Part A
The purpose of this study is to examine the correlation between an older sibling’s guidance regarding school and the positive influence it has on an adolescent’s overall academic performance. Key subtopics that will be covered will examine the effect the number of siblings has on a teenager’s studies, if the amount of time they spend helping each other with school-related work results in the adolescent setting more time to do homework and creating a bond with their siblings through likes and dislikes of similar subjects or through similar career pursuits, as well as the different affects male and female siblings have on their siblings. In a country as established as Canada, where everything from jobs to possessions to money is easily available, parents strive to grab every opportunity they get, consequently spending less time nurturing their children and helping them with their school and social problems. Without these key parental figures, confused teenagers would look to their siblings for help, so this study will observe whether older siblings who accommodate their teenage sibling and help them in ways the parents cannot result in the adolescent enjoying or spending more time on their homework, or whether siblings who do not assist their siblings result in their siblings doing little to no work at all. This would benefit Canadian society in that it shows the positive influence older siblings would not be aware they even had over their younger ones, and the example they can set based on how they themselves handle schoolwork. It benefits social science as it shows that it may be siblings’ help and assurance, not necessarily making homework easier or ensuring the adolescent’s attendance, which can help the student’s success in academics.
Part B
A questionnaire was distributed, with the participant filling out their gender and age, the latter to enforce the study on the adolescent demographic. They also had to specify whether they had siblings, as the study is trying to prove whether they can influence the studies of the participant. Other parts to the survey asked the birth order of the participant, to see if they were the older sibling and assisted their younger ones or the younger sibling who could be influenced by the older one. School-related questions included how much time they spent on their homework, whether their siblings helped them and whether they and their siblings shared the same feelings towards school subjects and future career prospects. The surveys were distributed throughout the Etobicoke School of the Arts, a high school within the teenage demographic that the research is targeting, and online through networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and GaiaOnline. These websites are used mainly by adolescents and students, to network with their friends and other students from their high school or people who are within their age group, so a mass distribution of the survey to teenagers would be easy.
Part C
1. Specify gender:
- 46% male
- 54% female
2. Age of subject:
-10 to 13: 7%
-14 to 16: 61%
-17 to 19: 32%
3. – 18% are only children (and will be subtracted from the total number of data since they do not fit the research group)
4. number of siblings (the subject has):
- 57% of subjects have 1 sibling
- 28% of subjects have 2 siblings
- 4% of subjects have 3 siblings
- 4% of subjects have 4 siblings
- 7% of subjects have 5 siblings
5. a) birth order of the students:
- 50% are first born
- 32% are second
-0% is third
-18% are forth and above
b)- 25% of subject are the youngest child in the family
6. a) hours devoted to school related work per day:
- 39% of students spend under 1 hour
- 30% of students spend 1 to 2 hours
- 17% of students spend 2 to 4 hours
- 14% of students spend above 4 hours
b)when asked would their siblings have similar attitude towards schoolwork (i.e. spend about the same time on homework if they were in the same grade):
- 31% of students say “yes”
- 22% of students say “maybe”
-30% of students say “no”
-17% of students say “for some siblings but not others”
7. when asked how often does the student get involved in their siblings’ schoolwork (for first-born result and differences between the sexes, see AppendixA):
- 37% of students say “never”
- 24% of students say “rarely”
- 35% of students say “sometimes”
- 4% of students say “often”
8. when asked how often does their siblings get involved in the student’s schoolwork:
- 52% of students say “never”
- 35% of students say “rarely”
- 9% of students say “sometimes”
- 4% of students say “often”
9. level of helpfulness (if subject helps their sibling):
- 8% of students find it very helpful
-38% of students find it helpful
-23% of students find it moderate helpful
-15% of students find it rarely helpful
-15% of students find it not helpful
10. level of helpfulness (if siblings helps the subject):
- 29% of students find it very helpful
-27% of students find it helpful
-30% of students find it moderate helpful
-0% of students find it rarely helpful
-14% of students find it not helpful
11. when asked the how often do the parents encourage their children to help each other on schoolwork:
- 48% of students say “never”
- 24% of students say “rarely”
- 14% of students say “sometimes”
