Peter+L,+Jordan



Collaboration Project


 * Big Picture Q: How willing are teenagers to take risks?
 * Specific Q: Given a few different scenarios are senior students equally likely to support risk taking behavior as well as freshman students?

If seniors and freshmen were asked to take a risk of the same degree, then freshmen would be more hesitant to take it than seniors. We expect the underclassman participants to be less willing to accept and/or support the risks.
 * __Hypothesis: __**

Our objective to find out whether upperclassman or underclassman are more accepting of risk-taking in school.
 * __Objective:__**

We will come up with various survey questions and distribute them to seniors and freshmen. Then, we will compare, contrast, and analyze the results to come up with some conclusions.
 * __Research Plan:__**

We will pass out the survey paper with questions to 50 seniors and 50 freshmen and collect the data back at the end of the day. Our research questions include: -How many times do you take grade-related risks (ex. cheating, plagiarism, academic dishonesty) per week? -If a test is worth 90% of your final grade, would you be willing to take it? -If your peer's paper was wide open during a test, would you take a look at it? etc...

Then we will organize them into groups to conclude which group of teens are more likely to take risks.

We would not be able to tell if the answers provided by subjects are accurate and honest. We may not approach the subjects in the same manner
 * __Potential Error:__**

Jordan's Lit Review

In a book entitled “Self-Regulatory behavior and risk taking: causes and consequences” the author describes developmental factors and stress of risk taking behavior of early adolescents. The author says that early adolescents is a period of special challenges and vulnerability; and even though most young people are able to positively transition through this difficult part of life, still a large number of young people experience difficulties that prompt them to engage risk-taking behaviors. A quote from the book “There is virtually no sphere in which the young person entering early adolescence can draw upon old habits and experiences of childhood to guide behavior in this new period”. To me this explains why now young adolescences and young teens are prone to engaging risk-taking behaviors because simply they haven’t experienced enough to know how to deal with situations that life throws at them. This could show relevance in our experiment of the freshman students when we are able to analyze our results. Source: Hamburg, Beatrix A., Lewis Paeff Lipsitt, and Leonard L. Mitnick. //Self-regulatory Behavior and Risk Taking: Causes and Consequences//. Norwood: Ablex, 1991. Print. Developmental Factors and Stress in Risk-taking Behavior of Early Adolescents.

In a book entitled “The Romance of Risk: why teenagers do the things they do” the author is an adolescent psychiatrist who says that a lot of the unhealthy risks that teens are prone to can be heavily attributed to situations at school. Such as being hated by their own peers, feared by teachers, stressing about grades or other school related situations. Also in a study from the Carnegie Institute about youth and risk, it suggested that American youths today are at greater risk because they take more risks and are exposed to a lot more opportunities for dangerous risks than in any other time in American history. With that being said, the history of American culture can be defined in part of risk-taking. The author talks about the successful pursuit for the “American Dream” requires taking many risks and thus has changed our culture into perhaps an American nightmare. We are not a culture that has been informed about carefully assessing risks before taking them. The author later goes on to explain that our media is a big influence on our adolescent people and that the media promotes risk-taking almost as if it were a sport; and that it’s no mistake that our society has the highest percentages of risk-taking among adolescent teens. In the U.S. teens “consume media almost without chewing, despite the increasing numbers of dangerous risks available to young people, and we still do not teach risk assessment”. Source:

Ponton, Lynn E. //The Romance of Risk: Why Teenagers Do the Things That They Do//. New York: Basic, 1997. Print.

Another way to view risk taking in adolescents is to take a look at the culture of adolescent’s. In a book entitled “The Culture of Adolescent Risk-Taking” the author does a theoretical viewpoint called “interpretive perspective” which used to “locate the actions of people within symbolic form, communicative practices and shared idioms of culture”. The author states, “This makes it especially well suited to focusing my interests in adolescent development and cultural experience”. From this the “interpretive perspective” theory interprets risk taking as a form of experience that is shared among persons who are closely associated and act toward each other on the basis of particular viewpoints. These experiences are created and expressed over the time of one’s adolescent life and along the course of their social involvement. “Taking a risk narrates and dramatizes point of view, and sharing a risk is a statement of like-mindedness of common purpose or perspective. By this mindset it can be seen as a communicative form and/or social drama that organizes action and experience, which provides a definition of one’s self. Source: Lightfoot, Cynthia. //The Culture of Adolescent Risk-Taking //. New York: Guilford, 1997. Print.

