Design of a Small-scale Research Project

Introduction

A review of literature underscores the significant role peer groups play in adolescents’ tendencies towards risky behaviors (Albert & Steinberg, 2013), such as illicit sex, drug abuse, and delinquency (Dodge, Dishion & Lansford, 2008). The problem behavior theory, in conjunction with the social learning theory, supports the idea that the friends with whom a teenager socializes can determine their inclination towards risky behavior (Monahan, 2009). A teenager who socializes with delinquent friends increases their chances of engaging in risk behaviors, including crime (Dodge et al., 2008), because peer grouping promotes antisocial acts (Chassin, Hussong & Beltran, 2009). Various research studies (e.g., Dishion, Dodge, & Lansford, 2008; Gardner & Steinberg, 2005) highlight the role the environment plays in determining an adolescent’s inclination towards risky behavior. Therefore, if an adolescent spends time in a setting characterized by deviant behavior, such as with aggressive and abusive parents, they learn the deviant behavior (Williams, 2012). Adolescents from such hazardous homes and societies are likely to find one another and perpetrate antisocial behaviors as a group (Jaccard et al., 2005; Gardner & Steinberg, 2005). However, the adolescent can weigh the benefit or harm of a specific action and choose to either perpetrate or abstain from deviant behavior. Generally, the mentioned research studies (Jaccard et al., 2005; Gardner et al., 2005; Williams, 2012) and others have shown that peer pressure can undermine the capacity of adolescents and young adults to make a choice between pro-social and antisocial behavior. Thus, it is essential to take into account the role peers play in shaping the behavior of the youth.

Various interventions have been proposed to mitigate the impact of peer pressure on the tendency of youth to engage in risky behaviors (Prior & Paris, 2005; Rubin, Robinovich, Hallsworth, & Nason, 2006; Ross, Duckworth, Smith, Wyness, & Schoon, 2010; O’Connor & Waddell, 2015). Researchers, such as O’Connor et al. (2015), Jaccard (2005), and Gardner et al. (2005) have proposed targeting the environment surrounding the youth, including homes and schools, to control the inclination to deviant behaviors. In particular, shaping the school environment can have a greater effect on the tendency of adolescents to perpetrate deviant behaviors, because youth spend the better part of their day in school rather than at home. Therefore, school policies geared towards facilitating peer groups and counseling services would go a long way in helping adolescents become responsible members of the community by reducing the burden on society in terms of security problems and investment in correctional facilities (O’Connor et al., 2015). This paper will investigate the role of school policies on teenage tendency to engage in illicit sex and the adverse outcomes of deviant behavior, such as teen pregnancy and school dropout. Specifically, the study will compare school policy with school dropout rates to determine the loopholes in the policy and the need to switch to better school policies.

On the other hand, socializing among age mates is necessary for their cognitive and social development, and hence, parents and school authorities should not suppress it too much. Instead, they should monitor how adolescents socialize to ensure that it leads to socially favorable behaviors (Hoorn et al., 2014). Consequently, this research study will seek to compare the impact of school policies on the tendency of young students to engage in or abstain from deviant behaviors. This study will seek to prove the hypothesis that supervised socializing among adolescents related to school policy would discourage their inclination towards deviant behaviors. Therefore, the setting for this study will be local schools from economically identical neighborhoods to control for the role of economic factors on the tendency of youth to engage in deviant behaviors. This study will be the first to connect school policies directly with the propensity of youth to engage in deviant behaviors, such as bullying, burglary, irresponsible sex, weapon carrying, and substance abuse.

Methodology Proposal

The methodology of the proposed research will comprise various subsections, including the research design, sample, data collection, data analysis, period, and ethics, which will be discussed below.

Design

According to De Vaus (2001), social researchers inquire about two kinds of research questions: 1) what is going on? and 2) why is it going on? These questions correspond to descriptive and explanatory research, respectively (Mason, 2009). This study is descriptive in nature and seeks to describe the impact of school policy on the tendency of high school students to engage in deviant behaviors such as drug abuse, alcohol drinking, violence, and irresponsible sex. The research would help inform school policies on mitigating deviant behaviors among students that often determine their academic success and life success after school (Wickham & Bailey, 2000). However, some scholars dismiss descriptive research as mere ‘description’ (De Vaus, 2001). De Vaus (2001) argues that good description is fundamental to the research enterprise and that it adds significantly to the knowledge of the shape and nature of many societies.

Descriptions can be concrete or abstract. By proving the existence of social issues, a competent description can challenge the mainstream supposition about the nature of a specific phenomenon (Walliman 2001), thus provoking action (De Vaus, 2001). In fact, De Vaus argues that good description triggers the ‘why’ question(s) of explanatory research. Nevertheless, before asking ‘why,’ researchers need to be sure about the facts and dimensions of the phenomenon of deviant behaviors in schoolchildren. It is all appropriate to develop elaborate theories as to why youth in the selected schools perpetrate deviant behaviors. On the other hand, Mills (2000) cautions that description can degenerate to mindless fact gathering or ‘abstracted empiricism.’ Multiple examples of unfocused surveys and case studies report trivial information and fail to provoke any ‘why’ questions or offer any basis for generalizing the study results.

