Citation

Levonian E, Case HW. Highw. Res. Board bull. 1961; 285: 29-34.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1961, National Research Council (U.S.A.), Highway Research Board)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Three groups of high school students were administered a questionnaire consisting of 80 driving and non-driving items. The three groups were 10th grade pre-drivers (n=119), 10th grade drivers (n=169), and 12th graders (n=216), all drivers. For each item three tests of significance for response differences between the three groups were determined. Differences significant at the 0.01 level were found for 21 items, and 12 of these items the percentage of agree response of the 12th graders was more extreme than either of the 10th grade groups. Interest focused on these 12 items. For seven of these items the 12th graders differed significantly from the 10th grade pre-drivers, but not from the drivers, and for each of these items the 12th grade response was the least socially recommended. For the remaining five items the 12th graders differed significantly from the 10th grade drivers, but not from the pre-drivers, and for each of these items the 12th grade response was the most socially recommended. Thus, there appear to be two distinct attitude trends during high school. The content of the 12 items led to an interpretation of the two attitude trends: (1) the lower ethical values developed during high school tend to be anticipated by the 10th grade drivers, and (2) the greater acceptance of social controls tends to be anticipated by the 10th grade drivers.