First-year High School Students Research Articles

Comparison of Mathematics Performance of First-Year High School Students in Collaborative Learning and Formative Evaluation Methods

Educational system of Iran is suffering from the lack of active learning methods due to various reasons. Active learning methods motivate students to think and learn. One of these methods is collaborative learning which is more efficient than individual learning and develops a positive attitude in students toward teaching and learning. Another method is formative evaluation which enhances learning process. In this paper we investigate collaborative learning and formative evaluation in distinct groups. We use two hypotheses to address the difference between mathematics performance of students in conventional, collaborative learning, and formative evaluation methods. Adopting a semi-empirical approach and using multistage quasi-cluster sampling method, we chose 89 female students of the first year of secondary school in district 1 of Tehran in school year 2013-2014. We divided them into three groups of conventional, collaborative learning, and formative evaluation, and provided them with a researcher-made mathematics examination. ANOVA test results showed that students of formative evaluation group had better mathematics performance than conventional and collaborative learning groups. Therefore, formative evaluation seems to be an efficient method for teaching mathematics.

Relationship between Juvenile Delinquency, Sensation Seeking, and Impulsivity: Focusing on Delinquency-Onset Type

The main purpose of this study was to find the relationship between the delinquency-onset time in the source and the continuity of delinquency. In order to achieve this objective, we divided 350 first-year high school students into three groups early-onset type, late-onset type, and non-delinquent adolescents on the basis of the delinquency onset. The results of this study were as follow: (1) for the boys, the early-onset type shows a higher continuity of delinquency than both the late-onset type and the general adolescents. On the other hand, for the girls, the early-onset type shows a higher continuity of delinquency than the late-onset type, but there was no difference in the persistence duration between the late-onset type and the non-delinquent adolescents. (2) For the boys, the examination reveals that the early-onset type has a higher degree of sensation seeking and impulsivity than the general adolescents. In addition, the early-onset type shows a higher degree of sensation seeking than the late-onset type, whereas the two show no difference in impulsivity. For the girls, sensation seeking did not show any difference depending on the delinquency onset. However, more impulsivity appeared in the early-onset type than in the late-onset type or the non-delinquent adolescents. (3) The relative priorities of variables determining the group to which the students belong on the basis of the delinquency onset are in the order of sensation seeking and juvenile impulsivity. Therefore, this study, suggests that the early-onset type requires a different kind of intervention than the late-onset type. Keywords: adolescent delinquency, early-onset type, late-onset type, sensation seeking, impulsivity

일부 고등학생의 치과치료공포감 및 치과의사불신감 관련 요인 분석

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors related to high school students' fear of dental treatment and distrust for dentists, analyze the relation between these factors and dental health services utilization, and then apply basis data for providing individualized dental health service. The period of the data collection was from November 1st to November 22th 2013, and the subjects were 300 of the first-year high school students in Daugu, and the final analysis data were total 280. using frequency, T-test, correlation and multiple regression analysis, the results of this study were as follows. The higher the distrust for dentist(<TEX>${\beta}=0.322$</TEX>) and the burden of dental visit(<TEX>${\beta}=0.161$</TEX>), fear of Dental treatment was increased. The larger the fear of Dental treatment and Past experienced pain level, distrust for dentist was increased. therefore, In order to decrease patients' distrust for dentists, good communication between patients and doctors, and efficient treat plans were needed. As a result, patients should have positive attitude on treat. Through early detection and early treatment of oral disease, effective dental health care services with decreasing the fear of dental care system should be provided.

The Structure and Characteristics of Adolescents' Motivation in Micro-Blog Use

The present study aims to clarify the structure of adolescents' motivations in micro-blog use and develop the corresponding scale. The results show that: (1) Adolescents' motivation in using micro-blog contains 14 items which can be classified into four dimensions, namely Show-Extrication, Convenience-Communication, Information-Sociality, and Leisure-Expression. The scale is of good reliability and validity; (2) Girls' motivation is significantly higher than boys' in the dimensions of Show-Extrication, Convenience-Communication, and Information-Sociality, and in terms of Information-Sociality, the motivation of the second-year high school students are significantly higher than that of the first-year and third-year high school students.

