Data+Collection+&+Results

__**Data Collection Method #1: Surveys**__ My first step in this field study was to gather information from a sample of students at Heritage Woods Secondary. I chose to use two Gr. 9 classes; 56 students in total. I chose Gr. 9 students because I don't know them and they don't know me. I figured that this might help with them wanting to answer as honestly as possible, which is important in conducting a survey that contains such sensitive and personal material as this. The main objective of this field study is reflected in one of my inquiry questions; " What is the role of different technological mediums, [such as the Internet] in affecting students’ self-esteem?" In order to discover this, I first needed to measure the students' self-esteem and was able to use two surveys from the U.B.C.'s Department of Psychology to gather the data. I compiled two surveys into one in a questionnaire-type format and handed them out to the two separate Gr. 9 classes which took them about 15 minutues to finish.

The first survey I used was the "//Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale (Crocker, Luhtanen, & Bouvrette, 2001)"// which measures how much a person's self-esteem depends on their physical appearance. The second survey imbedded within the questionnaire was the //"Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (1965)"// which measures self-esteem//.// The next survey I conducted with the same group of Gr. 9 students was a Body Image survey, compiled from a number of different online surveys I found. This time, I used several statements from within the 20 question survey to extract the information and scores I needed on two separate issues; one being a score reflecting the student's body image (BI) and one score showing the degree to which the student is influenced by the media (MI). The higher the score on the BI total, meant the higher the student's own body image and the higher the score on the MI total, the higher the degree to which they are influenced by the media.

__The Results:__ I extracted information from the results of the Crocker survey which measures in part, how much a person's self-esteem depends on their physical appearance, as well as used the scores from the Rosenberg scale which measures self-esteem. I sent the data to my mother-in-law, a retired psychology professor who has access to software tools that can show correlations between two variables and had her input the numbers into this software. The results from the self-esteem and contingency surveys were mostly expected but a few interesting things were revealed after correlating these results with the body image/media influences survey. The sample was divided into two groups; those with high and low scores on the SE scale and high and low scores on the Crocker scale. Of the total sample of students, 49% had scores of 16 or higher (out of a possible 25) on the Crocker scale and 50% of students had scores of 40 or higher (out of a possible 50) on the Rosenberg scale. Thus, about half of the Gr. 9 students sampled show that they have high self-esteem (Rosenberg scale) and that this self-esteem is not dependent on their physical appearance (Crocker scale). Crocker’s work usually shows that people with high self-esteem have fewer contingencies—that is, they say they feel good about themselves and it doesn’t depend on anything. Therefore, the results from my study confirmed this and both types of analyses revealed that students higher in SE were more likely to say that their SE does **not** depend on their physical appearance. What I found interesting, and not so predictable, was the fact that self-esteem was fairly equal for both males and females (mean score for males being 39.66 and for females being 37.91 out of 50 on the Rosenberg scale). * = Refer to the scores in red on the correlation analysis tables Of the 56 students sampled, 19 are at an A standing in their P.E. class. Out of theses 19 A's, 11 of them scored high on the Rosenberg scale. This surprised me, as I thought the number would be higher; I originally went into the field study thinking that most, if not all students earning an A in P.E. class would have high self-esteem. Only 58% of the students earning an A showed that they in fact do have high self-esteem. I was definately surprised by this. (Although, it's important to note that 3 of the A's to have a low Rosenberg self-esteem score were still above 35/50 on the scale, which would increase the percentage to 74%).

The Body Image Survey showed some interesting things. First, males scored higher than did females ( * mean score for males being 32.57 and for females being 28.47 out of 42 on my Body Image scale; a score of 34 or higher /42 is high; 80% or more). In other words, females disagreed more with statements like "I am satisfied with my body the way it is" and agreed more with statements like "If I were thinner I would like myself better". I did not find this surprising, nor did I find it surprising that for the most part, students who scored higher on the body image scale, also scored lower on the media influences scale. I wasn't very surprised by this. It would make sense to me that the more confident a student is with their body, the less influenced they are by the media (assuming the media would normally have a more negative affect than a positive one on a student's self-image). That being said, it's important to note that some students might not be conciously aware of the affect the media has on them or conversely, they may be aware of the affect the media has on people in general but these opinions may not come out fully in a simple questionnaire. For example, a student might state that they strongly agree to the statement "I think that the media influences the way people think about their bodies", showing that they're fully aware that the media can have the impact of influencing people but that this may not apply to them. Of the 19 students with an A in class, 12 scored high on the Body Image scale; 63% of the A's revealing that they have high body images. This total also surprised me, just like the self-esteem total. My hypothesis at the beginning of my field study was that most, if not all of the students earning an A in P.E. class would also have high body images. This was somewhat surprising to me. As for the media influences section of the survey, only 4 out of the 19 A's scored high on the scale, leaving 15 with scores that were low on the scale (79% of the A's). This is the only result that actually confirms my hypothesis in terms of letter grade correlations with self-esteem, body image and media influences; that the higher the student's letter grade, the //higher// their self-esteem and body image and the //lower// the degree to which they are influenced by the media.

