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TEEN SURVEY DEBATE
Some Respondents Skeptical of Methodology, Results
United Way Charts Course Following Teen Survey
The United Way is taking two approaches to improving
teenagers’ chances of success in adulthood following a survey that found
that 91 percent of Quad Cities teens lack sufficient “developmental
assets.” But some teens are skeptical of both the survey and its
findings.
The Search Institute, an independent, not-for-profit
organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in December conducted the
Attitudes & Behaviors survey – sponsored by the United Way of the Quad
Cities Area – of nearly 8,000 seventh-, ninth-, and 12th-grade students
from schools in Scott and Rock Island counties. The results showed that
only 9 percent of youths surveyed had at least 31 (out of a possible 40)
“developmental assets” – external and internal experiences and qualities
in teens’ lives. That’s the amount the Search Institute feels gives
youths the best chance of moving successfully through adulthood.
The United Way’s first response to the survey is
spreading asset awareness to Quad Cities-area businesses, organizations,
and citizens. The organization hopes that if the community understands
what assets are and why they are important, that will help increase
assets in young adults over time. “We’re going to try and get in front
of 40 groups to present on the assets in the next two months,” said John
Kiley, president of the local United Way, on February 22. On February 28
and March 1, the Search Institute trained about 30 Quad Cities
residents, who will make presentations to community groups and help them
implement assets in their own organizations. “We want to get a kind of
group of apostles ... or missionaries to go out there in the community
and make sure people know how this [raising assets in youths] can be
done and why it’s important to do it,” Kiley said.
The second step in the United Way’s plan is a
youth-advisory council. The council will consist of area youths from
every school district in the Quad Cities, and it will help the United
Way organize events and generate ideas to respond to the survey results.
“We’re not going to have a bunch of adults sit around and say, ‘What are
we going do about kids?’” Kiley said. “We’re gong to have some young
people do that for us.” The United Way also plans to conduct the survey
in another three years to see how much has been accomplished. Its goal
is to raise the average number of assets from 19 to 21. The 2005 survey
results are available at the United Way Web site
http://www.unitedwayqc.org
Several teenagers who participated in the survey
raised questions about its credibility, and said that the United Way’s
actions probably won’t increase the number of assets. For example, Cole
Walton, a freshman at Central High School in Davenport, said that one
problem with the survey is that it can’t track individual teens and
compare their assets to their success or failure later in life. He said
the Search Institute should do follow-up studies of specific teens who
have participated in the survey to see if its assumptions about assets
and success are correct. “If the whole point of the test is to see your
outcome later in life, then I’d definitely check the credibility of the
test,” Walton said. “I think they should check how people are doing
afterwards. It’d make more sense.”
The Survey
The Attitudes & Behavior survey and the 40
developmental assets were created in 1989 by Search Institute President
Peter Benson. The developmental-asset framework is categorized into two
groups of 20 assets – external and internal. “External assets are the
positive experiences young people receive from the world around them,”
the Search Institute Web site (http://www.search-institute.org) states.
“The 20 internal assets identify those characteristics and behaviors
that reflect positive internal growth and development of young people.”
The survey asks teenagers 156 questions that tie into
the 40 developmental assets. The questions include teens’ experiences at
school, such as how much time they spend on homework each day and the
average grades they earn. It also asks about family support, high-risk
behaviors (drinking, drug use, sex), and activities at and outside of
school. For example, the survey asks how often they drank alcohol in
their lifetime, in the past 12 months, and in the past 30 days, and how
much they consumed.
Dr. Tracey Schuster, psychology professor at St.
Ambrose University, said the survey touches on a variety of key
development issues, such as how well teens get along with their
families, how they’re doing in school, and what sort of activities
they’re involved in. “The important part is to look at the survey data
in the form of trends,” she said in an e-mail. “So we can say, ‘If A is
true ... then most likely B is true,’ but we cannot say, ‘A causes B.’”
In other words, the survey doesn’t say 91 percent of teens won’t be
successful as adults. Instead, it says that teens with fewer assets are
more likely to have less success in adulthood. And the Quad Cities has a
large percentage of teens who are not on-track for adult success.
Art Semsa Jr., applied developmental researcher for
the Search Institute, said in an e-mail that the relationship between
certain behaviors in adolescence and future success is well-established.
Furthermore, he said, “We do have a longitudinal study which shows that
youth with these assets in middle school look better in high school
across a range of outcomes (e.g., risk behaviors like alcohol use and
positive behaviors like leadership).” According to the Search Institute,
the survey is used to measure the success of a community in raising
children. Kiley stressed that the survey is used to evaluate the
community, not to judge teens. He compared that analysis to employees
and management – employees being youths and the community being
management. He said that employees have responsibility for their
actions, but if management doesn’t give them the necessary tools to do
the job well, they aren’t going to succeed.
Teens’ Response
One question about the survey’s validity relates to
whether the teachers who administered it followed instructions provided
by the Search Institute. Several teens, when asked if they participated
in the survey, referred to it as “the sex survey” or “the drinking
survey.” All of the six teens (from five different schools) questioned
by the Reader said the survey wasn’t explained to them, and they weren’t
given a reason why they were doing it. “They [teachers] kind of said
take the survey and be done with it,” Walton said. “It wasn’t important.
