Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

One in Six High Schoolers Don’t Believe Their College Dreams Will Come True

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by Study Finds.

Going to college and graduating is a dream many teens have, but a growing portion of modern high school students say attending college just isn’t realistic for them. Researchers from the University of Georgia report that the vast majority of high school juniors (85%) want to attend college after graduating — but one in six don’t think that will actually happen.

More specifically, study authors found that students with lower grades generally still want to go to college but were less likely to believe they could successfully attain a bachelor’s degree. The same held true among students attending public high schools. Those from low-income families were also less likely to believe they could eventually attend college, although this group still generally desired higher education. Both young men and Hispanic students were especially likely to want to go to college but did not expect to actually attend.

Researchers analyzed data provided by the 2009 High School Longitudinal Study [HSLS:09], originally conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. That project was a nationally representative sample of high schoolers from 944 public and private schools who agreed to let researchers track them from 9th through 11th grade. For this latest project, study authors focused on responses from more than 9,650 students in their junior year.

While most students said they want to earn at least a bachelor’s degree, if not a master’s or doctorate, just 74 percent actually believe they would follow through on their plans. Consequently, those same students were less likely to search for, apply to, and enroll in college. Among those with low expectations for attending college, roughly half decided to go enroll in a two-year institution. The other half did not pursue higher education at all.

The study was published in the journal Educational Policy.

Source: Study Finds
https://studyfinds.org/high-school-college-dreams/

Early College Class Times Can Hurt Students' Grades

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Early morning college classes can be a prescription for poor attendance and lower grades, a new study suggests.

But starting classes later boosted both, as students got more sleep, were more likely to attend, and were less likely to be groggy, which leads to better grades, researchers reported.

"Early morning classes likely impair learning due to effects on presenteeism -- being in class, but not able to perform at one's best due to sleepiness -- and absenteeism," said lead researcher Joshua Gooley. He's an associate professor in the neuroscience and behavioral disorders department of Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore.

"This is alarming, given that the purpose of formal education is to prepare our students with the knowledge and skills to be successful learners and workers," Gooley said. "Universities should avoid scheduling mandatory early morning classes at 8 a.m. because they are incompatible with optimal sleep health and learning performance.

For the study, Gooley and his colleagues used Wi-Fi connection logs to collect data on nearly 23,400 college students in Singapore to see if early morning classes affected attendance.

They also analyzed data on the day and night patterns of more than 39,400 students to see if early morning classes were linked with waking up earlier and getting less sleep. The researchers then looked at the grades of nearly 34,000 students to see if having early morning classes affected their grade point average.

They found that early classes were tied with lower attendance, as many students slept past these classes. Students who did attend an early class lost about an hour of sleep, the researchers noted. Last but not least, students with morning classes on more days of the week had a lower grade point average.

Their latest report was published recently in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/sleep-school-2659666339.html

Less Sleep Brings Worse Grades for College Kids

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

A new study reveals that late-night cramming, hall parties, and other nocturnal activities can rob college kids of sleep, taking a big toll on grade point averages. Freshmen who racked up fewer than 6 hours of sleep a night saw a drop in their end-of-term GPA, the research showed. For every hour of nightly sleep lost, there was a .07 decrease in GPA.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine says college kids should aim for 7 or more hours of sleep each night.

"First-year college students are only [getting] about 6.5 hours of sleep each night, which is significantly below the recommended needs for these young adults, and this has real consequences for their academic achievement," said study author J. David Creswell, a professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

What's robbing frosh of much-needed shut-eye? The list is lengthy, he said. "First-year college students have a lot of competing pressures on their nightly sleep, ranging from a desire to study more to wanting to build new friendships," Creswell said. "These challenges often create sleep debt cultures on college campuses, making it hard for students to protect time needed to sleep."

College kids must learn to prioritize sleep, he said.

For the study, more than 600 college first-years at three U.S. universities participated in five studies. Students wore watch-like devices to track their sleep.

On average, students slept 6 hours and 29 minutes a night during the week and racked up an additional 29 minutes of slumber on weekends. Students' average bedtime was 2:01 a.m., and they woke around 9:17 a.m., the study found.

The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/insomnia-2659390739.html

Kids Lost an Average of a Third of a Year's Learning During Pandemic

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Adding to the very long list of hardships exacted by the pandemic, a new review indicates that schoolchildren around the world ended up losing more than a third of a full year's education due to school closings and disruptions.