- 10% of students say “often”
- 5% of students say “not sure”
12. when asked how often do students enjoy spending time with their sibling(s) on schoolwork (see Appendix B for difference response between the sexes):
- 62% of students say “never”
- 23% of students say “rarely”
- 9% of students say “sometimes”
- 0% of students say “often”
- 6% of students say “not sure”
13. when asked how often would the siblings share similar feelings on most school subjects:
- 18% of students say “never”
- 12% of students say “rarely”
- 50% of students say “sometimes”
- 9% of students say “often”
- 11% of students say “not sure”
14. when asked if students make/made similar in current/future career choice (see Appendix C):
- 5% of students say “yes”
- 65% of students say “no”
-12% of students say “with some siblings but not others”
- 18% of students say “not sure”
Part D
The Number of Siblings
The number of siblings and the effect it can have on an adolescent shows different results and effects: 89% of the participants with one sibling feel they share the same career and future choices, while 74% feel they share the same feelings on school subjects. We did not have any predictions as to the effect that one or multiple siblings may have, so there is nothing to compare and contrast.
The Birth Order
In the “Effect of Birth Order on Intelligence” (Walton, Results section, para. 1), while there is no definite pattern, shows that the middle-born children have higher scores than first-borns, while the youngest siblings score lower than the previous two. The oldest paves the way for their younger siblings; they experience everything, from the first day of school to the lenient teachers and the school system, first. The younger children learn from the older one’s experiences, while the youngest siblings may have too wide a connection gap from the oldest siblings and therefore cannot be assisted, while the middle siblings are used to being helped and not so much helping. Out of the 25% who are the youngest in the family, 65% spend under one hour on school-related work, and from that percentage, 82% had siblings who never helped them on their schoolwork, with the 7% who answered “rarely” helped them with their work found it “rarely” or “not helpful” at all. As well, the children who were not the oldest or the youngest said their older siblings helped them 78% of the time and only 15% do not find the help useful. However, asked how much these said middle children help their younger siblings, 87% said “never” or “rarely”, and from the 13% that responded “sometimes” or “often”, only 2% seem to feel that their younger siblings find it helpful.
In another study regarding birth order, “Birth Order and Education” (Clayton, Results section, para. 1), it also shows that the middle children had the highest educational level, while the eldest child had the lowest education level, owing again to the fact that the younger children might do better because they learn from the older sibling’s mistakes, although the findings seemed to indicate no significant correlation between birth order and education. From our study, 65% of students choose “no” to having made a similar choice in their future career with their siblings, and in order to have similar careers, they need similar education. Further more, no linkage was found between the birth order of the student and his/her attitude to schoolwork comparing to his/her siblings
Older Siblings’ Influence
The influence of the oldest sibling is supported very strongly in both our primary and secondary resources. The older siblings can impact an adolescent’s studies and understanding of school material, as well as social decisions such as substance abuse. In the studies “Navigating and Negotiating Home, School and Peer Linkages in Adolescence” (Azmitia, Conclusions and Implications section, para. 2) and “Siblings Help Children Get Along with Others in Kindergarten” (Downey, para. 1, 2 & 3) show both the positive and negative influence of an older sibling. In the latter study, they say that only children usually have poorer social skills, while children with older siblings, while they have conflicts, can also learn to resolve conflicts and be better equipped when dealing with others. Out of the 30 younger siblings who receive help from their older siblings, 86% ranked the help as “moderate” to “very” helpful. However, most of the younger siblings that we’ve researched do not benefit from this, since 67% of them answered that they “never” or “rarely” receive help from their older siblings. Since our study did not elaborate on the studies of only children, we cannot conclude whether or not having siblings would be more beneficial. In the previous study, it is stated that older siblings on the bad path of life tend to affect their younger siblings negatively. However, it is older male siblings who seemed to have more of an impact while older female siblings affect their younger siblings less. While we did not necessarily look into the role that gender has to play in siblings’ influence, this links to our result in the number of first-born students that help their younger siblings in term of schoolwork: out of the 64% that answered “moderate” to “often”, only 28% of those are male, while 72% of those are female.