Warm and harsh parenting as mediators of the relation between maternal and adolescent emotion regulation

Maternal hostility/rejection and warmth were considered as potential mediators of the relation between mothers' and adolescents' emotion regulation. Participants were first-year high school students living in Ankara, Turkey and their mothers (N = 365). Scales assessing emotion regulation difficulties and maternal hostility/rejection and warmth were administered to both the adolescents and their mothers. Maternal hostility/rejection, but not warmth, mediated the relation between maternal and adolescent emotion regulation. For girls there was, additionally, a direct effect of maternal emotion regulation. The different roles played by parental rejection and parental warmth in the development of adolescents' emotion regulation accord with arguments that socialization occurs in different domains and that rejection and warmth are not aspects of the same domain.

Characteristics of Eating Habits and Physical Activity in Relation to Body Mass Index Among Adolescents

Objective: To assess eating habits and the level of physical activity in adolescents and develop a predictive model for the body mass index (BMI) based on these variables. Design: In this cross-sectional study, eating habits and the level of physical activity were assessed using a questionnaire validated in adolescents. Body mass and height collected during the last annual checkup were extracted from personal medical records. Subjects: The sample included 330 boys and 377 girls (mean age 15.8 ± 0.2 years) who were first-year high school students in the city of Belgrade, Serbia. Measures: Responses to each of the 14 questions about eating habits and 6 questions about physical activity were scored from the least (0) to the most (3) desired behaviors. These ratings were then averaged to arrive to an aggregate score for each domain. The BMI was calculated according to the standard method. A series of regression analyses was performed to derive the best model for predicting BMI in boys and girls based on individual eating habits and physical activity items, first separately and then combined. Results: In the sample, 24.5% of boys and 9.5% of girls were overweight or obese. Girls’ eating habits were better than boys (mean aggregate score 2.3 ± 0.3 and 2.1 ± 0.3, respectively, p < 0.001), whereas the level of physical activity was greater in boys than girls (2.1 ± 0.6 vs 1.9 ± 0.6, p < 0.001). The differences between boys and girls in the BMI, eating habits, and physical activity remained significant after controlling for their knowledge about healthy eating and education level of their parents. Eating habits were a better predictor of BMI than physical activity, particularly in boys (R 2 = 0.13 vs R 2 = 0.02) compared to girls (R 2 = 0.04 vs R 2 = 0.01). Combining eating habits and physical activity in the multivariate model of BMI resulted in a better predictive accuracy in boys (R 2 = 0.17) but not girls (R 2 = 0.04). Conclusions: Eating habits and physical activity differ between adolescent boys and girls and can predict BMI, particularly in boys. The results suggest the need to develop gender-specific programs for promoting healthy lifestyle among adolescents in our country.

A social work study on the effect of personal characteristics on academic performance

This study examines the relationship between career interests, aptitude, mental health, happiness and academic performance among first-year high school students. The proposed study performs a descriptive research on 370 first-year students using multistage random cluster survey to collect the necessary data. The proposed study also uses strong career interest questionnaires, Oxford Happiness test, Health and Aptitude test scores and the semester GPA scores. Research data are analyzed by Pearson correlation coefficient, and stepwise regression procedures. The results indicate that there is a significant and direct relationship between realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, convention and academic performance; but there is an unusual and significant inverse relation between realistic and academic performance. In addition, there is a direct relationship between mental health and academic performance, and between aptitude, happiness and academic performance. Generally, there is a relationship between career interest, aptitude, mental health, happiness and academic performance; and the greatest impact on academic performance is related to career interest, particularly investigative interest.

The Well-Being of Junior High School Students in Taiwan in Relation to Familial Socioeconomic Status, School Life Adjustment, and Deviant Behavior

This study explores the influence that familial socioeconomic status, school life adjustment, and deviant behavior have on the well-being of junior high school students. The participants were 1886 first-year junior high school students recruited using the Taiwan Education Panel Survey (TEPS). The findings of this study indicated that a) the well-being of male students exceeded that of female students; b) significant interaction effects were exhibited between familial socioeconomic status and school life adjustment, and higher familial socioeconomic status and higher school life adjustment with higher well-being; and c) deviant behavior was related to lower well-being.

