South Korean High School Research Articles

A Cross-National Validation of the Academic Expectations Stress Inventory With Chinese and Korean High School Students

The current study provided evidence for the factor structure of the Academic Expectation Stress Inventory (AESI) in a sample of 213 Mainland Chinese and 184 South Korean high school students. We examined cross-national invariance of the AESI using multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis across two Asian cultural samples. Results suggested a unidimension rather than two-factor structure (self and teachers/parents) in both settings. Results also showed evidence of reliability, convergent validity (significant correlations with depression, emotional exhaustion, and cynicism), and divergent validity (nonsignificant correlations with amotivation and efficacy reduction). ANCOVA results indicated that perceived overall academic expectation stress was significantly higher among Mainland Chinese students than for their South Korean counterparts. Furthermore, there were no differences between males and females for the Korean adolescents while females reported higher expectation scores than males in the Chinese adolescent sample.

Factors Affecting Sexually Transmitted Infections in South Korean High School Students.

This study identified factors affecting sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among high school students in South Korea. This study was a secondary data analysis using data from the eighth annual Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey conducted in 2012. Data from 2,387 high school students who reported having sexual intercourse were analyzed using descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and logistic regression by gender. The survey questionnaire measured drug experience, Internet pornography preference, age at first intercourse, and method of contraception. Overall, 7.2% of participants had experienced STIs. The common significant predictors of STIs in male and female students were drug experience, Internet pornography preference, and age at first intercourse. Contraceptive methods were statistically significant only for males; living arrangements and Internet usage were significant only for females. Drug experiences, Internet pornography preference, and age at first intercourse were strong factors that affected both male and female students, suggesting the necessity to reinforce laws and regulations prohibiting drug use and pornography. Moreover, precise and detailed information on intercourse, sexual behaviors, and STIs offered by public health nurses should be officially provided starting in elementary school. For male students, the practice of condom use should be emphasized.

Peer-group pressure as a moderator of the relationship between attitude toward cyberbullying and cyberbullying behaviors on mobile instant messengers

This study investigates the moderation effect of peer-group pressure in the context of groups chat on mobile instant messengers (MIMs). Why do adolescents engage in bullying behaviors on MIMs in opposition to their attitude toward bullying? Generally, previous research has explored modest associations between attitude toward cyberbullying and cyberbullying behaviors. However, this study focuses on the moderating role played by peer-group pressure in MIMs group chats. An interaction effect between peer-group pressure and negative attitude toward MIMs bullying is hypothesized and demonstrated based on data (N=424) gathered via a survey conducted in July 2014 of randomly selected students from South Korean high schools and junior high schools in South Korea. The findings support the effect of interaction between the attitude and peer-group pressure. Adolescents with a highly negative attitude toward MIMs bullying tended not to engage in MIMs bullying regardless of the level of peer-group pressure to which they perceived themselves to be subject. However, adolescents with a neutral or positive attitude toward MIMs bullying who perceived a high level of peer-group pressure engaged more in MIMs bulling behaviors than did those with a similarly neutral or positive attitude who perceived a low level of PGP. It was concluded that self-justification or self-persuasion on the part of adolescents possibly resulting from the logic of cognitive dissonance can bring about engagement in MIMs bullying behaviors even against adolescents’ attitudes toward MIMs bullying.

Career Development and School Success in Adolescents: The Role of Career Interventions

Using longitudinal survey data, the present study examined the effect of participation on career development skills in 6 career education experiences and school success among South Korean adolescents (2,473 young men, 2,132 young women; mean age = 15.86 years). Regression analyses indicated that students who participated in career education programs in school once or twice over a 2‐year period had the highest scores in both career development skills and school success. In contrast, there was no relationship between career education, career development skills, and school success for students who participated in career education programs only once or not at all. Results support the influence of career education interventions on students' career development skills and school success. This study provides accountability information on the effectiveness of career education interventions at South Korean secondary schools. The authors offer suggestions about more effective career interventions that can be applied in South Korean high schools.

A Study of English Language Learning Experience of North Korean Refugee Youth in South Korean High Schools

A Study of English Language Learning Experience of North Korean Refugee Youth in South Korean High Schools

Social relationship on problematic Internet use (PIU) among adolescents in South Korea: A moderated mediation model of self-esteem and self-control

Despite previous research efforts on identifying the risk and protective factors of problematic Internet use (PIU), the specific mechanism among these factors are largely unknown. Thus, the present study examined the effect of adolescents’ social relationships on their PIU, as well as the effect of self-esteem as a mediator and the effect of self-control as a moderator. Survey data from 750 South Korean middle and high school students in Seoul and Gyeonggi areas were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results are as follows. First, PIU is significantly associated with relationship with peers and with mother. Second, self-esteem did not mediate the effect of communication with mother on PIU, but was found to partially mediate the effect of peer relationship on PIU. Third, adolescents’ self-control significantly moderated the indirect effect of peer relationship on PIU via self-esteem. Through detailed analyses, this study identified self-esteem as a mediator and self-control as a moderator in the relationship between social relationships and PIU. Implications of these results for understanding the relationship among social relationships, self-esteem, self-control, and PIU are discussed.

Parenting styles and career decision-making among French and Korean adolescents

This study compared the relationship of parenting styles to the career decision-making of adolescents from a Western and an Eastern context. Specifically, 575 French high school students and 613 South Korean high school students completed a questionnaire assessing perceived parenting style, career decision-making difficulties, and career decision self-efficacy. The Korean adolescents had lower career decision self-efficacy beliefs and higher career decision-making difficulties than the French adolescents. The authoritarian parenting style was associated with higher scores on career decision self-efficacy and lower scores on a measure of career decision-making difficulties in the Korean sample while the authoritative parenting style was associated with higher scores on career decision self-efficacy and lower scores on a measure of career decision-making difficulties in the French sample. Results showed significant effects for gender and parenting style on the career decision-making outcomes of both samples.

Social supply of alcohol to Korean high school students: a cross-sectional International Alcohol Control Study

PurposeUnderage drinking is strictly prohibited by law, nevertheless, adolescents report having access through social supply from family, friends and other members of the society. The aim of this study was...

A classification of foot types of high school girls in South Korea

Wearing uncomfortable shoes for a long time may cause pains by blisters or corns in the foot. It may lead to weaken ligaments and muscles of lower limbs and feet. The previous researchers claimed that a pain in the foot may be prone to a backache [1]. High school girls feel discomfort in their foot for wearing shoes, especially the heel, toes, or sole, caused by the shape, height of heel, or ball girth of the shoe [2]. The aim of this study was to analyze characteristics according to the forms of the foot that would be applied to make well-fitted shoes for female South Korean youths. This study classified foot types of South Korean high school girls of 17 and 18 years. The three-dimensional foot scan data were collected with a 3D foot scanner. 201 subjects were participated in the experiment. Twenty-four dimensions were measured on the right foot: 6 lengths, 9 heights, 4 girths, 2 widths and 3 angles. The results of this study were follows; First, five factors were extracted by factor analysis. They were foot length, foot girth and width, lateral foot height, medial foot height, and toe flexure factors. Second, four foot types were classified by cluster analysis. Cluster 1 (n=55, 27.4%) referred to the wide and float foot with a long foot length and low heights, and have a little prominent metatarsale fibulare. Cluster 2 (n=59, S.D.=29.3%) represented the small foot with the shortest foot length, the smallest foot girth, and gentle curves on the forefoot. Cluster 3 (n=41, S.D.=20.4%) represented thick foot with open toes compared to the other types. Cluster 4 (M=46, S.D.=22.9%) explained the slant foot to the lateral side that has a flat sole and a little prominent metatarsale tibiale. The findings of this study show that female high school girls in South Korea have diverse shapes and measurements of the foot. The results of this study may be applied for making shoes with the proper fitness for female South Korean youths.