My last source, a book entitled “Adolescent Risk Behaviors” is another book that deals with the source of young adolescent behavior as a procedure of social and interpersonal development. The book mainly describes the reason for risk taking behavior in adolescent to be needs and wants to explore the world socially. The book also gives lot of easy strategies that can be used to reduce and prevent critical high-risk behaviors.

Source:

Wolfe, David A. //Adolescent Risk Behavior//. New Haven: Yale UP, 2006. Print. Current Perspectives in Psychology.

Overall all of my sources show a lot of relevance and significance to my topic of how willingly high school teens are to accept risk-taking behavior in a school environment. My sources have also challenged my predictions in thinking that seniors would be more risk taking than freshman, because in times today kids at younger ages are beginning to experience situations that cause them to make some bold decisions that require a lot of risk.

Peter http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/teenrisk/teenrisktaking.html This article contains information on various topics on risk taking on teens such as regular alcohol use, binge drinking, tobacco use, marijuana use, fighting, weapon carrying, sexual activity, and suicide attempts. It derived some conclusions such as 'most risk taking is done by multiple students, overall risk taking declined in the 1990s, and in the worldly vision of the teenagers are ringing in the
 * 1) 1 Lit Review:

http://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20070413/teens-are-hardwired-for-risky-behavior The studies from Temple University show that even though teenagers may be aware of dangers such as drinking, smoking, and taking drugs, they tend to ignore what they have learned anyways. Teenage tendency to take risks result in evolutionary advantage and peer pressure. Risk taking in adolescent mammals can be seen in all animals which suggests a biological basis of such behavior. When peers were not around, teens controlled their impulsive behavior much better than when they were with peers.
 * 1) 2 Lit Review:

http://www.pamf.org/teen/life/risktaking/ This article makes clear that being a teenager is about testing boundaries. You are becoming an independent adult, and you don't simply want to explore your limits -- you want to bust out of them. It is part of the natural process of growing up. It involves various kinds of healthy risks and unhealthy risks.
 * 1) 3 Lit Review:


 * Jordan Stralow’s Raw Data: Each Column represents one survey, so 15 columns represents 15 surveys per age group. The 7 rows represent each of our 7 questions/scenarios that I gave to people. **


 * __Upperclass Males:__ **
 * Question 1: 7, 3, 10, 7, 7, 10, 5, 5, 7, 5, 9, 5, 10, 7, 10 **
 * Question 2: 5, 5, 10, 5, 3, 10, 3, 3, 7, 10, 8, 7, 10, 3, 7 **
 * Question 3: 3, 3, 10, 5, 5, 10, 5, 5, 5, 7, 10, 7, 7, 5, 6 **
 * Question 4: 1, 1, 10, 3, 3, 1, 7, 1, 7, 5, 5, 3, 6, 3, 5 **
 * Question 5: 3, 1, 10, 3, 5, 1, 8, 3, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 5 **
 * Question 6: 4, 3, 10, 7, 7, 5, 9, 3, 5, 3, 6, 7, 10, 10, 7 **
 * Question 7: 5, 3, 1, 3, 5, 5, 10, 3, 7, 7, 5, 10, 7, 10, 10 **


 * __Upperclass Females:__ **
 * 7, 10, 7, 7, 10, 10, 7, 3, 3, 10, 10, 5, 5, 5, 3 **
 * 3, 7, 5, 5, 10, 10, 7, 7, 5, 10, 10, 7, 10, 10, 6 **
 * 3, 5, 10, 10, 10, 1, 8, 2, 7, 7, 10, 3, 10, 7, 2 **
 * 3, 5, 7, 7, 5, 10, 6, 3, 7, 7, 10, 3, 3, 5, 1 **
 * 7, 3, 10, 10, 5, 3, 8, 4, 5, 7, 10, 3, 5, 7, 3 **
 * 7, 7, 10, 3, 10, 3, 8, 4, 7, 3, 10, 3, 7, 7, 1 **
 * 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 4, 7, 5, 7, 7, 7, 10, 1 **