Iranian EFL Learners’ Perceptions with Respect to Tasks in Comparison with the Actual Content of the Textbooks

Most of the studies in the field of textbook evaluation in Iran have evaluated the textbooks from the perspective of teachers and have ignored the perceptions of the learners. The purpose of this study was to shed some light on the perceptions of Iranian EFL learners towards tasks and to compare their perceptions with the actual content of their textbooks. To this end, the study employed a descriptive and survey-based design. A questionnaire consisting of two different sections was distributed among 100 first-year high school students in four schools. One class in each school participated in the study. The first-year high school English textbook was carefully analyzed with respect to the percentages of tasks and non-tasks. The results of the questionnaire analysis were then compared to the results of the content analysis of the textbook. The comparison showed that the students generally rated tasks as being highly effective in the learning of English. In contrast, in their actual textbook, there was a much less number of these sorts of communicative activities. These findings show that there are wide gaps between the Iranian learners’ perceptions and the actual content of their textbooks. These findings can be used by the textbook designers in order to take account of the learners’ preferences and perceptions while designing new editions of textbooks.

Cost Effectiveness of Interferon-Gamma Release Assay for School-Based Tuberculosis Screening

To assess the cost effectiveness of school-based tuberculosis (TB) screening using QuantiFERON®-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT) versus the tuberculin skin test (TST) and chest x-ray examination (CXR). We constructed Markov models of first-year high-school and university students, using a societal perspective, and followed them up until the age of 80 years. Three strategies (QFT, TST, and CXR) were modeled. All costs and clinical benefits were discounted at a fixed annual rate of 3%. In the base-case analyses of 16-year-old high-school students and 19-year-old university students, the QFT strategy yielded the greatest benefits at the lowest cost [in year 2009 values] (16-year-olds: $US627.89, 29.69835 quality-adjusted life-years [QALYs]; 19-year-olds: $US646.04, 29.15361 QALYs), compared with the TST strategy (16-year-olds: $US943.50, 29.69767 QALYs; 19-year-olds: $US998.62, 29.15288 QALYs) and the CXR strategy (16-year-olds: $US7286.24, 29.69532 QALYs; 19-year-olds: $US7305.19, 29.14911 QALYs). On one-way sensitivity analyses, the bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination rate was not sensitive to the TST strategy. On probabilistic sensitivity analysis, the QFT strategy was the most cost effective, with a willingness-to-pay level of $US50 000/QALY gained. The QFT strategy provided the greatest benefits at the lowest cost for school-based TB screening. There appears to be little role for TST or CXR in screening of school populations. Current practices using either TST or CXR screening should be reconsidered on the basis of cost effectiveness.

Discrepancies between Turkish Mothers’ and Adolescents’ Reports of Adolescents’ Emotion Regulation Difficulties

The aim of the present study was to examine discrepancies between Turkish mothers' and adolescents' reports in terms of adolescents' difficulties in emotion regulation. In addition, the mediating role of mothers' own emotion regulation difficulties between mothers' psychological symptoms and the discrepancy on reports of adolescents' difficulties in emotion regulation was examined. A total of 595 first-year high school students (300 females and 295 males) whose ages ranged between 14 and 17 years participated in the study. In addition, 365 mothers (61.34%) completed the questionnaires. Mean age of mothers was 41.86 years (standard deviation = 5.02) ranging from 32 to 61 years. The results revealed that adolescents tended to report higher levels of difficulties in emotion regulation for themselves as compared with mothers' report, and girls reported more difficulties for their emotion regulation than boys. It was also found that mothers' own emotion regulation difficulties mediated the relation between mothers' psychological symptoms and discrepancy on reports of adolescents' emotion regulation difficulties. Mothers may be less likely to endorse their children's emotion regulation difficulties since they cannot observe various aspects of their children's emotion regulation. On the other hand, the mothers' perception of their children's emotion regulation could be affected from their own emotion regulation difficulties, which could be a result of their psychological problems.