The finding follows an analysis of 42 studies conducted in 15 rich or middle-income countries: the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

The analysis concluded that across the world "schoolchildren's learning progress slowed down substantially during the pandemic," noted study lead author Bastian Betthäuser, an assistant professor of sociology with the Centre for Research on Social Inequalities (CRIS) at Sciences Po in Paris.

Among additional findings were:

• Learning deficits arose quite early in the pandemic
• More than two years later, children have not recovered that lost learning
• Children from low-income families were disproportionately affected by school closures
• Learning deficits were larger in poorer than in richer countries.

The review further found that the educational hole left by the pandemic appears to be considerably worse in math, compared with reading.

The findings were published Jan. 30 in the journal Nature Human Behavior.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/schools-and-pandemic-2659303560.html

Researchers Find Music Education Benefits Youth Well-Being

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by USC News.

The latest USC research on the impact of music education shows that for adolescents, the benefits appear to extend beyond a surge in neural connections in their brains. It actually boosts their well-being.

“We know that the pandemic has taken a toll on student mental health. The many narratives of learning loss that have emerged since the start of the pandemic paint a grim picture of what some call a ‘lost generation,’” said Beatriz Ilari, a USC Thornton associate professor of music education and corresponding author of the study. “Music might be an activity to help students develop skills and competencies, work out their emotions, engage in identity work, and strengthen connections to the school and community.”

For the study, researchers examined the impact of music on “positive youth development,” a measure of the strengths of adolescents and their potential to contribute to society developed by scholars from Tufts University. Researchers also included measures for school connectedness and hopeful future expectations.

The researchers administered anonymous online surveys to 120 students from 52 Los Angeles Unified School District middle schools. The survey questions covered the key domains of positive youth development, including competence and confidence. Past research shows that adolescents who manifest these attributes are more likely to make positive contributions to society and less likely to engage in risky behaviors later in life.

Ilari and her fellow researchers, including USC Thornton alumna Eun Cho, found many positive effects. They found that students who started music education before age 8 were more hopeful about the future, and younger students who received musical training scored higher in key measures of positive youth development.

The research team also found that younger students scored higher in key development measures than their older peers. Sixth-grade students, for example, scored higher for overall positive youth development than eighth-graders and scored higher in the confidence domain than both seventh- and eighth-graders. Seventh-grade students also scored higher in overall positive youth development than eighth-graders.

The study was published in the journal Frontiers In Psychology.

Source: USC News
https://news.usc.edu/204800/music-education-research/

Strict-Sounding Teachers Worse in the Classroom Than Kind Colleagues

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by ScienceDaily.

A ground-breaking psychological study from The University of Essex and the University of Reading of hundreds of children showed "controlling sounding voices" didn't gain cooperation from 10-16-year-olds.

It discovered that youngsters faced with a strict teacher were more likely to rebel, their well-being was affected, and they were less likely to reveal they were facing problems -- like bullying.

This is because students felt unable to express themselves when confronted with a harsher, more controlling tone.

Whereas a supportive-sounding voice inspired a connection to a teacher which increased their intention to cooperate.

Professor Silke Paulmann, Head of the Department of Psychology at Essex, worked with Professor Netta Weinstein at Reading on the study. Professor Paulmann said: "We often think about what teachers say to their students, but we rarely talk about how they say it. But the tone of voice teachers use really matters, and the way we modulate our voice can have profound effects on listeners."

The study published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology explored teachers' tone of voice in children's education.

Pre-recorded teachers' voices were played to 250 children, who were then asked to judge how the tone affected them. They were asked to rate how it would affect factors such as competence, emotions, trust, and their intention to cooperate. Children reacted much better to supportive voices, while controlling tones made their self-esteem plummet, and teachers' sound exemplars were perceived to be less trustworthy.

Source: ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230117110425.htm

Study Finds That Online Learning During COVID-19 was Detrimental to Teen Mental Health, School Satisfaction, Performance

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the social and school world for teens as virtual learning or hybrid learning became the norm in 2020-21. The unprecedented shutdown of classroom learning caused undue stress, low levels of social inclusion, and low satisfaction with school for many—and mental health issues for some, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Davis.

"It is clear from this study that certain individuals ended the 2020-21 school year facing more adversity than others," said Drew Cingel, lead author and associate professor of communication at UC Davis. The study was published last month in the journal PLOS ONE.

The study found that teens who were able to attend school in-person reported more sense of inclusion in their social group than those learning online. And despite the traditionally high use in this age group, social media failed to compensate for real, in-person social connections derived from school, researchers suggest.

