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Stealing Among Students: Causes And Remedies
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In addition, targeted contacts were made to schools that
were in geographically underrepresented areas, to ensure that the sample
was representative of the state. The final survey therefore contains
schools from each geographical region of the state of Connecticut, and
it contains schools from each of the three tiers of the state’s district
reference groups (DRGs; i.e., groupings of schools based on the
socioeconomic status of the families in the school district). Sampling
from each of the three tiers of the DRGs was intended to create a more
socioeconomically representative sample. Although this was not a random
sample of public high school students in Connecticut, the sample
obtained is similar in demographics to the sample of Connecticut
residents enumerated in the 2000 census, ages 14 to 18.8
Once
permission was obtained from the necessary parties in each school,
letters were sent through the school to parents informing them about the
study and outlining the procedure by which they could deny permission
for their child to participate in the survey if they wished. In most
cases, parents were instructed to call the main office of their child’s
high school to deny permission for their child’s participation. From
these phone calls, a list of students who were not eligible to
participate was compiled for reference on the survey administration day.
If no message was received from a parent, parental permission was
assumed. These procedures were approved by all participating schools and
by the Institutional Review Board of the Yale University School of
Medicine.
In most cases, the entire student body was targeted for
administration of the survey. Some schools conducted an assembly where
surveys were administered, while others had students complete the survey
in every health or English class throughout the day. In each case, the
school was visited on a single day by members of the research staff who
explained the study, distributed the surveys, answered questions, and
collected the surveys.
Students were told that participation was
voluntary and that they could refuse to complete the survey if they
wished and were also reminded to keep the surveys anonymous by not
writing their name or other identifying information anywhere on the
survey. Each student was given a pen for participating. Students who
were not eligible to participate because a parent had denied permission
or who personally declined to participate were allowed to work on
schoolwork while the other students completed the survey. The refusal
rate was under one percent.
Measures
The survey consisted of 153
questions concerning demographic characteristics, stealing behavior,
other health behaviors including substance use, and functioning
variables such as grades and violent behavior.
Stealing behavior was
assessed by asking how many times the person stole from stores or people
in a typical week. Possible answers to this were: never, fewer than 7
times, 7 to 14 times, 15 to 20 times, and 21 or more times. Those who
reported any stealing were then asked six additional questions:
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]Although stealing among adolescents appears to be fairly common, an assessment of adolescent stealing and its relationship to other behaviors and health problems is incompletely understood. A large sample of high school students (n = 3,999) was examined by self-report survey with 153 questions concerning demographic characteristics, stealing behaviors, other health behaviors including substance use, and functioning variables, such as grades and violent behavior. The overall prevalence of stealin ... Continue reading---
