chicot60
02-15-2011, 02:12 PM
By Sophie Terbush, USA TODAY
For high school students, working more than 20 hours a week at a part-time job could be doing more harm than good, a new study suggests.
The study, authored by researchers at the University of Washington, the University of Virginia and Temple University, found that working more than 20 hours a week in high school is associated with decreased school engagement and increases in problem behavior. The study is published in the January/February issue of the journal Child Development.
These results contradict a number of recent studies that found no negative effects on students from working intensive hours, but researchers say that the treatment of their data, using advanced statistical measures, may account for this difference.
The study re-examined interview data from the late 1980s involving a sample of about 1,800 ethnically-diverse high school students in the 10th and 11th grades.
The original study was reported in 1993 by Laurence Steinberg, a professor of psychology at Temple University and author of You and Your Adolescent. Steinberg was also one of the co-authors of the present study.
Though the data are about 20 years old, researchers say it remains relevant because students held the same types of jobs back then that they do today.
"Not much has changed over the last 30 years," says University of Washington researcher Kathryn Monahan, who led the study. "Students are still most likely to be employed in restaurants, fast food and the service industry, and tend to get paid minimum wage."
According to the study, students who worked more than 20 hours a week had lower expectations for educational attainment, lower school engagement, higher levels of substance abuse, and other problem behavior. However, these same students also showed more autonomous decision-making and had slightly higher grade point averages than teens without jobs.
The researchers believe that students working long hours tend to take easier classes, which may account for the GPA increase and less time spent on homework.
Additionally, students who worked long hours still experienced negative outcomes up to a year after quitting or reducing hours; the authors advise that working long hours for a year or more of high school could have even greater negative effects.
This doesn't mean that high school students shouldn't work at all, and in today's economic environment, many need to work part-time to help their families or save for college.
The authors say they found virtually no evidence that working fewer than 20 hours a week has negative effects on students. "The majority of individuals don't work more than 20 hours during the school year," says Monahan. But, "especially during the recession, students are feeling pressure to work more."
Monahan notes that parents, educators and employers should be cautious to allow adolescents to work lots of extra hours during the school year. "It's a small difference — it won't turn you into a felon overnight, but it does have significant impacts in terms of academic engagement, academic outcomes, drug use and delinquency."
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/teen-ya/story/2011/02/Too-many-hours-on-the-job-could-put-high-school-teens-at-risk/43712710/1
For high school students, working more than 20 hours a week at a part-time job could be doing more harm than good, a new study suggests.
The study, authored by researchers at the University of Washington, the University of Virginia and Temple University, found that working more than 20 hours a week in high school is associated with decreased school engagement and increases in problem behavior. The study is published in the January/February issue of the journal Child Development.
These results contradict a number of recent studies that found no negative effects on students from working intensive hours, but researchers say that the treatment of their data, using advanced statistical measures, may account for this difference.
The study re-examined interview data from the late 1980s involving a sample of about 1,800 ethnically-diverse high school students in the 10th and 11th grades.
The original study was reported in 1993 by Laurence Steinberg, a professor of psychology at Temple University and author of You and Your Adolescent. Steinberg was also one of the co-authors of the present study.
Though the data are about 20 years old, researchers say it remains relevant because students held the same types of jobs back then that they do today.
"Not much has changed over the last 30 years," says University of Washington researcher Kathryn Monahan, who led the study. "Students are still most likely to be employed in restaurants, fast food and the service industry, and tend to get paid minimum wage."
According to the study, students who worked more than 20 hours a week had lower expectations for educational attainment, lower school engagement, higher levels of substance abuse, and other problem behavior. However, these same students also showed more autonomous decision-making and had slightly higher grade point averages than teens without jobs.
The researchers believe that students working long hours tend to take easier classes, which may account for the GPA increase and less time spent on homework.
Additionally, students who worked long hours still experienced negative outcomes up to a year after quitting or reducing hours; the authors advise that working long hours for a year or more of high school could have even greater negative effects.
This doesn't mean that high school students shouldn't work at all, and in today's economic environment, many need to work part-time to help their families or save for college.
The authors say they found virtually no evidence that working fewer than 20 hours a week has negative effects on students. "The majority of individuals don't work more than 20 hours during the school year," says Monahan. But, "especially during the recession, students are feeling pressure to work more."
Monahan notes that parents, educators and employers should be cautious to allow adolescents to work lots of extra hours during the school year. "It's a small difference — it won't turn you into a felon overnight, but it does have significant impacts in terms of academic engagement, academic outcomes, drug use and delinquency."
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/teen-ya/story/2011/02/Too-many-hours-on-the-job-could-put-high-school-teens-at-risk/43712710/1