The study consists of research on adolescent girls who attend four different schools. These researchers emphasis on social behavior would be reflected in both quantitative and qualitative measures. The research question ‘Is social experiences are central to the adolescent experience in girls. The hypothesis is social experiences are central to the adolescent experience in girls. The methods the study consists of are orientation session at school that day for the girls who participate in the study. Then they were told that via email to go to study’s website and complete the forms. The girls were given instructions to complete the activities questionnaire and the writing sample online. They are given till 8:00pm that night to complete the online forms after school. There were two measurements or instruments that were used in the study, Activity assessment online and writing sample online. The activity assessment online was revised of Passmore and French’s (1998)Lessure questionnaire/revised for their age group.
Example from the article was leisure turned into activities less common modified to tell or describe their activities for that particular day (Feyberg, 2009).
The activity assessment consisted of three domains, sense of accomplishment often through competition or a personal challenge (achievement activities).
The second domain is those that are social in nature (social activities).
Lastly, the third domain is that promotes relaxation and is often solitary (relaxation activities) (Feyberg, 2009).
The participants were allowed to report up to ten activities for each domain. Then they had to tell the three they spent the most time doing, most enjoyed, most meaningful, and how much they engaged in the activity. Then they were to rate them from 1 to 5. This scale that was used is known as the five point Likert Scale from 1 is being less than 30 minutes and 5 being more than four hours (Feyberg, 2009).
Then they were added up to a maximum points of 15 per domain. Participants reported their enjoyment of up to three achievement, social, relaxation activities on a 4 point Liker Scale from 1 (not enjoyable) and four (very enjoyable) for a maximum of 12 points per domain. The next one is degree of meaningful based points of Likert Scale 1 (not meaningful) and 4 (very meaningful).
The last one is to choose if they are engaged in certain activities. They would mark 1 if they were engaged in it and 0 if they are not engaged in it for a maximum of three points (Feyberg, 2009).
The second activity is a writing assessment written online. Previous research proves that words use convey extensive information about social and emotional processes. The writing samples would provide meaningful information about personal experience and not to be captured by self- report scales. Writing examples is to be written on a website by the author for the study. They were to think about a personal experience that you participated and have a good recollection of (Feyberg, 2009).
The written sample is was needed to be a descriptive of the experience include feelings and could write as much as they wanted. The written sample examines different in affiliation, achievement, or power themes. Each theme was composed of four subcategories and if the written sample contained at least one of them, it was awarded one point and if all three was in the sample then four points were awarded (Feyberg, 2009).
The three themes were afflication, achievement, and narratives. Afflication consisted of four subcategories, positive effect, dialogue, commitments, and surrender of code. Achievement theme consisted of achievement imagery, anticipating success, world block, and negative feelings. Narratives theme consisted of general power imagery, increased prestige, lower prestige, and effect. Particapants consisted of 57 adolescent girls who attended four different schools. They ranged from ages 11 to 19 years of age and in grades from 6th to 12th. The girls age ranged from 12 girls; 11 to 13 (early adolescent), 22 girls; 14-16 (middle adolescent), 23; 17 to 19 (late adolescent).
49 describe themselves as white, 4 as African American, 2 as other, and 1 as Hispanic (Feyberg, 2009).
The results were evualted by ANOVA. ANOVA showed significant differences for reported time, enjoyment, meaningfulness, and choice in achievement, social, and relaxation activities. Follow up contrast demonstrated spent more time in achievement then relaxation. The trend for spending more time in social then relaxation. No significant different in achievement and social. Employment results showed significant main effect found. Follow up reported greater enjoyment in relaxation then achievement. Reports show higher levels of enjoyment in social than in achievement. No significant differences in the amount of enjoyment reports for social and relaxation. Meaningfulness results show higher levels of achievement than social activities. No reports for meaningfulness for social and relaxation. Significance of social behavior in adolescent girls by the use of two methods, self-reports, and narrative analysis. Recalling social behavior for adolescent girls, the two methods, which were different in their approaches to understanding adolescent experiences.
Although it was predicted that both methods would provide similar information about adolescent social experience. According to the narrative analysis demonstration that participated used more afflication themes than achievement or power theme. the strengths of the experiment was too asked to describe a personal experience, so researches could identify their narratives. The weakness is that they only test this on girls. The limitations of the study were that they examine one gender due to likelihood of an invalid across-group comparison.” Study demonstrated that quantities and qualitative methods were not significantly correlated with one another (Feyberg, 2009).
One suggestion I could say would benefit is examine this same study on boys.
Reference
Freyberg, R. (2009).
Quantitive and Qualitive Measures of Behavior in Adolescent Girls. Adolescene, 44(173),33-54.