Methodology of Leaving America for Asia: Reading South Korea’s Social Studies Textbooks through ChenKuan-Hsing’s Asia as Method

This project began as a content analysis of five South Korean high school Social Studies textbooks. Yet, it has evolved into an epistemological experiment to pursue the question of “what does it mean to leave America for Asia, at least methodologically, for the researcher who left Asia for America?” Using the textbooks as a mediating site, therefore, I articulate a process that engages with, moves toward, and develops deimperializing methodology. More specifically, I interweaveKuan-HsingChen’s Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization (2010) with my data by analyzing the data through Asia as Method and reading and practicing Asia as Method as methodology. This allows me to move away from fixating on the West as a reference point even through my critique. Rather, I work to produce geo-historically grounded knowledge for specific interventions at this mediating site toward the movements of decolonization, de-cold war, and deimperialization. In the process, I discuss how Asia as Method as methodology provokes political, psychological, and social engagements of everyday, multiplies reference points for knowledge production, and requires a researcher to re-work on one’s subjectivity inevitably constituted by imperialism.

Affective variables, parental involvement and competence among South Korean high school learners of English

This study investigated the relationships between various affective variables and two measures of competence in English, for 190 South Korean high school students. A 55-item questionnaire was used to measure attitudes (Attitudes toward English Speakers and their Communities and Attitudes toward the English-speaking Culture), motivation (Motivational Intensity, Desire to Learn and Attitudes toward the Learning of English), amotivation, parental involvement (Active Parental Encouragement, Passive Parental Encouragement and Parental Pressure), parental disinterest and students’ competence in L2 (English- EXAM and English-SELF). Pearson product-moment coefficients indicate that active and passive forms of parental encouragement correlate with motivationto learn, as conceptualized by Gardner (1985, 2010), as well as with parental pressure, which suggests that South Korean students report undergoing forms of pressure when their parents actively or passively encourage them. Furthermore, the obtained correlations of the active and passive forms of encouragement with different variables suggest that the two forms represent two distinct concepts. While parental disinterest correlated negatively with motivational variables, parental pressure correlated only with motivational intensity, and only weakly. Therefore, parental pressure seems not to interact significantly with participants’ attitudes, motivation and competence. Multiple linear regression analyses confirm the importance of motivation to learn for students' L2 competence.

Parenting, Self-Control, and Delinquency

Limited studies have examined whether self-control fully mediates the effect of parenting on deviant behavior beyond Western cultures. Using a sample of 882 South Korean middle and high schools students, this article examines the applicability of Gottfredson and Hirschi's argument about the role of parenting in self-control theory in the context of Asian culture. Results of structural equation modeling (SEM) suggest the relationships among parenting, self-control, and delinquency hold in South Korean culture: Parenting has only an indirect effect through self-control on delinquency. The findings of multigroup SEM, however, indicate that gender differences exist in the relationships among parenting, self-control, and delinquency. This study provides support for cultural invariance of self-control theory but suggests that more studies examining gender differences and interaction between gender and race in the theory are required.

Causal Effects of Single-Sex Schools on College Entrance Exams and College Attendance: Random Assignment in Seoul High Schools - Comment

We re-examine the findings in Park, Behrman, and Choi (2012) regarding the causal effects of single-sex schooling on South Korean high school seniors’ performance in the college entrance examination and college attendance. The results with an extra year of data indicate that single-sex schools are more effective in improving test score than co-educational schools but not in raising four-year college attendance. We find no differences in academic outcomes of high school seniors between those in co-ed schools that use single-sex classrooms and those in co-ed schools that use co-ed classrooms. The effects of single-sex schooling are heterogeneous across school ownership types and gender, indicating some interaction effects of single-sex schooling with school and student characteristics. Thus, the positive effects of single-sex schooling on students’ academic outcomes are context-dependent.

