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Section 0201
Instructor: Geetha Ramani, Ph.D.
Observation/Interview Paper
Rachel Solomon
December 9, 2014
For the purpose of this paper, I will be focusing on parental attachment, academic
achievement, life events, and their relationship to alcohol and drug use during adolescence. I
looked at the study conducted by Kyle L. Kostelecky, and I modified it a little bit and conducted
a study almost identical on a child that I used to babysit. According to Kostelecky, the
developmental period of adolescence is the time of greatest risk for children to start using drugs
and alcohol (Kostelecky, 2005, p. 665). Both parents and teachers need to be aware that this is an
important issue in child development. As a future educator, I have learned the negative impact
that drug and/or alcohol use can have on a child, especially in their academic achievement.
Kostelecky also points out that although they are not studied as much as other children, rural
youth are not exempt from this phenomenon (Kostelecky, 2005, p. 665). The child that I selected
to conduct the study on would be considered rural youth, and this was purposely done so that
the results would be more easily comparable. It is discussed in the introduction of Kosteleckys
study that adolescents experience many life events, either positive or negative, which can
contribute to high levels of anxiety. All of these things accumulated may be a risk factor when it
comes to substance abuse, which can in turn impact the child in school, and life in general. On
the other hand, Kostelecky points out that one of the most important factors in a childs success
is bonding to a caring adult, often a parent (Kostelecky, 2005, p. 665). Supportive relationships
from family members are also related to decreases in adolescent substance and alcohol use
(Kostelecky, 2005, p. 665). Relating more to the education aspect of all of this, academic
achievement is seen as a protective factor for adolescent substance and alcohol use
(Kostelecky, 2005, p. 666). This means that children who are committed to school and do well
are much less likely to use alcohol and other drugs than students who do poorly in school. I also
believe that this works the other way around too children who use alcohol and drugs, will most
likely do worse in school than children who do not use alcohol and drugs. Kosteleckys study
examined the relationship between all of these factors, and my personal study on one child aimed
to do the same thing. I wanted to see how the results that I obtained would compare to
Kosteleckys study.
The child that I selected to interview and study is a child that I used to babysit. We are
close family friends, so I knew she would be comfortable with telling me anything, which is
another reason that I chose her. Her name is Morgan, but in order to give her privacy and respect,
I will not include her last name or any other real identifying information. She is a white female,
is fourteen year old (almost fifteen), and is a freshman in high school. She lives in Reisterstown,
Maryland, which is a more rural area in Baltimore County. She is technically half Jewish and
half Christian, and although her family celebrates all of the holidays for both religions, she was
raised more Jewish, and she had a Bat Mitzvah. Personally, I think this is important to include,
because being Jewish myself, I know that the Jewish culture places a great emphasis on family,
solid relationships with your parents specifically, and a strong value on education. I ultimately
chose her because I knew that she would be completely comfortable in talking to me about some
of these rather personal topics. The original study by Kostelecky was conducted on high school
seniors, and most of them were white females (Kostelecky, 2005, p. 666). I thought it would be
interesting to compare Morgans answers (a high school freshman) with the students in
Kosteleckys study (high school seniors). The age range in Kosteleckys study was 16 years, 9
months to 19 years, 1 month, and considering Morgan is almost 15 years old (not too far from
the students in the study), I thought it was okay to modify it a little and use her as my subject.
I wanted to use all parts of Kosteleckys study in order to get a more accurate
comparison. I asked Morgan questions from each of the parental attachment, academic
achievement, life events, and substance use segments of the study. Most of this was done in a
laid-back interview format, but during some of the parts I actually had her silently fill out
surveys and questions on paper. I wanted to ask her some questions prior to finding out her
answers to other parts of the study. I initially asked her four questions that related to the surveys
and other questions that would follow. When asked if she considers herself to be an anxious
person or sometimes have bad anxiety, she said no, not at all. I then asked her if she considers
herself to have a close relationship with her parents. She responded that she is very close with
her parents, and that they know everything about her. I then asked her if she can remember an
event that occurred in her life that has caused her to use drugs or alcohol, and she responded no.
Finally, I asked her if using drugs or alcohol has ever impacted her academic achievement, and
she again said no.
For the parental attachment portion of Kosteleckys study, he used Furman and
Buhrmesters (1985) Network of Relationships Inventory (NRI) (Kostelecky, 2005, p. 666). The
NRI is a measure with good psychometric properties that assesses an individuals perceptions of
the qualities and characteristics of relationships with others (Kostelecky, 2005, p. 666). I
generally used the exact same thing to test Morgans relationships with others, but it was
modified a little bit in that I did not have her fill out the entire thing, because I did not think it
was necessary. To summarize, some things I found important are that she seems to be the closest
with her older sister and her best female friend. Although, she initially stated that she is very
close with her parents, in the survey, she ranked her sister and her best female friend higher in
categories such as how often do you tell these people things that you dont want others to
know, and how often do you turn to these people for support with personal problems. I found
that interesting because after the pre-questions, I would have thought that she would have ranked
her parents higher. Her mother was ranked higher than her father in a lot of the categories
though.