Siblings vs. Parents
Parents do not know what is going on in their children’s lives as much as they think they do; the study “Family Influences on Adolescent Peer Groups” (Smith, Results section, Table 1-4, Discussion section) finds. The parents felt the need to monitor their children’s academic progress, but only few follow through in this resolution. In our research, 71% of students indicated that their parents “never” or “rarely” encourage the siblings to help each other in schoolwork. Thus we can conclude that although parents monitor their children’s behavior towards schoolwork, most of them do not rely on their older children to do the same for the younger ones. The research also shows that siblings were similar in that they had similar academic achievements and grade point averages but differed in their attitudes and opinions towards school (The Pennsylvania State University). Similar, in our research, 70% of students indicated that the siblings often shared the same attitude towards most school subjects but when asked if siblings spend about the same time in schoolwork (if they were in the same grade), only 30% replied yes.
In “Sibling collusion and problem behavior in early adolescence” (Bullock, Introduction section, para. 2, Coercive Process, para. 2), it monitors the activities of adolescents that their siblings may be aware of or have influenced and encouraged, although unaware to the parents. Their conclusion is that siblings can affect each other greatly, in negative ways as this study show, through siblings’ collusion involving drug and substance abuse and can share mutual psychological, physical and emotional problems. 42% of the oldest siblings who spent under one hour on school-related work never or rarely helped their younger ones with schoolwork, and when they did, they felt that they would not find it helpful. From the perspective of the 25% of younger siblings who spent under one hour of work, they felt that 87% had older siblings who might have spent the same amount of time on their schoolwork.
Unconsidered Factors
Although we did not look into the effect that the gender of the older sibling might have, there were some noticeable results. As in the “Navigating and Negotiating Home, School and Peer Linkages in Adolescence”, male older siblings had a more negative impact on their siblings, while there was a more considerable number female older siblings in our primary research who assisted their younger ones in schoolwork (72% as opposed to the 28% of males who helped their younger siblings). In the study “Birth Position and How an Individual Perceives Their Own and their Sibling’s Popularity” (Kesse, Results section, para. 1, Discussion section, para. 1), research shows that first-borns are ranked as “most popular” in the family; First-born females are especially popular. This can be explained though our research: this type of popularity trend exist possibly because first-borns help their siblings most often (64% of first-borns help their younger siblings in schoolwork), and first-born girls especially often (72% of the 64% first-born mentioned above are girls), which benefits their siblings and decreases the stress and responsibilities originally laid upon the parents.
Part E
In conclusion, siblings do not affect each other significantly in term of schoolwork. Possible reasons for this result would be that siblings do not share the same feelings toward certain school subjects, nor are they influenced by each other in term of career choices. Furthermore, siblings do not like to spend time with each other on school-related work (85%), nor are they encouraged to do so by parents (72%). However, our research proves that if older siblings do help their younger siblings on their schoolwork, the results are usually beneficial for the younger sibling(s) as 86% of younger siblings rated the help “moderate” to “very” helpful.
The fact that siblings no longer affect each other significantly may be because of the change in Canadian family structure and the busy schedules adolescents have nowadays; these factors cause adolescents to be more independent on themselves and less of others. Because of the positive effects older siblings have on younger siblings mentioned in the previous paragraph, older siblings should be encouraged to help their younger siblings as it achieves good results.
Future study topics may be whether or not do ethnic and economic backgrounds affect the relationships between siblings, as this study only approach the relationship between siblings on a personal level, rather than a social level.
the fire within ice Community Member 
|
|
