teen_pregnancy

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by Alicia, Zeena, and Jean The independent variable is the academic achievement; the pregnancy, or outcome, is the dependent variable. The measure is the final averages.
 * Correlations Between Teen Pregnancy and GPA**
 * Research Question**//:// Is there a correlation between academic achievement, as measured by final averages in core subject areas, and pregnancy in high school teenage girls?
 * //Hypotheses://**


 * Null:** There will be no correlation between final averages in core subject areas and pregnancy in high school teenage girls.
 * Directional:** There will be a negative correlation between final averages in core subject areas and pregancy in high school teenage girls.

Background: The United States prides itself on being a world leader in many fields: civil liberties, equalities, opportunities, technologies, etc. Should we pride ourselves, too, on leading first world and industrialized countries in teen pregnancy? Although teen pregnancies have declined in the past ten years, we still have nearly twice the pregnancy and birth rates of the next highest countries, which include England, Wales, and Canada. (National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy) In 1996, the U.S. teen pregnancy rate per 1,000 girls was nearly 100 - almost 10 percent (NCPTP)! This in turn accounts for the births of more than half a million babies born to teenaged mothers, very few of which are ultimately adopted (NASBE/NSBA). In choosing to raise their babies themselves, teens create a great financial burden to themselves, their families, and society. American taxpayers end up paying at least $7 billion annually to, in essence, support teen pregnancy and childbearing (NCPTP). And what of the trials that await these children? Children born to teenage mothers are disadvantaged to others in many areas: as infants, they have a higher rate of nutritional deficiencies, low birth-rate, and retardation(black and DeBassie, 1985); as they reach school age, these children may have a higher tendency to struggle in school because of health and economic factors (NASBE/NSBA). Clearly, the issue of teen pregnancy needs to be made a priority for communities for the aforementioned reasons. Many studies have been done to gain census on teen pregnancies in America. Many studies have also gone one step further and looked at specific populations and pregnancy trends (Thompson, 1980 compares blacks and whites; Bonilla, 1997 looked at pregancy rates in Hispanic teens__;__ and Young et al. studied poverty as linked to teen pregnancy in 2004). The questions continue to be asked - are there behaviors that exist prior to pregnancy? Are there warning signs to be identified and, if they exist, will we act on them? Many studies have concluded that prevention programs in education need to be implemented before 8th grade, to instill higher academic achievement before girls enter high school. The purpose of this study is to gain some insight into the state of Rhode Island teenagers and their trends toward pregnancy. By looking at the whole population we hope to find that it is not just low socio-economic status or race that leads girls to be vulnerable to pregnancy, but academic achievement. Poor academics has been cited for being a precursor to teen pregnancy (Black & De Bassie). Poor school achievement and pregnancy can go hand in hand; while those teen girls with poor academic ability fair no better: females with poor basic skills are 2.5 times more likely to be mothers than their peers with higher skill levels (Children's Defense Fund, 1986). Therefore, examining such causes could help schools take a bigger part in preventing teen pregnancies - being able to identify those girls at the greatest risk. Sources: Children's Defense Fund. (1986). Preventing adolescent pregnancy: What school can do. Washington, D.C.: Authors. Bempchat, Janine, et al. (1989). Teenage Pregnancy and Drug Abuse: Sources of Problem Behaviors. ERIC/CUE Digest, 58, 1-6. Wellburn, Bryant, et. al. (1998). What Schools Can Do to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and Promote Student Achievement. NASBE and NSBA Forum, 1-19. Allen, J.P., Philliber, S., Herrling, S., Kupernine, G.P. (1997). Preventing Teen Pregnancy and Academic Failure: Experimental Evaluation of a Developmentally Based Approach. Child Development. (64)4, 729-742. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. (2001). Halfway there: A Prescription for Continued Progress in Preventing Teen Pregnancy. Washington, D.C.: Author. Young, Turner, Demy, Young. (2004) Examining External and Internal Poverty as Antecedents of Teen Pregnancy. American Journal of Health Behavior. v28, n4, p.361-373, Jul. 2004. Bonilla, C. (1997) And This, Amigos, is (again), the Decade of the Hispanic. EDRS 1997.
 * Literature review:**


 * Sample:** We are going to randomly sample all girls in all Rhode Island high schools. Since we can't interview students under 18, we are going to interview the guidance counselors to provide us with the grades.


 * Data Collection:** The team will examine the final averages of all of the girls in Rhode Island high schools from the past two years, both pregnant and non-pregant. Examining their averages two years prior serves the purpose of eventually being able to determine those girls that are at the greatest risk. These grades will be given to us confidentially by the social consultants from all of the high schools in Rhode Island.


 * //Data analysis://** To analyze the data we collected we are simply going to look for correlations between final averages and high school girls, pregnant and non-pregnant. By looking at these averages of academic achievement, we will be able to determine if there is a statistically significant direct or indirect correlation between final averages and teenage pregnancies. Many correlations beyond this could also be made when looking at the data using a spreadsheet program such as the SPSS.


 * Validity and reliability:** Our team is aware of some threats to the internal validity of our study. Mortality is one of the threats that we face. Some of the guidance counselors may decide to stop giving us the information we need prior to completion of our study. We may also face the problem of history; some of the pregnant students' low or high grades may be due to other circumstances than pregnancy. Maturation is another threat to our study. Students' grades may be affected by unrelated growth or change other than pregnancy. Since we are using final grades as our measure, some reasearchers do not consider these to be a reliable source of academic achievement; this also creates a weakness. Future studies may choose to use alternative measures to look at other circumstances that affect the possibility of pregnancy in teen students. However, we do address some of these weaknesses through the size and inferential nature of our sample.


 * //Strength of design://

The strengths:** The strengths of our proposal, ironically, can be found in our sample. The size of our random sample is very inferential and can be used to make generalizations about the academic achievement of the entire teen population in Rhode Island.


 * The weaknesses:**

However, the sample can also be looked at as a weakness! In actuality, the biggest weakness of our study is the threat to the validity of sampling, because we are selecting all of the high school girls in Rhode Island. By testing in this way, there is a higher possiblity that the numbers will be statisically significant due to academic achievement, as opposed to only by chance.

If we were to have done this study qualitatively, we would have discovered a much more in-depth reasoning of any correlation between GPA and pregnancy in high school. As qualitative researchers, we would have been able to enter the classroom and physically observe those pre-pregnant and pregnant teenagers and their daily lives in school. We could have conducted interviews with them to learn more about their individual situations. Furthermore, it would be interesting to expand the qualitative research to include not only academic achievement, but girls opinions and feelings about school prior to becoming pregnant.

Distribuiton of work: We all worked on our hypotheses. Jean did the literature review, Zeena did the sample and validity and reliability, Alicia did the collection of data and data analysis. We all worked together in the editing of all parts in general. We found this team to be very agreeable and open to the ideas of others.

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