Date of Award

1-1-1980

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Teaching & Learning

Abstract

Problem. Recently the trend of chemical use by increasingly more and younger adolescents has become recognized as a potentially serious societal problem. National studies have found significant proportions of adolescents who use a variety of chemicals frequently and heavily (Alibrandi 1978; Johnston, Bachman & O'Malley 1979). Although drug use and abuse have clearly been documented in the literature as a serious problem for the adolescent population, there is little conclusive evidence of why some adolescents abuse drugs and others do not.Procedure. The present study investigated a group of adolescents who were placed at a residential chemical dependency program for adolescents located in Fergus Falls, Minnesota (N = 32). In addition, a control group of high school seniors were used for comparative purposes on demographic data (N = 60).The purpose of the study was to taken an in-depth look at this group of chemically dependent youth who were placed at Freeway. Three different areas were investigated for each adolescent in treatment. They were: (1) background data, (2) self concept and (3) academic achievement. The Piers-Harris Children's Self Concept Test was administered to the treatment group as was the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery. In addition to this information, individual interviews were given to six students and four teachers from the treatment program. These interviews were designed to give information regarding reasons for chemical abuse, precipitating factors, and possible suggestions for chemical dependency prevention and intervention programs.The proposed research questions were: (1) Are there a number of background factors which are common for this particular group of adolescents? (2) Is self concept correlated with academic achievement? (3) Are there differences in self concept scores based on the background variables? (4) Are there common reasons or precipitating factors for dependency problems identified by the adolescents and the staff? What are the possible suggestions to be made in considering the abuse problem?Results. Data from the present research indicate the following results: (1) There were several background factors found to be significantly different for the treatment group when compared to the control group. The factors found to be significant were: (1) with whom the adolescent lived (2) birth order (3) socioeconomic status (4) school grades and (5) school attendance. The treatment group had a higher percentage of adolescents living in a one parent home. More last or later born children were identified from the treatment group. A larger percentage of the treatment group received free or reduced lunch. Adolescents in treatment tended to have lower school grades and exhibited more irregular school attendance than the control group. (2) Self concept scores were not found to be correlated with achievement scores, except for one subtest--knowledge. However, self concept scores were lower for the treatment group than would be expected from the norms for the general school population. Achievement scores were somewhat lower than expected from norms, but not as low as school grades would indicate. (3) Background variables were not found to be significant predictors of self concept scores. (4) Adolescents reported several factors which influenced their chemical use. They discussed the importance of poor family interactions, peer pressure to use drugs, low self concept, inadequacy of relating to others, and inability to cope with problems as precipitating factors for chemical abuse. Most adolescents reported experimenting with drugs at an early age, use of multi-drugs, and a gradual increase in consumption to daily use.

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