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Abstract
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VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The aim of this study by Roth and Nicholson was to examine the effectiveness of utilizing early school recollections as a diagnostic tool for identifying violent youth who can or cannot be successfully mainstreamed back into the public school system.
METHODOLOGY:
The authors employed a quasi-experimental design with a non- probability sample of 60 students who were enrolled at the Walltown School, a specialized day-treatment facility for court- or health service-referred violent and assaultive youth. The subjects, all identified as having Conduct Disorder: Aggressive Type, were studied over a three year period, from 1986 to 1988. Subjects were classified as exhibiting mild, moderate or severe assaultive behaviors in the classroom according to the Modified Walker Problem Behavior Identification Checklist, reviews of each individual's charts, and interviews with each subject's teacher. Successful mainstreaming was evaluated on the basis of percentage of positive ratings of behavior by the teacher on a ten-item questionnaire, and percentage of improvement on the Problem Behavior Checklist, with regard to number of behaviors rated by the teacher after two semesters in the public school. These two measures of integration were summed to provide each subject with a total score on the success of mainstreaming. The top third of the sample on this score was considered to have been successfully mainstreamed, and the lower third was assigned as unsuccessful mainstreaming. The middle 20 students were eliminated from further analysis in order to concentrate upon differences between the other two groups. Earliest school recollections were obtained from standard, structured interviews and were based upon Dreikurs system of examining the frequency of positive and negative ratings of a number of factors that were involved in each recollection: the behavior, the response of a significant other to the behavior, and the student's response to this. Two judges classified the recollections. Analysis included phi correlations of 2 x 2 frequency tables.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The authors found that success of mainstreaming could not be significantly well predicted for the unsuccessful students. However, for the successful subjects, successful mainstreaming could be predicted from positive recollections 92% of the time, and unsuccessful integration could be predicted from negative memories in 63% of the cases. For the two groups combined, successful mainstreaming could be predicted from positive recollections 59% of the time, and unsuccessful mainstreaming could be predicted from negative recollections in 83% of the students. The authors concluded that the use of earliest school recollections could differentiate between successfully and unsuccessfully mainstreamed violent youth.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors suggested that further analysis of the use of these early recollections should be conducted, with larger samples of varying demographics and in other types of facilities. More than one recollection could be obtained in order to increase study validity.
EVALUATION:
The authors provide an interesting first look at the effectiveness of earliest school recollections as a device for differentiating successful and unsuccessful mainstreaming students. However, the small sample size and the questionable internal validity that stems from the use of only one recollection inevitably and seriously limits the generalizability of these results. Also, the brief and superficial nature of the analysis leaves many questions unanswered, as many more factors could have been taken into consideration and might have affected the findings. Demographic characteristics such as age, sex, class and ethnicity might play vital roles in the success of the student's return to public school. The brief and confusing discussion of the results does not help to disseminate the authors' findings, and no discussion is provided of the implications of the results for future policy planning. This study can be seen as a very brief and preliminary step in the field of treatment of violent youth. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
KW - Offender Assessment
KW - Offender Diagnosis
KW - Juvenile Violence
KW - Juvenile Offender
KW - Conduct Disorder
KW - School Mainstreaming
Language: en |