Sample

To answer the research question, a sample consisting of at least five schools located in different postcodes that share the same characteristics in terms of the socio-economic status of the residents will be selected. In addition, the neighborhood must have a dominant ethnic group. This approach intends to control for the influence of culture on the tendency to perpetrate deviant behavior (Wisker 2008). Therefore, the size of the sample will be limited because of the need to control for the influence of culture and socioeconomic factors in youth propensity to deviant behavior.

To select the sample, the researcher will identify the appropriate neighborhood and the schools located therein to approach the school administrators to ask for enrollment of their schools in the study. Once the school is identified, an invitation letter will be sent to the principals requesting their consent to participate in the study. The intention to keep the privacy and confidentiality of the information they provide will be stated within the letter. The criteria for selection of the school will be at least 20 years of operation and have a policy that relates to peer group formation and socialization, including participation in games and clubs. All the schools lacking policies on students’ social activity will be excluded from the study. It is worth noting that these specifications limit the number of schools to consider for the study. The targeted schools will be high schools to eliminate the difference in age in the tendency to develop antisocial behaviors. In this light, all the participating schools will be offering high school education.

Data Collection

The necessary data to answer the research question will be collected using a structured questionnaire administered to the school administrators, various class teachers, and the students. Researchers administer questionnaires to selected respondents to discover the spread of various traits, attitudes, or beliefs. “In deciding to survey a group of people, researchers make one critical assumption- that a characteristic or belief can be described or measured accurately through self-reporting” (Marshall & Rossman, 2006, p.125). In deploying questionnaires as a tool for collecting data, the researcher relies on the trustworthiness and accuracy of the sample’s responses. While such dependence greatly limits the usefulness of questionnaires to investigate implicit beliefs and deeply held values, the questionnaire can be useful for many occasions, such as answering this research question.

Questionnaires, also known as structured interviews, are administered questions on a sheet “in which a list of predetermined questions are asked, with little or no variation and with no scope for follow-up questions to responses that warrant further elaboration” (Gill, Stewart, Treasure, & Chadwick, 2008, p. 291). Therefore, they can be administered quickly and easily. Gill et al. (2008) further argue that questionnaires are advantageous where clarification of some issues may be needed or if the respondents may have literacy or numeracy concerns. However, this will not be the case for this study as the respondents are educated and have a basic understanding of English and mathematics. On the other hand, Gills and colleagues (2008) highlight that questionnaires “only allow for limited participant responses and are, therefore, of little use if ‘depth’ is required” (291).

Typically, questionnaires comprise a set of questions that provoke structured responses and may feature few open-ended questions. The questions are evaluated, sometimes rather robustly, for clarity, bias, sequence, and effectiveness (Gills et al. 2008). Usually, they are tested on small groups (pilot study) to determine their utility and reliability.

The identity of schools and the respondents will be concealed for the privacy and confidentiality of the information provided. The researcher will clarify the issues in the letter to the principals of different schools to encourage them to participate and prevent bias with regards to the information they provide, as stated in the above subsection. The questionnaire will seek to obtain information about the nature of the policies in place that relate to peer grouping and counseling services to manage the students’ social activity. In addition, the questionnaire will seek to obtain the rates of deviant behavior in different classes, including absenteeism, violence, drug abuse, bullying, weapon carrying, and theft. The response to the questionnaire will be coded to conceal the identity of the respondents.

The researcher will also deploy open-ended interviews to engage the school administrators and the class teachers to determine the effectiveness of the policies the school has on students’ social activity and its effectiveness in reducing deviant behaviors. An open-ended interview is another useful approach to collecting data in social research (Mason, 2009). Open-ended interviews are the opposite of structured interviews, and they allow the interviewees the scope to respond in their own terms and provide responses in the way they think and use language. The goal is to ensure that the data collected is authentic and reliable. The researcher will first contact the principal of each school to seek permission and explain the study to the teachers and students. Consent forms will be distributed and collected before data collection. The interviews will be conducted in a private setting within the school premises to ensure confidentiality and comfort for the participants.

Data Analysis

The data collected through questionnaires and interviews will be analyzed to find patterns and relationships between school policies and the rates of deviant behaviors among students. The responses from the questionnaires will be coded and entered into a statistical software program for analysis. Descriptive statistics, such as frequencies and percentages, will be used to summarize the data. Cross-tabulations will be used to examine the relationship between different variables, such as the type of school policy and the rates of deviant behavior.

The qualitative data from the open-ended interviews will be analyzed using thematic analysis. The responses will be transcribed and coded to identify recurring themes and patterns. The findings from the qualitative data will be used to supplement and provide context to the quantitative data.

Ethical Considerations

The study will adhere to ethical guidelines to ensure the protection of the participants’ rights and well-being. Informed consent will be obtained from all participants, and they will be assured of their right to withdraw from the study at any time without any consequences. The confidentiality and anonymity of the participants will be maintained throughout the study. The researcher will also ensure that the data is stored securely and only accessible to authorized personnel.

Conclusion

This study aims to investigate the impact of school policies on the tendency of high school students to engage in deviant behaviors. By examining the relationship between school policies and the rates of deviant behaviors, the study seeks to provide insights into effective interventions that can mitigate the influence of peer pressure and promote pro-social behavior among adolescents. The findings of this study will contribute to the development of evidence-based policies that can enhance the well-being and academic success of students.

References

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