Youth participating in virtual learning reported feeling less social connection and higher rates of mental health problems, in comparison to their peers who could attend school in-person or in a hybrid model.

Data was collected from 1,256 United States adolescents, ages 14 to 16, to examine how their school context related to feelings of school satisfaction and success, social connection, mental health and media use. The findings suggest that current school interventions may be necessary to help teens recover from the disparities experienced during this unique time, researchers said.

And while the use of social media by teens was reported as more pronounced than before the pandemic, the increased socialization online was perceived both positively and as problematic at the same time.

"Importantly, while adolescent youth are adept and frequent media users, and report using media for social purposes, in this instance in which so much of their in-person social connection was lost, social media and gaming do not appear able to provide a protective mechanism enough to compensate for that loss," researchers said in the study.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-11-online-covid-detrimental-teen-mental.html

Forget STEM Classes, Parents Want Schools to Help Improve Their Children’s Character

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by StudyFinds.

More than four out of five parents want their young children to learn more than just STEM. A poll of 2,000 American parents of children ages five and younger found 77 percent believe character development skills are just as important for their young children as academic skills in early education.

In addition to STEM education, parents want their children to develop a sense of belonging and community (77%) and learn the value of community service (75%). Parents say they also would like to see their children learn responsibility (48%), charity (43%), honesty (42%), and fairness (41%) in the classroom.

Two in three parents surveyed (67%) wished they themselves were taught character development skills when they were students. When it comes to choosing an early education provider, 75 percent prioritize providers that embed character development skills in their curriculum.

More than 75 percent of parents think society would be a better place if their children learned character development skills in the classroom.

Source: StudyFinds
https://studyfinds.org/stem-classes-parents-childrens-character/

Music Class in Sync with Higher Math Scores

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by ScienceDaily.

Music and arts classes are often first on the chopping block when schools face tight budgets and pressure to achieve high scores on standardized tests. But it's precisely those classes that can increase student interest in school and even benefit their math achievement, according to a new study.

Daniel Mackin Freeman, a doctoral candidate in sociology, and Dara Shifrer, an associate professor of sociology at Portland State University, used a large nationally representative dataset to see which types of arts classes impact math achievement and how it varies based on the socio-economic composition of the school. Schools with lower socio-economic status (SES) have a higher percentage of students eligible for free or reduced lunch.

The researchers found that taking music courses at higher- or mid-SES schools relates to higher math scores. Mackin Freeman said that's not a surprise given the ways in which music and math overlap.

"If you think about it at an intuitive level, reading music is just doing math," he said. "Of course, it's a different type of math but it might be a more engaging form of math for students than learning calculus."

However, the positive relationship between music course-taking and math achievement is primarily isolated to schools that serve more socially privileged students. The study suggests this could be because arts courses in low-SES schools are of lower quality and/or under-resourced. Students in low-SES schools also take fewer music and arts classes on average compared to their peers, also suggesting low-SES schools are under-resourced when it comes to arts courses.

"It'd be reasonable to expect that at under-resourced schools, the quality of the music program would differentiate any potential connection to other subjects," Mackin Freeman said. "For programs as resource-intensive as something like band, under-resourced schools are less likely to even have working instruments, let alone an instructor who can teach students to read music in a way that they can make connections to arithmetic."

The study was published in the journal Sociological Perspectives.

Source: ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/10/221027093315.htm

Concussion Aftermath Could Drag Down Teens' Grades

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Efforts to prevent concussions from happening at school or in school-related sports activities may help keep teens from lagging behind in their academics.

In a new study, researchers at the University of Washington found that those who had a recent concussion could be 25% more likely than classmates to be in poor academic standing.

"History of concussion was significantly associated with poor academic standing and experiencing multiple concussions could be particularly harmful on student outcomes," according to study author Julian Takagi-Stewart, of Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center in Seattle, and colleagues.

About 2 million U.S. youth suffer a concussion each year. The researchers wanted to learn whether there was a link between a history of these temporary brain injuries and teens' academic standing.

For the study, they analyzed data on more than 10,000 teens who were part of the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System Survey, which monitors health risks among U.S. students.

In all, about 15% of high school students reported having had at least one sports and activity-related concussion during the previous year.

In all, 79% of students said they were in good academic standing, the findings showed.

Having at least one concussion in the past year was linked with a 25% higher risk of poor academic standing. This link was stronger for students with repeated concussions, according to the report published online Sept. 12 in the journal Injury Prevention.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/b-9-14-concussion-aftermath-could-drag-down-a-teens-grades-2658197510.html