves somewhere around 60 hours each week for students to apportion across a variety of other activities. If the American typical teenager is devoting between 20 and 25 hours weekly to socializing, between 15 and 20 hours weekly to a part-time job, between 10 and 15 hours weekly to an extracurricular activity, and between 10 and 15 hours weekly to television viewing, there isnt any time left over for studying outside of school which explains why the national average for time spent on homework is less than 5 hours per week (p. 180). These questions concerned patterns of class attendance and class-cutting, whether students completed the homework they were assigned, the amount of time students spend on the homework in each academic subject class, how hard students tried during their classes, whether students who were given choices took challenging classes or easy ones, and whether students do things like cheat on tests or turn in work that is not their own ... what did our study reveal about levels of student engagement according to these indicators? The overall pattern suggests that an extremely large proportion of students somewhere around 40% are just going through the motions (p. 67). Very little of the typical American students time something on the order of between 15 and 20 hours weekly, or only about 15 percent of his or her waking hours is spent on endeavors likely to contribute to learning or achievement (p. 188). In our sample, more than half of the employed students were working at least 16 hours per week and nearly one-fourth were working 20 hours a week or more. According to national surveys, the average working sophomore works approximately 12 hours per week and the average working senior, close to 20 hours per week (p. 168).

We recognize that Beyond the Classroom may have been written for a more general audience than for researchers. Thus, we examined not only this book, but all of the technical references that were included in it to see if somewhere a more differentiated set of ndings had been presented. Unfortunately, we were able to nd no reports of differences within or between schools for the study. Because of this undifferentiated reporting, the ndings suggested in Beyond appear more monolithic and negative than we believe are warranted.

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Appendix B: Homework Items H1: How many hours per day (on average) do you spend on homework? A. Less than 1 hr B. About 1 hr C. About 2 hrs D. About 3 hrs E. Over 3 hrs H2: It is still considered homework when I nish assignments during school time. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree H3: If I dont nish my homework, it is usually because I dont have time. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree H4: If I dont nish my homework, it is usually because I dont care. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree H5: Homework helps me learn. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree H6: Ill get a good grade if I do my homework. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree H7: If I was assigned better homework, I would learn more. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree Appendix C: Cheating Items

38 Appendix C: Cheating Items C1: It is cheating if I copy someone elses homework. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree C2: It is cheating if I copy someone elses test. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree C3: It is cheating if I let someone copy my test. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree C4: It is cheating if I let someone copy my homework. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree C5: I usually cheat on tests. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree C6: I usually cheat on my homework assignments. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree

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Appendix D: Peer Pressure Items P1: In terms of academics, I feel pressure to perform in school like my friends. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree P2: I feel pressured into other behaviors/activities by my friends. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree P3: I am not doing as well as I could because my friends would make fun of me. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree P4: If I get good grades, my friends will make fun of me. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree P5: If I spend a lot of time doing homework, my friends will make fun of me. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree P6: If I get good grades, my friends are happy for me. A. Strongly Agree B. Agree C. Disagree D. Strongly Disagree

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