It wasn’t graded, and it wasn’t checked or anything.” After the survey
results were announced, none of the six teens was informed.
Kiley said the United Way gave district
superintendents instructions on conducting the survey. According to the
Attitudes & Behaviors classroom-administration instructions, students
were supposed to be told the purpose of the survey was to “better
understand the needs of our young people.” They were to be instructed
that they survey was anonymous, that booklets could not be traced back
to individual students, and that the survey was voluntary. Kiley
acknowledged that there might have been some unevenness in how well the
instructions were followed by teachers. After the results were
announced, schools decided whether to share them with participants.
The teens the Reader interviewed also felt that the
survey makes assumptions that certain situations or behaviors
automatically reduce a person’s chances of success in adulthood, not
taking into account that every person is different. For example, the
survey asks about families and how involved they are in young adults’
lives. The survey calculates fewer assets for teens with less family
involvement. “I really think it [a person’s future] depends on each
individual situation,” said Meghan Patch, Moline High School freshman.
“I know people who come from broken homes, and they’re doing really well
for their situation.” Sesma said that objection reflects a lack of
understanding about what the survey means. “We have found is that, on
average, youth from difficult family and other contextual circumstances
report fewer assets than do youth from more privileged circumstances,”
he said. “Obviously, this does not mean that all youth from poorer
conditions are consigned to a life of hell, nor that youth from affluent
situations are going to have smooth sailing the whole way.”
St. Ambrose’s Schuster agreed. “There are exceptions
to rules and trends,” she said. “Yes, there are some who have few assets
but still succeed in life. There are probably more, however, who have
few assets and struggle in life.” But Patch’s concern shows that the
survey hasn’t been adequately explained to the people who took it. And
the United Way doesn’t presently have plans to go into schools to
discuss the survey with them. Other teens wondered if people answered
the survey honestly, which would affect the validity of the results.
“You have to think about the kids that take the test,” said Havalah
Jones, a freshman at West High School in Davenport. “They are very
immature, so they are not going to answer the questions very truthfully,
or they’ll answer the opposite of what they actually do.”
Because the survey is anonymous and cannot be traced
back to the person who took it, one could argue that there’s no reason
for students to lie. Jones disagreed. “They want to be stupid, and they
know it’s a random survey, and they’re like, ‘Cool. I want to do
something like this [lie]. It’s going to be messed up,’” she said. Kiley
said that the Search Institute throws out surveys with inconsistent
responses. Surveys are also thrown out if they are missing data on 40 or
more items; report unrealistically high levels of alcohol or other drug
use (such as drinking or using drugs several times a day); or were
completed by a teen in a non-designated grade. Among the 8,000 Quad
Cities surveys, 845 were discarded.
Patch, one of the teens interviewed, questioned the
survey asking seventh- and ninth-graders about their futures. Schuster
said that’s a valid concern, but also said younger students’
perspectives on their futures can be revealing. “It is common for some
teenagers to be uncertain about their futures,” she said. “Based on the
changes they are experiencing developmentally (physically, cognitively,
and socially), of course there’s uncertainty.” But the answers are
meaningful, she added, because they show whether young adults are
thinking about their futures.
According to the survey, 72 percent of the youth
surveyed saw a “positive view of personal future.” Schuster and the
United Way said that result was encouraging, particularly given the grim
overall results. “One must have a positive outlook, even in the face of
economic instability and uncertainty,” said Scott Caldwell, United Way
Success By 6 director. “This can become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Naturally, optimism needs to be balanced with good planning skills.” But
Sarah Schroeder, a senior at Rock Island High School, didn’t look at the
finding so favorably. “A lot of kids think that they’ll be okay and
nothing bad will happen to them,” she said. “They can do drugs and get
drunk all the time, but, oh, they’re going to be successful in the
future.”
The United Way’s Plan
As of April 3, the United Way has presented to St.
Ambrose University, Scott Community College, Illinois Retired Teachers
Association, Bettendorf Chamber of Commerce Education Forum, and Safe
Schools Healthy Students Advisory Council, along with 14 other
organizations for the community-awareness campaign. The United Way also
plans to team up with law-enforcement, labor, and media organizations
that will work with trained facilitators to identify what they can do to
help spread asset awareness.
The youth council, however, won’t be officially up and
running for until the beginning of the 2006-7 school year. So until that
time, the United Way will be deciding what can be done for kids. The
number of youths who will participate in the council has yet to be
determined, but Kiley estimated it would be between 20 and 30. He added
that finding a diverse group of youths to participate – including those
with a low number of assets – will not be a problem. Kiley said the
United Way funds organizations such as Martin Luther King Center,
Friendly House, Family Resources Incorporated, and Youth Service Bureau,
which have programs for at-risk teenagers and could contribute teens to
the council. “We’re like a handshake away from them or in some cases we
already know them,” Kiley said.
Jesse Virgil
April 05 2006
http://www.rcreader.com/display_article.php3?marker=2&artid=2833
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