SelfhelpMagazine

by Dewey G. Cornell, Ph.D. & Ann B. Loper, Ph.D.

School violence has been a serious and growing problem in the United States for over a decade. Nonetheless, caution with surveys of adolescents is advised, because the large-scale study outlined below suggested that teens may be prone to exaggeration. This early study is worthy of note because it found that a survey involving teens needs to conducted carefully so as to accurately reflect the issues.

School Violence: The Study

Psychologists Dewey G. Cornell, Ph.D. & Ann B. Loper, Ph.D., reported findings of a large-scale survey administered to 10,909 7th, 9th and 11th graders in a Virginia suburban school district covering:

• attitudes toward aggressive behavior
• victimization experiences
• weapon-carrying, fighting and
• other aggressive behaviors and
• substance use.

When the researchers first tallied the raw responses, the researchers found some very disturbing results. For example, 16.6 percent of the respondents said they had carried a gun to school during the past 30 days and 29.3 percent said they had been in a fight.

But before and after administering the survey, the researchers took some precautions against gross exaggeration on the part of the survey participants. They threw out any that had missing or inappropriate identifying information such as grade level, gender or age.

They also threw out any in which the participant marked "once" or "more than once" to ALL SIX key high-risk items, which included:

• carrying a knife
• carrying a gun
• carrying other weapons
• whether they had been in a fight
• drinking alcohol
• using drugs.

The Results

As a result of the precautions against exaggeration, the percentage of students who reported carrying a gun to school dropped from 16.6 to 5.6 percent. The percentage who reported fighting dropped from 29.3 to 19.2 percent.

One particularly notable finding of the survey was the differences between students who identified themselves as gang members and those who didn't: gang members were more likely to endorse aggressive attitudes, report victimization experiences and engage in fighting. They were also more likely to carry weapons to school and use drugs or alcohol.

This information received from the American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC.