PRESENTATION TO STAKEHOLDERSJo Kleeb

This presentation provides you with a sample of analysis outcomes from Year 1 of the Youth Connectedness Project, related to the areas of:

School

Bullying

Technology

SCHOOL DATAThe survey contained a school section that included 37 individualquestions. The major areas measured were:

» School performance

» Inter-student relationships (including bullying in school)

» Absences

» School related wellbeing

» Staff-student relationships

All school-related measures were examined for gender, schooldecile and school year differences - key findings are reported.

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN SCHOOL RELATED MEASURES

School Performance: Females rated satisfaction with class workperformance higher than males.

Inter-student Relationships: Females reported more positive relationshipswith classmates and other students in the school and lower rates of being abully than males.

School-Related Wellbeing: Females reported higher levels of guidancesupport and future orientation than males.

Staff-Student Relationships: Females reported a higher sense of schoolcommunity than males.

Conclusion: Males are lagging behind females in a number of key areas. These findings suggest that initiatives which aim to increase male academicperformance would do well to incorporate the fostering of more positive inter-student and staff-student relationships and active guidance support.

DECILE VARIATIONS IN SCHOOL RELATED MEASURES - 1

Inter-student Relationships: Reported rates of witnessingbullying and being a bully were higher in low to mid decileschools compared to high decile schools.

Absences: As school decile increased reported rates ofabsence due to helping parents and truancy decreased.

School-Related Wellbeing: As school decile increased sodid reported rates of guidance support. High decile schoolsreported lower future orientation than either mid or low decileschools.

Staff-Student Relationships: As school decile increasedlevels of home-school dissonance, having a positiverelationship with teacher(s) and sense of school communitydecreased.

DECILE VARIATIONS IN SCHOOL RELATED MEASURES - 2

Conclusion:

For low to mid decile schools, ensuring reliable attendance of

students, adequate provision of guidance, combating bullying

behaviour and not conflicting too strongly with the values ofparents appear to be key challenges.

High-decile school students may, on average, feel lessnecessity to work hard for their future and it is also possiblethat one or more of the elements typical of high decileschools are not as conducive to positive connections withteachers and sense of school community (compared to lowdecile schools).

SCHOOL YEAR DIFFERENCES IN SCHOOL RELATED MEASURES - 1

School Performance: Ratings of satisfaction with performance inclass work, English proficiency and sports decreased with schoolyear.

Inter-student Relationships: Rates of witnessing bullying andbeing a bully increased with school year and ratings of theeffectiveness of anti-bullying programmes decreased with schoolyear.

Absences: Truancy rates were higher on average in year 10compared to year 6 and 8.

School-Related Wellbeing: Future orientation decreased withschool year.

Staff-Student Relationships: Ratings of positive relationships withteachers and sense of school community decreased with schoolyear (even when school roll size was controlled for).

SCHOOL YEAR DIFFERENCES IN SCHOOL RELATED MEASURES - 2

Conclusion: It is clear that it becomes more difficult to retain studentinterest in both school and school work as participants getolder.

Once we have longitudinal data, we will be able to identify thefactors that predict (over time): a) students who maintainnegative outcomes, b) students who improve, c) students who

decline, and d) students who maintain positive outcomes.

Yr6 Yr8 Yr10

TURNED ON AND OFF SUBJECTS BY TEACHERS

High (7-10)Medium (4-6)Low (1-3)

Decile Category

80.00

60.00

40.00

20.00

0.00

Per

cent

turn

ed o

ff su

bjec

t by

teac

her

Year 10Year 8Year 6

School Year

The graph shows that rates of being turned off a subject were highest in year 10 (particularly so for medium to high decile schools) and also that rates increased with school decile for year 8 students.

Rates of being turned onto a subject by a good teacher remained high across gender, school year and decile.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR STUDENT DATA

Once we have longitudinal data we look forwardto finding the answers to questions such as:

1. What factors, across the full range of connectedness domains, determine how smoothly young people make the transition from one school to another?

2. What is the most difficult transition that young people make – from primary to intermediate, from primary to college or from intermediate to college, and why?