A dual identity-electronic contact (DIEC) experiment promoting short- and long-term intergroup harmony

Existing intergroup harmony programs have been short in length with little long-term evaluation of their true effectiveness. This experiment addresses this limitation through the development and evaluation of a new intergroup harmony program that integrates dual identity and contact tenets. At Time 1, 116 Australian Muslim and 104 Australian Christian first-year high school students attending religiously segregated schools completed pre-test measures of intergroup bias, intergroup anxiety, prejudice, and outgroup knowledge. Eight months later, in the next year of school, these students were allocated to either the nine-week dual identity-electronic or E-contact (DIEC) program that involved Muslim and Christians interacting via a synchronous internet chat tool, or the control condition where they completed the program within their religious groups with no recategorization. All participants completed the same pre-test measures at two weeks (Time 2) and 6-months (Time 3) post-program. At Time 2, for students in the DIEC condition, intergroup bias and intergroup anxiety decreased significantly, and outgroup knowledge increased significantly, compared to the control condition. In the case of intergroup bias, the decrease was maintained at Time 3. Moderation effects of ingroup identification and outgroup friendship, and mediation effects of intergroup anxiety were also found. These encouraging findings highlight that carefully designed E-contact programs can successfully promote intergroup harmony in both the short- and long-term.

Long-Term Effects of a Parent and Student Intervention on Alcohol Use in Adolescents: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

Early onset of drinking among Dutch adolescents is highly prevalent. A lower age of onset is associated with several developmental and social risks. To evaluate the long-term effectiveness of two preventive interventions targeting heavy drinking in third-year high school students. Cluster RCT using four conditions for comparing two active interventions (separately and simultaneously) with a control group. 152 classes of 19 high schools in the Netherlands; 3490 first-year high school students (M=12.6 years, SD=0.49) and their parents. (1) parent intervention aimed at encouraging restrictive parental rule-setting concerning their children's alcohol consumption; (2) student intervention aimed at increasing self-control and healthy attitudes toward alcohol, consisting of four digital lessons based on the principles of the theory of planned behavior and social cognitive theory; (3) interventions 1 and 2 combined; and (4) the regular curriculum as control condition. Incidence of (heavy) weekly alcohol use at 34 months (2009) after baseline measurement (2006). There were 2937 students eligible for analyses in this study. At follow-up, only the combined student-parent intervention showed substantial and significant effects on heavy weekly and weekly drinking. The short-term effects found in the present study further support that adolescents as well as their parents should be targeted in order to delay the onset of (heavy) drinking. NTR649.

An assessment of the effect of training in cognitive and metacognitive strategies on academic achievement of the first-year high school students with academic weakness in Southern Khorasan province

The aim of this research was to study the effect of instruction of these strategies by school counselors, in educational progress of the students in the first year of high school, with weakness in their studies, in province of South Khorasan. The sample of research was selected with the method of available (accessible) sampling with 60 individuals (30 girl and 30 boy).In order to evaluate the effect of independent variant (instruction of strategies), criteria of changing in results of examinations of the second term (stage) from the first term, considered in two groups of trial and control. Additionally, for controlling of other variants the schools were selected from different locations and randomly. In order to control the variant of counselor‘s motivation and also for evaluation f the extent of learning skills by counselors, a final examination was performed without prior notification, at the end o educational-instructive course. Research results demonstrated that instruction of these strategies was ineffective in total for group of the trial, while the variant of ability-motivation of the counselor comes for interpretation, the instructions have been effective for the group. It means that the students who have instructed by motivated and capable counselors, have progressed in their studies. The effects of these instructions were different for various lessons and maximum effect observed in mathematic. Furthermore, these effects were different for two genders.

Stress symptoms among adolescents: The role of subjective psychosocial conditions, lifestyle, and self-esteem

Stress-related problems are increasing among Swedish adolescents, especially among females. The aims of this study were to survey the incidence of stress symptoms among 16-year-olds, to investigate the related gender differences, and to understand the factors that may contribute to stress symptoms. The study is questionnaire based, and the sample included 304 first-year high school students from two comparable schools. More than 30% of the high school students reported serious stress symptoms. Almost every second girl and every fifth boy reported that they felt stressed to a high degree. 8.2% were found to have severe stress symptoms, which would be considered a sign of chronic stress in adults. Besides the perception of high demands, low levels of global self-esteem, sleep disturbances, and poor social support played a crucial role in the prediction of stress symptoms. The findings highlight the need to develop and implement adequate stress prevention measures for adolescents.