Modeling of the classroom-based communication in a South Korean High School

Modeling of the classroom-based communication in a South Korean High School

From so simple a beginning

I am neither a Darwinian demagogue, nor an Intelligent Design orator. But like any other scientist, I take as common sense Charles Darwin's observation: It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. Nevertheless, a recent news article from Nature, Korea surrenders to creationist demands, has ignited fresh debate. Although the article simply reports on the scientific world's concern about the process of deleting some examples of evolution from South Korean high school textbooks, members of the public are awkwardly arguing with each other on the subject of evolution, based on their religious faith or scientific belief.

Reasons for Living and Their Moderating Effects on Korean Adolescents' Suicidal Ideation

The present study validated the use of the Korean version of the Reasons for Living Inventory for Adolescents (KRFL-A) in a group of 406 South Korean high school students. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the original 5-factor structure, and other psychometric properties demonstrated the usefulness of the KRFL-A as a measure of cognitive protective factors. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that the KRFL-A total significantly moderated the impact of depressive symptoms on suicidal ideation. More specifically, the Family Alliance subscale among boys and the Peer Acceptance and Support subscale among girls moderated the relationships between depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation. This suggests that for Korean adolescents, gender-specific strategies are needed for more effective suicide interventions.

The influence of parent–adolescent relationship quality, parental monitoring, and peer substance use on substance use in South Korean high school students: Using latent growth curve modelling

Objective: Substance use, such as alcohol and tobacco, is becoming a critical problem in the area of health promotion and preventive programme. Furthermore, the onset of alcohol use has been becoming increasingly earlier. This study examined developmental trajectories of substance use among high school students in South Korea and effects of peer substance on such trajectories, and also examined the moderating effects of parent–adolescent relationship quality and parental monitoring in the link between peer substance use and adolescents’ own substance use. Methods: This study used the Korea Youth Panel Survey (KYPS), a nationally-representative sample of 3,125 high school students. The participants were in the 10th grade when first recruited and assessed annually from 2005 to 2007. A latent growth curve model was used for the analysis Results: Substance use in Korean high school students increased over time. Peer substance use was associated more strongly with the initial level of adolescent substance uses than parenting. Parent–adolescent relationship quality moderated the association between peer and adolescent substance use. Conclusion: The effect of peer substance use was most strongly associated with the initial level and growth of adolescents’ own substance use.

Contribution of Morphological Awareness to Second-Language Reading Comprehension

This study investigates the contribution of second-language (L2) morphological awareness to foreign language reading comprehension. Tenth graders (n = 188) at a South Korean high school were assessed on 6 reading- and language-related variables: phonological decoding, listening comprehension, vocabulary knowledge, passage-level reading comprehension, metacognitive reading awareness, and morphological awareness. A series of 10 sequential regression analyses were conducted to determine the unique reading variance accounted for by each of the 2 morphological awareness tests included in this study (i.e., the Test of Morphological Structure–Revised [TMS–R], the Verbal Suffix Knowledge Test–Revised [VSKT–R]). The result revealed that morphological awareness was a significant predictor of L2 reading comprehension when other variables were controlled. Of the 2 tests, the TMS–R—a measure that primarily tested derivational morphological knowledge—showed stronger predictability. This provides evidence that morphological awareness, especially derivational morphological knowledge, is an important variable to be considered in explaining L2 reading comprehension among older readers.

Situated Globalization and Racism: An Analysis of Korean High School EFL Textbooks

This study examines the content of South Korean high school English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks to investigate the ways in which globalization is reflected in the textbooks. A content analysis reveals that the textbooks promote Westerners and their cultures in positive terms while non-Westerners and their cultures are consistently marginalized. The complex interpretations of the division of the West and non-West are suggested, particularly with respect to power, privilege, and unique manifestations of situated globalization in South Korea. The author calls for critical awareness to promote English as a tool for intercultural understandings.

Lifestyle Comparison between South Korean and Japanese Male High School Students Using Covariance Structural Analysis

Lifestyle Comparison between South Korean and Japanese Male High School Students Using Covariance Structural Analysis