PRINCIPAL SURVEYSWe sent out short principal surveys to participating schools. By 23rd

February 2007 we had received surveys back from 57 schools,representing 75% of the participants in the study (N=1639). The types ofschools represented by Principal’s surveys are summarized below.

26.3

24.6

5.3

10.5

3.5

29.8

0 10 20 30 40

Contributing

Full Primary

Composite

Intermediate

Sec 7-15

Sec 9-15

Scho

ol T

ype

Percentage of Surveys

Selected results from these surveys follow.

School Donation 46.9% of Principals said they received 50% or less of their school donations.

Information about New Students Sufficient? 3.6% said no, 30.9% said yes and 65.5% said it ‘varies’

Top Four Initiatives Provided in Schools Internet safety, literacy, gifted students, anti-bullying.

PRINCIPAL SATISFACTION SCALES

Summary: Principals tend to report higher satisfaction on those questions related to internal relationships within the school. While they are less satisfied with parental or community support they are least satisfied with external funding.

2.45

2.57

3.17

3.57

4.19

4.25

4.32

4.41

1 2 3 4 5

MoE funding

Funds school raises

Help from parents

Community support

Student relationships

School-parent relationship

Teacher-student relationships

Inter-staff support

Mean Satisfaction

ISSUES FACING SCHOOLS

Theme Freq* Specific Issues Identified

Budget/funding

25 sustaining programmes; building or repairs; insufficiency of Government funding; lack of resources for special needs/ESoL students; expense of ICT; hiring new staff; professional development costs; cost to parents

Student behaviour

22 attendance; bullying/anger/violence (including text and internet); swearing; disrespect for property; negative school culture; smoking/drugs; poor social skills; weakened spiritual values; racial intolerance; disrespecting teachers; negative impact of weekend activities

Roll 15 declining; over-crowding; need for enrolment scheme; transience

Principals were asked to nominate up to three major issues facing their school. Content analysis identified a number of common themes. To be concise in this presentation we only present the top three issues.

SCHOOL STRENGTHS

Theme Freq* Specific Strength Identified

Staff-student

relations

20 family atmosphere; caring; inclusive; friendly; most know each other; strong sense of community/ positive culture/school spirit; shared leadership

Teacher Attributes

18 relationship based teaching; work closely with students; involvement in extra-curricula activities; student support; quality teaching of NCEA; committed; dedicated; well-educated; expertise/experience; hard working; teacher designed; distributed leadership

Student Attributes

15 friendly; high values/morals; delightful; enthusiastic; student leadership; talented; motivated to learn; diverse; hardworking; disciplined; engaged; proud of school; safe – non-violent

Principals were asked to nominate up to three major strengths for their school. We present the top three strengths.

SCHOOL CELL-PHONE POLICIES - 1The most common policies were prohibition of use during class time or handed into the school during the school day. Leniency appeared to increase with school year. Of those who said cell-phones were not allowed in class time, 30% specified that breaking the rules resulted in confiscation.

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Allowed/no policy

Allowed in school but not in class

Allowed to posses but not to use inschool

Must hand in during school hours

Not allowed at school

1086

SCHOOL CELL-PHONE POLICIES - 2

We collapsed policies into two groups: 1/ allowed during theschool day and 2/ not allowed. We then examined meandifferences in student data as a function of group membership.

RESULTSLower decile schools were more likely to fall into the ‘not allowed’category.

Controlling for school year and decile, we also found that the ‘notallowed’ category (compared to allowed) was associated with higherlevels of text traffic on both school days and weekends and higherrates of text bullying – both sent and received.

Results were reported to a post-survey focus group of 13 to 16year olds who indicated that being told they cannot have a cell phone makes them want to use it more and banning serves to create ‘hidden’ use (which can’t be monitored).

BULLYING ANALYSIS - 1

We measured rates of being bullied and victimized both in and outside school and via text messages.

For schools we also measured rates of witnessing bullying and bullying programme effectiveness.

A selection of outcomes are presented here.

BULLYING ANALYSIS - 2 Year 8 (12 to 13 years) appears to be a time when gender and

decile differences in bullying rates temporarily disappear.

Bullying rates jumped the most for males between years 8 & 10.

Participants were more likely to be victimised in school than outside school or via text.

Rates of being bullied outside school showed a pattern of decrease with advancing school year, which may be tied in part to post-survey focus group comments that parents hitting children may stop when children become big enough to ‘hit back’ (circa age 12).

Males were more likely to receive a mean text message than

females.

In follow up to post-survey focus group comments to the effect that ‘teachers need to watch/care in order to make sure bullying doesn’t happen’ we found outcomes consistent with an interpretation that teacher engagement plays a key role in reducing bullying behaviour.

BULLYING GROUPS - 1

We were able to classify students into four ‘bullying groups’:

Normal (low to no levels of being a bully/victim) – 72% of sample

Classic Bully (primarily bullies others) – 12% of sample

Classic Victim (primarily bullied by others) – 13% of sample

Bully-Victim (high levels of both bullying and being bullied) – 3% of sample

Note. We also created bully groups based on text bullying and are comparing with the above for similarities and differences.

BULLYING GROUPS - 2A sample of findings• Substance use (particularly cigarettes), truancy and a higher degree

of deviant peer affiliation was more likely in bullies and bully-victims.

• Susceptibility to negative peer influence: Normal<Victim<Bully<Bully-Victim.

• Bully-victims tended to have poorer social skills and used more negative coping strategies, with those in the normal group reporting the highest adjustment in these areas.

• Self harming actions/thoughts were more likely in bullies, victims and bully-victims than in the normal group.

• Family conflict was highest in bully-victims. Bullies and victims also report higher levels of family conflict than the normal group.

• Victims and bully-victims were least likely to feel they would have reliable support when in trouble, while bullies reported less guidance support than those in the normal group.

• Bullies and bully-victims reported less secure bonding and reassurance of worth than those in the normal group.

TECHNOLOGY - PREVALENCE

Gender % Age Group %Male Fem 10-11 12-13 14-15

Cell phones Use cell phone Text friends

7087

8092

5774

8094

9297

Internet Use Internet Net friends

7327

7227

6516

7428

8038

Within net users Net friends 37 38 27 39 48

More females than males used a cell phone and used their cell phone to text friends. Internet use, having net friends and using a cell phone increased with age group.

TECHNOLOGY – KEY FINDINGS Females had higher rates of importance of cell phone for texting friends,

using their cell phone to maintain ties with those not seen often and text traffic.

10 to 11 years olds placed the least importance on cell phones for keeping in touch with friends, were less likely to use their cell for maintaining contact with those they don’t see often and had the lowest text traffic during the school week.

Time spent gaming peaked around 12 to 13 years.

10 to 11 year olds were more likely to rate net friends as important and to rate support from net friends more highly, even though they were least likely to have net friends.

Using the net to chat showed a robust linear increase with age.

Among internet users, those with net friends chatted on the net with people they knew more often than those without net friends, suggesting some tendency to accrue ‘stranger’ friendships via social networking with those that you know. Also, those with net friends spent more time gaming than those without net friends

NET FRIENDS vs. TRADITIONAL FRIENDS Young people rated traditional friend’s support higher than

net friend support – the distinction between the two became greater with age.

The impact of net friend support on wellbeing lost significance when its effects were considered in tandem with traditional friend support.

Unlike traditional friend support, higher levels of net friend support were associated with a greater susceptibility to being influenced by others.

Those with net friends (compared to those without) reported significantly lower levels of family monitoring, sleep sufficiency and body image and higher levels of loneliness, time spent alone and school absences.

TECHNOLOGY - ANALYSIS POTENTIAL

To current knowledge, we are the first worldwide to compare traditional friend support and net friend support.

Youth 2007 has used some of our technology questions in their survey – we look forward to bringing our two powerful datasets together to provide high quality insights into the relationship between youth and modern technology.

We have expanded the technology area. The Year 2 survey of YCP has added more questions on technology usage rates and internet bullying.