Sexual behaviour and contraceptive use among Swedish high school students in two cities: Comparisons between genders, study programmes, and over time

Objectives To investigate sexual behaviour and contraceptive use among first-year high school students in two Swedish cities in 2009, to compare male and female students, students in theoretical and vocational study programmes, and their sexual behaviour with that reported in 1979, 1989 and 1999.Methods In a cluster sample of 20 classes, students (N = 387), median age 16 years, completed a questionnaire consisting of 46 questions.Results More girls than boys had experienced petting (p ≤ 0.003) and had received oral sex (p ≤ 0.01). More boys than girls had masturbated (p ≤ 0.0001) and watched pornography (p ≤ 0.0001). The median age at first sexual intercourse was 15 years. Students in vocational programmes were more sexually experienced compared to their theoretical peers. The proportion of students having had sexual intercourse (p ≤ 0.0002), and contraceptive use at first (p ≤ 0.0001) and latest (p ≤ 0.0001) sexual intercourse increased from 1979 to 2009. Alcohol use at first intercourse decreased over the period (p ≤ 0.0001).Conclusions Girls were more sexually experienced than boys, as were students in vocational programmes compared to their theoretical peers; this should be considered when tailoring sex education and counselling. Over time, an increase in students having had sexual intercourse, and contraceptive use at first and latest sexual intercourse was found.

Can We Make Definite Categorization of Student Attitudes? A Rough Set Approach to Investigate Students’ Implicit Attitudinal Typologies Toward Living Things

This study investigates the possibility of analyzing educational data using the theory of rough sets which is mostly employed in the fields of data analysis and data mining. Data were collected using an open-ended conceptual understanding test of the living things administered to first-year high school students. The responses of randomly selected 60 students among the participants were analyzed using rough set approach on the basis of “nine attitudinal typologies toward wildlife” defined by Kellert (1996). Student responses were tabulated to be used in rough sets and upper and lower approximation analyses were carried out. Students were found to display the characteristics of four out of nine typologies. Analyses revealed that some students who possessed characteristics of a certain typology may partially display the characteristics of other typologies and these typologies could be determined using rough set theory.

Are Animals ‘More Alive’ than Plants? Animistic-Anthropocentric Construction of Life Concept

This study investigated the characteristics students use in attributing value to and classifying the living things; the relational construction of the life concepts and the living things and the place of human in this construction. Participants were first-year high school students from seven schools in Izmir (a large western city in Turkey). An open-ended conceptual understanding test was developed and administered to students. Semistructured interview forms were applied to students and biology teachers, one from each school; and this provided additional data to clarify ambiguous points in students’ responses to the conceptual test. Results revealed that students constructed the life concept by associating it predominantly with ‘human’. The most frequently associated concept to the life concept was found to be motion. Students tended to use their own classification criteria instead of biological classification. Generally, we noticed classifications in the form of ‘human-animal-plant’

Promoting Interest and Performance in High School Science Classes

We tested whether classroom activities that encourage students to connect course materials to their lives will increase student motivation and learning. We hypothesized that this effect will be stronger for students who have low expectations of success. In a randomized field experiment with high school students, we found that a relevance intervention, which encouraged students to make connections between their lives and what they were learning in their science courses, increased interest in science and course grades for students with low success expectations. The results have implications for the development of science curricula and theories of motivation.

Preventing heavy alcohol use in adolescents (PAS): cluster randomized trial of a parent and student intervention offered separately and simultaneously

To evaluate the effectiveness of two preventive interventions to reduce heavy drinking in first- and second-year high school students. Cluster randomized controlled trial using four conditions for comparing two active interventions with a control group from 152 classes of 19 high schools in the Netherlands. A total of 3490 first-year high school students (mean 12.68 years, SD=0.51) and their parents. Intervention conditions (i) Parent intervention (modelled on the Swedish Örebro Prevention Program) aimed at encouraging parental rule-setting concerning their children's alcohol consumption; (ii) student intervention consisting of four digital lessons based on the principles of the theory of planned behaviour and social cognitive theory; (iii) interventions 1 and 2 combined; and (iv) the regular curriculum as control condition. Main outcome measures Incidence of (heavy) weekly alcohol use and frequency of monthly drinking at 10 and 22 months after baseline measurement. A total of 2937 students were eligible for analyses in this study. At first follow-up, only the combined student-parent intervention showed substantial and statistically significant effects on heavy weekly drinking, weekly drinking and frequency of drinking. At second follow-up these results were replicated, except for the effects of the combined intervention on heavy weekly drinking. These findings were consistent across intention-to-treat and completers-only analyses. Results suggest that adolescents as well as their parents should be targeted in order to delay the onset of drinking, preferably prior to onset of weekly drinking.