Reflection

What I learned from this is researching can be difficult when it feels like it. A part that went well I think is that I think everyone would have answered my question honestly because there was nothing about the question that may have been something private (at least I don't think). So think I got pretty honest data, even though some kids maybe not have been taking the survey seriously.
I could have changed my question by giving some more descriptive answers instead of just, yes, no, depends on the person. I think for this research to really affect me I would have to do some more research with more questions that could help me dive farther into the subject of teenage relationships. I think that my one question merely scrapped the surface of my topic and doesn't really teach me or help me learn anything about myself or classmates except that most of us think that we are affected by our friends...

Recommendations

I don't think my research really raised any other questions about my topic. The question that I addressed was 'do you think teenagers behavior in school is effected by who they hang out with?' Most people said that they did think that they were effected by their friends in school. I think that perhaps changing the answers to my survey question(yes, no, depends on the person) to something more descriptive such as, yes in a good way, yes in a bad way, no, sometimes, never, may have given me better information for my research on teenage relationships.
Some other questions I think could be asked to further my research would be how does your family effect your social life? How do you think your family has shaped who you are(if at all)? Do you have friends you would trust with your life? Why? What do you think makes a best friend, a best friend? I also think it would be helpful to interview or survey a different set of people maybe from a different school or something.

Conclusions

According to the survey given, out of the 118 students that took the survey, 63% agree that who we hang out with effects our behavior in school, some students disagree and only a few think that it depends on the person.

From this we can determine that the majority of our people surveyed agree that their friends are a big influence in their behavior.

Survey Data

This survey was taken by 118 of 9th graders. Forty-eight of them were males and 70 were females and everyone varied in race; black, white, asian, latino, mixed race and others.



The chart shows that most people think that who you hang out with affects how you act during school. The data shows that 34% of people think it depends on the person and only 3% think that who you hang out with doesn't affect how you act in school.

A Published Source

This article reports on how peers are a big factor in some of the choices we make. It is on a parenting site to help parents understand a little more about why teenagers act the way they do and addresses several things that may become issues in parenting. In this particular article, it talks about how teenagers friends can pressure them into doing drugs or drinking. Teens give into peer pressure for fear of not being accepted into 'the group' or to up their respect level, according to the article.

" Teen Peer Pressure." Parenting, Parenting Problems, types of Parenting, Parenting Children. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. .

Research Question(s)

-How does a teenagers social life effect their performance in school?
-Why do teenagers tend to be so group oriented?

Intro

I am creating this blog for a school project. Everyone has to make one but not everyone is happy about it(Rae Leonard). I think it's going to a kind of interesting project because we get to research things about teenagers that we are interested in. I think it will be a good project because, as teenagers, I think it will be a good thing for us to research and learn about how we are different from children and adults and why we do the things we do. We already know that us teenagers don't like to follow instruction or listen to people when they tell us no or that we can't, we think we are always right and that the world revolves around us(at least that is a common stereotype of teenagers). Does who we associate with at school effect how strongly we show these characteristics? I chose to do my blog on the social structure of teens. How do teenagers' social lives effect how we preform in school? How does school effect our social lives? I hope to learn about these things and much more. One thing I do know is that who we socialize with or hang out with has a huge impact on who we are and how we fit into society.