For the academic achievement portion of the study, Kostelecky simply asked participants
if they had made the honor roll at their school within the last twelve months. Typically, in the
United States, the honor roll is a form of academic recognition where a student has a B
average (3.0 on a 4.0 scale) or above for all of their grades at the end of a term or semester
(Kostelecky, 2005, p. 666). Morgan stated, that yes, she has made the honor roll within the past
year.
For the life events portion of the study, Kostelecky administered a few different surveys
to the adolescents. I did not think that all three were necessary for Morgan to complete, so I just
had her complete the Life Events Checklist from Johnson & McCutcheon (1980). I will just point
out a few things that I found interesting. She has personally experienced a natural disaster, a
transportation accident, other serious accident, and a life-threatening illness or injury. She has
also witnessed another person being assaulted with a weapon, and has also witnessed another
persons sudden accidental death. I think these things are all extremely important to point out
because they can greatly impact a person in all different aspects of their life.
Finally, for the substance use portion, Kostelecky used the National Youth Survey (NYS)
by (Elliott, Huizinga, & Ageton, 1985). For this part, I asked Morgan to fill out the exact same
survey. She admitted that she has lied about her age to gain entrance or to purchase something,
cheated on school tests, hit (or threatened to hit) another student, avoided paying for something,
been drunk in a public place, and has used and/or tried both alcohol and marijuana. Some of this
really shocked me, but I was happy that she was able to be so honest with me.
In Kosteleckys study, it was generally found that adolescents who perceived themselves
as having a close relationship with their parents had lower levels of substance use (Kostelecky,
2005, p. 668). This seemed to be true of Morgan as well. Although she did admit to occasionally
using alcohol, and previously trying marijuana, she never used any other drugs. I think what she
admitted to me was pretty normal for a young girl in high school trying to impress people. She
definitely perceived herself as having a close relationship with her parents, although her rankings
showed that she thinks shes closer with her sister. It was also found that academic achievement
accounted for the greatest portion of variance in alcohol use by the adolescent, consistent with
previous research (Kostelecky, 2005, p. 668). Since Morgan made the honor roll, I would
assume that she is a generally good student, and again, I think her occasional alcohol use is
pretty normal, and it is clearly not enough that it impacts her school work. Another thing that was
found was that higher numbers of life events experienced by adolescents were also significantly
related to alcohol use by adolescents, consistent with previous work (Kostelecky, 2005, p. 668).
This leads me to believe that maybe some of Morgans past traumatic experiences have impacted
her occasional substance use.
I believe that all of these findings, from both Kosteleckys study, and my personal
findings with Morgan, are extremely important for parents and educators to know. When I
thought about current events that this relates to, I immediately thought of the recent legalization
of marijuana in some states. This is just one example of how many drugs, and other substances,
are becoming much easier for children to get their hands on these days. We need to be aware that
children doing poorly in school, are much more likely to be using these substances than children
doing well in school. Also, the factors of past life events and relationships with people impact
substance use as well. As a future educator, I now am more aware that poor academic
achievement and lack of parental involvement means a higher chance of a student using drugs
and alcohol, and this is important for me to know. Teachers should be aware of this so they are
able to get the student help, if needed. Our textbook also suggests adolescents who abuse
alcohol or drugs tend to have friends who do so also (Siegler, DeLoache, Eisenberg, & Saffran,
2014, p. 521). I found this interesting because since Morgan pointed out that shes so close with
her best female friend, and her older sister, I would be curious to know how much influence they
have on her substance use. I would assume that they have a great impact on many of her
decisions.
For the most part, Morgan gave the responses that I expected she would give, although a
few things did surprise me. For example, some of the things she checked off on the National
Youth Survey really surprised me. In general, I thought she was a pretty innocent girl, but it turns
out she is not as much as I thought she was. In the future, I would be interested to see a study
done with these questions and surveys and see how they compare between different races,
ethnicities, and genders.
Works Cited
Kostelecky, K. L. (2005). Parental attachment, academic achievement, life events, and their
relationship to alcohol and drug use during adolescence. Journal of Adolescence , 665-669.
Siegler, R., DeLoache, J., Eisenberg, N., & Saffran, J. (2014). How Children Develop (4th
Edition ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.