This guide has been developed as a resource to be used by and with youth in grades 9-12 and beyond. It will help them consider the following questions: What am I good at? How do I know my options? Should I take a year off or apply for some post-secondary program? Structured around the newly designed High School Students tab on the Alberta Learning…

This fact sheet explores volunteering among high school students, ages 16-18. Overall, volunteering among high school students was down slightly in 2006 as compared to 2005. Additional information includes types of volunteer organizations and activities, and ways that high school students become involved in these activities. Volunteer rate vary by…

A large-scale study conducted in Tasmania, Australia, of teenage risk-taking across 26 potentially harmful risk activities has examined a range of factors that encourage or inhibit risk-taking. Among these factors, the degree of social and professional support the teenage students say they would access for personal, study or health problems has…

The state of mathematics and science education in South Africa is a cause for concern. This situation can be attributed, in part, to many mathematics and science teachers' limited content knowledge, ineffective teaching approaches, and unprofessional attitudes. To address these three problem areas simultaneously, a holistic model for the…

Since the mid-1960s, when illicit drug use burgeoned in the normal youth population, substance use by American young people has proven to be a rapidly changing phenomenon. Smoking, drinking, and illicit drug use are leading causes of morbidity and mortality, both during adolescence as well as later in life. How vigorously the nation responds to…

The Monitoring the Future study has provided the nation with a window into the important, but largely hidden, problem behaviors of illicit drug use, alcohol use, and tobacco use. It has provided a clearer view of the changing topography of these problems among adolescents and adults, a better understanding of the dynamics of factors that drive…

Across the Nation, teen drug use is down 23 percent since 2001 among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, reflecting reductions in the use of nearly every drug. However, data from 2005 and 2006 indicate that there are still some areas of concern for Hispanic youth. Hispanic 8th graders have a higher rate of illicit drug use than other teens in the same…

Communities are critical arenas for adolescent development. This study uses mixed methods to assess contextual correlates to community connectedness in 8th, 10th, and 12th grade youth. The survey examined the relationship between community connectedness and four developmental supports: safety, community monitoring, creative outlets, and meaningful…

The aim of this study has been to examine the effect of retrospective report of political violence during the first Intifada (1987-1993) on psychological adjustment of 1185 Palestinian adolescents (10th to 12th graders) seven years after the first Intifada had ended. Analysis of the inter-relations was conducted between self-reported measures of…

This study examines development along Perry's intellectual and ethical scale among three successive graduating classes of students identified as gifted and talented in mathematics and science. Perry posits that intellectual development proceeds from a basic dualism through nine stages ("positions") and culminates with a sense of personal identify…

Prevalence, frequency, and psychosocial predictors of Internet and computer game use were assessed with 803 male and 788 female adolescents across 2 time periods, 21 months apart. At Time 1, participants were in the 9th or 10th grade; at Time 2, they were in the 11th or 12th grade. Most girls (93.7%) and boys (94.7%) reported using the Internet at…

Monitoring the Future (MTF), now in its 35th year, has become one of the nation's most relied-upon sources of information on changes taking place in licit and illicit psychoactive drug use among American adolescents, college students, young adults, and more recently, middle-aged adults. During the last three and a half decades, the study has…

This report describes the development of grade norms for timed-writing performance in two modes of writing: persuasive and descriptive. These norms are based on objective and automatically computed measures of writing quality in grammar, usage, mechanics, style, vocabulary, organization, and development. These measures are also used in the…

A total of three hundred and fifteen (n = 315) gifted students from the 10th and 12th grade from the United States (n = 102), China (n = 125) and Germany (n = 88) were surveyed regarding their motivation and self-regulation in chemistry learning. A 3 x 2 x 2 MANOVA revealed "nation" as having the largest major effect on these variables.…

The present study examines how exposure to relational aggression at school is associated with adolescents' perceptions of, and participation in, a hostile school environment. Participants were 1,335 African American and European American adolescents in grades 7 through 12 (52% female, 49% African American). Results indicate that exposure to…