__CORRELATIONS AND MEANINGS:__ After scoring the three surveys and correlating them, I discovered that my first hypothesis was right; that the higher SE students also have higher body image, and are affected less by the media. However, they do not necessarily perform better academically in the P.E. setting, as I discovered when looking at the high and low scores. This surprised me because I really would have thought that the majority of the A students in these two P.E. classes would have high self-esteem and body image scores. To discover that only 58% of the 19 A students have high self-esteem is intriguing to me. Also intriguing to me, is the fact that only 63% of the A students have high body images. What these scores tell me is that even though these A students may seem less influenced by the media (as I predicted), this doesn't mean that they necessarily feel good about themselves and their bodies and that students don't need to feel wonderful about their bodies in order to do well academically in the P.E. setting. What I also didn't predict was that self-esteem levels would be relatively equal between males and females. However, the results also showed that even though they scored equally to the males on self-esteem, females' self-esteem is very dependent on their body image and how physically attractive they think they are (  * 0.71 correlation between self-esteem and body image for females and 0.37 correlation between self-esteem and body image for males). Also, females are influenced more by the media than males ( * mean score for males being 9.36 and for females being 11.65 out of 21 on my Media Influences scale). In other words, females agreed more with statements like "I compare my body to those that I see on TV or in magazines" and "I aspire to look like the models I see on TV or in fashion magazines". Of the Gr. 9 females sampled, self-esteem is more dependent on physical attractiveness and how they think they look than on anything else, which I find very significant. To me, this might explain why young girls seem to be more self-concious about their bodies than young boys and why it is so important as an educator to be aware of this, especially in the P.E. setting, where females have the tendency to compare themselves to their peers and might feel more pressure to conform to the unrealistic ideals put forth by the media.

__**Data Collection Method #2: Focus Group**__ Today I went to Heritage to perform my last bit of research on the Gr. 9 subjects I've been dealing with. I facilitated a focus group discussion on technological mediums and how they affect young peoples' self-esteem today. I audio recorded our conversation and was a little worried in the beginning that I was only going to be hearing my voice on the playback, but I was pleasantly surprised that all 12 students participated, even if it was only one statement or opinion. I asked the two teachers involved to just pick out 6 random students from their classes and I think 12 people for this discussion was a good number to work with; any more and it would have been too many.

I thought the discussion went really well. It was interesting to hear the opinions of 13 and 14 year olds about how they use the Internet, what TV shows they watch and how they feel the media portrays young people today. I was originally thinking that I wanted to use the high self-esteem group with the low self-esteem group but the more I thought about it and planned for the focus group, the more I realized that to get a true sense of where teenagers are on these topics, it would be best to use a random group, selected by the two teachers involved, hopefully including students from the low self-esteem group, the high and somewhere in between.

__The Results:__ I started out the discussion by asking the 12 students what they use the Internet for (i.e. research, social networking, entertainment, etc). A show of hands revealed that almost all of them use the Internet for all of those reasons. We talked about how often they are bombarded with unwanted advertisements/pop-ups for things like the "latest diet pill" or "how to get a better body in 10 days". They responded by saying that on sites like Facebook, there is a sidebar with advertisements all the time, they just learn to "tune or block them out". When I asked "what are some of your favorite TV shows?" the majority of the students answered with shows like "Gossip Girl" or "One Tree Hill" or "America's Next Top Model"; all shows that portray people in a certain way, not necessarily representing the "norm". Most of these shows represent people, young people in particular, as middle to upper class, wealthy, and usually Caucasian. On a show like "ANTM," the young girls vying for the title may represent different races, but they are almost always extremely skinny, some on the verge of emaciation. It's important to note that when I asked the question "do you think people on some of your favorite TV shows represent the average body type?" they not only responded saying a definate "no" because they're "all skinny, all perfect; their skin is perfect, they wear designer clothes, they live in the nicest houses," but they also went on to point out that these people only represent a certain class and race as well. One of the Asian girls in the discussion pointed out that "in all those shows I've noticed that there's not one Asian character in them" and "there was one Asian girl in Gossip Girl but she was made fun of". I think it's great that even at the age of 14, this young Asian girl at least recognizes that the show she spends time watching doesn't reflect her own life experience. When I asked them about the differences between boys and girls in terms of body type represented on TV, in magazines and in the media, they responded by saying that it's different for guys versus girls because most of these shows on TV are "more focussed on the girls". When I asked the boys in the room what their opinion was on how body types for boys compared to girls are portrayed in the media and on the Internet today, one boy responded by saying "we're not as different from eachother [as girls are]" and "most guys are around the same height and same weight". So he wasn't talking about the media, he turned the question into a personal one about his own reality and life experience, which is interesting to note. But I told them that if I were to compare the four boys in the room, that I would say they were all very different in terms of body type. When I mentioned this, the same boy then said "we are, but I don't think guys really worry about it or care as much [as girls do]". Another boy went on to say that he thinks that boys feel differently about eachother than girls do and that most boys feel like "if you enjoy another boys' company and you're friends with them, it shouldn't matter what they look like". A girl in the room pointed out that "girls look at physical appearance more and say look, she's pretty and popular, let's be friends with her". I find this extremely interesting! I think there seems to be a double standard out there among these boys and girls about body type and physcial appearance and I would argue that this double standard is only made worse by all of the technology made available to children these days. Some examples are TV shows that portray young women as sex objects ("ANTM"), music videos (especially in the rap genre) and a lot of these images are perpetuated online in videos on youtube and other places on the web. I asked these 12 students if they felt that their self-esteem has ever been affected by media influences and one of the more vocal boys said "no, my self-esteem only changes by what other people think". So, he may not be affected by all of the technology he's inundated with today but he seems to still externalize his own sense of self worth. When I asked the question, "do you think it's healthy to compare your body to people on TV or in popular culture today?" most of the students responded by saying that everyone is different and that it matters more //how, not if// they respond to all of the information they're inundated with. One girl mentioned that she doesn't compare herself to people in the media today because "nobody's like that; they airbrush and photoshop everything" and that instead, she probably compares herself more to people around her and in real life. Someone said it's healthy to compare yourself to people around you as long as you use these comparisons in a healthy way (i.e. to eat healthier or maybe work out more because someone you look up to in your life is physically fit and you want to adopt those healthy habits).

What I thought most intriguing and encouraging was that they truly have a strong sense (at least it seemed that way to me) about what is real and not real on TV and in the media today and more than one person responded saying that they think that "everyone's version of perfect is different"; the definition of perfect is different for everyone. They went on to say that even though the media portrays people in an unrealistic way, they only want to strive to be the best that they can be and realize that it is going to be different for them in their own lives than it is on a TV show such as "Gossip Girl," where everything is exaggerated and everyone lives a lifestyle represented by only a very small portion of the population in reality.

__**Data Collection Method #3: Discussion Board**__ I asked the 12 students involved in the focus group to respond to my discussion board question within a week's time. I gave them instructions on how to access my website and they gave me their usernames which I needed to have in order to add them to my website's permissions page. The question I asked them was: "Respond to the following question in a paragraph: How do you think technology today (i.e. the Internet, TV and the media) affects self-esteem in young people?" I was a little disappointed with the quality of the responses, as expained below, but overall, I was happy enough that these students took the time to answer my question, even if I had to bribe them a little with the promise of a prize if they posted a response!! :)

__The Results:__ This was probably the most ambiguous method of data collection for me and possibly the most disappointing in the whole field study process, in terms of "quality" data. But at the same time, it did provide some students with the opportunity to reveal interesting thoughts on technology and young people today. I realize now that I may not have given the students enough time to respond (although they did have a weekend and an entire week) but it might also be due to the students not being my own which may have caused them to either forget to do it or to not feel very responsible to do their part in my study. Whatever the reason, I had 8 students out of the original 12 asked, to actually post their thoughts/opinions onto my discussion board. Only four students chose not to, or forgot. This isn't all that bad I guess. I thought that the students would be able to express themselves without any inhibitions and be able to open up honestly about the topic but I found that most of the responses were short and brief and lacked substance. Maybe some of these Gr. 9's had a hard time expressing themselves with words or maybe they found it too intimidating to post their opinions on my website, where the other students in this particular group could view them. Unfortunately, I could not make their usernames anonymous, so they did show up beside their responses. This might have been a little nerve-racking for Gr. 9's, as this may have been the first time for some of them to reply to a discussion board like this on a website. However, there were a few responses that I found insightful, especially for Gr. 9 students. Some of the students had really interesting things to say about self-esteem and technology and how they feel the media either doesn't have a significant impact on young people's self-esteem and body image, or that it //does// affect young people in different ways today. Some samples of their work are below: " I think it doesn't affect everyone in the same way. Some people are more focused on looking good and being friends with the "cool people". They may take the people who they see on tv, in magazines or on the internet as examples of what they "have" to look like to be accepted. Then, there are people who may see someone on tv and use them as motivation to do better as a person, like eating healthier, or exercising more. This doesn't mean they want to look exactly like the person they see." "For me, the media is trying to tell everyone that there’s a “perfect” way to look but in reality no one is perfect, because everyone has a different opinion of what perfect is. If I were to compare myself to someone, I would compare myself to the people around me because those people are real, they didn’t have a computer make them look a certain way." "When we see these [celebrity people] who are so skinny be called fat because they gained 2 pounds, it makes us think that we have to be as skinny as them. It affects the self-esteem of teens a lot because by seeing these magazines, we think other people judge us the same way and we begin to get so self conscious of our appearance and the way we act that we go so far as to avoid our friends and change who we are just so others will think we are cool or worthy of their company. With facebook and MSN, it's possible for people to make comments about others anonymously which makes people feel like that's their chance to put down others. When you see the media you start to worry about yourself and your appearance but when people you know are making comments about things you worry about, it becomes a big problem."