 * __Underclass Males:__ **
 * 3, 7, 7, 7, 10, 10, 7, 5, 1, 10, 2, 1, 5, 3, 7 **
 * 5, 7, 7, 7, 7, 10, 7, 7, 5, 10, 2, 3, 3, 7, 10 **
 * 3, 10, 7, 10, 10, 10, 5, 5, 5, 8, 4, 2, 1, 5, 5 **
 * 1, 7, 7, 10, 3, 5, 4, 2, 1, 8, 3, 1, 1, 3, 1 **
 * 1, 7, 7, 7, 10, 10, 4, 4, 5, 10, 3, 2, 1, 5, 5 **
 * 3, 10, 8, 10, 7, 10, 7, 5, 5, 9, 8, 3, 8, 7, 5 **
 * 3, 10, 7, 10, 10, 10, 8, 7, 5, 10, 6, 2, 3, 7, 5 **


 * __Underclass Females:__ **
 * 1, 10, 7, 5, 8, 3, 3, 7, 3, 7, 3, 7, 10, 5, 7 **
 * 1, 10, 7, 7, 7, 7, 3, 10, 5, 8, 3, 7, 10, 5, 7 **
 * 1, 10, 7, 3, 7, 5, 3, 10, 1, 7, 1, 7, 10, 3, 5 **
 * 1, 7, 5, 3, 7, 3, 3, 7, 1, 3, 1, 7, 10, 1, 5 **
 * 1, 7, 5, 5, 8, 3, 3, 10, 1, 7, 1, 7, 10, 3, 7 **
 * 1, 10, 7, 7, 8, 5, 3, 10, 3, 10, 1, 7, 10, 3, 7 **
 * 1, 10, 7, 7, 10, 3, 3, 10, 1, 10, 3, 7, 10, 1, 7 **


 * Peter Lee's Raw Data: Each Column represents one survey, so 15 columns represents 15 surveys per age group. The 7 rows represent each of our 7 questions/scenarios that I gave to people. **


 * __Upperclass Males:__ **
 * Question 1: 10, 10, 10, 10, 8, 10, 10, 10, 5, 5 **
 * Question 2: 10, 9, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 **
 * Question 3: 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 9, 9, 10, 9 **
 * Question 4: 8, 10, 10, 10, 9, 9, 9, 10, 9, 10 **
 * Question 5: 9,9,10,9,8,8,10,10,8,8 **
 * Question 6: 10 10 10 10 10 10 5 10 10 8 **
 * Question 7: 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 **

8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 6, 6, 7, 6 7, 8, 8, 8, 10, 9, 9, 8, 8, 7
 * __Upperclass Females:__ **
 * 8, 8, 7, 6, 8, 8, 9, 8, 7, 8**
 * 8, 8, 7, 7, 5, 2, 8, 7, 6, 8**
 * 6, 6, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10**
 * 10, 7, 8, 8, 9, 6, 8, 7, 8, 7**
 * 7, 7, 7, 6, 5, 8, 9, 9, 8, 9**


 * __Underclass Males:__ **
 * 8, 8, 7, 7, 10, 7, 8, 7, 10, 7**
 * 7, 7, 10, 10, 10, 6, 7, 7, 8, 5**
 * 10, 10, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10, 9, 6**
 * 6, 5, 10, 10, 7, 7, 6, 8, 7, 6**
 * 10, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 8**
 * 8, 8, 7, 9, 9, 6, 10 10 6 7**
 * 7 8 6 8 8 8 6 6 4 8**


 * __Underclass Females:__ **
 * 5 5 6 7 4 5 6 6 5 8**
 * 7 7 6 6 7 4 5 6 5 6**
 * 6 6 6 5 4 6 5 3 3 4**
 * 3 4 7 6 5 4 6 6 5 4**
 * 5 5 4 7 4 4 3 2 3 4**
 * 2 2 3 6 5 4 6 5 4 5**
 * 4 4 3 5 6 7 4 5 6 5**