Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused mental stress in people due to the fear of being infected and people not seeing each other for an exceedingly long time. This has caused researchers to examine the impact it may have had on teenager’s mental health, socialization and beliefs about the future. The goal of this experiment was to assess how adolescents’ aspirations may have changed due to the pandemic.
Aspirations are a person’s want of something, a desire. This study, focused on adolecents’ main aspirations or what they want the most at a given point in time. The scale used in this study to measure aspirations is called the Aspiration Index. There are seven aspirations, three extrinsic, three intrinsic, and one that is both. Extrinsic aspirations are desires driven by external rewards and have been associated with a negative mental state. Wealth, fame, and image are the extrinsic aspirations measured in this experiment. Intrinsic aspirations are desires driven by internal rewards and are associated with a positive mental state. Personal growth, community, and relationships are the intrinsic aspirations measured in this experiment. Health, the seventh factor is both intrinsic and extrinsic and has been known to have both a positive and negative effect on mental health. This study’s baseline data came from examining three articles (Bradshaw et al., 2021; Fu et al., 2018; Merkas et al., 2011) that measured adolescents’ aspirations using the Aspiration Index.
The data showed that adolescents chose intrinsic aspirations over extrinsic aspirations, health being the highest overall, and fame being the least. Quantitative data was collected by the one to seven number scale on the Aspiration Index Scale and through the means and standard deviations in each category for both the recorded data and prior data. However, no qualitative data was collected.
Hypothesis
The aspirations of adolescents will be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and will lean towards extrinsic aspirations.
Methods
Participants
Participants consisted of twenty-six high school students from a public school on Long Island. The students ranged in ages from fourteen to eighteen and grades from nine to twelve.
Materials
The materials used in this experiment were a laptop, paper, a printer, Aspiration Index surveys (75 copies), human consent forms (75), a photocopier, and some pencils. The laptop was used for uploading the Aspiration Index Scale and for taking notes. The printer was used to print out the surveys onto paper. Participants took the Aspiration Index Scale. The human consent forms were used so that the adolescents and their guardians agreed to participate in the study and take the survey. The photocopier was used to copy the human consent forms and Aspiration Index. The pencils were used by the participants to take the survey.
Measure
The Aspiration Index was given to students who wished to participate in this study. The Aspiration Index consists of 35 life goal questions. Under each life goal, participants will answer 3 questions using a 7-point Likert scale. The three questions relate to how important the goal is to them, how likely they believe it will happen in their future, and whether the goal has been obtained. In addition, the scale measures seven aspirations, three extrinsic, three intrinsic, and one that is both. Wealth, fame, and image are extrinsic, personal growth, community, and relationships are intrinsic, and health is both. It took approximately 15 minutes to complete the survey.
Procedures
First the researcher searched for research articles on adolescents and the Aspiration Index (Kasser & Ryan, 1996). Following that, the Descriptive Review Method was used to summarize the data from each article in a table. The listed means and standard deviations were then recorded from each article (Bradshaw et al., 2021; Fu et al., 2018; Merkas et al., 2011). Then the researcher searched for similarities and analyzed the data.
Afterwards the human consent form was created, and photocopies were made. The researcher took the survey to determine that it took approximately 15 minutes to complete. After that demographic information (grade and age) was added to the Aspiration Index. The Aspiration Index was then printed out.
The researcher asked some classroom teachers (e.g., Introduction to Research, science classes) if they would allow the researcher to recruit students in their class to take the survey. Students were told the purpose of the study would be to help researchers and teachers better understand the impact of COVID-19 on the aspirations of adolescents. Furthermore, they were informed that the data that was collected would be kept confidential and that that no identifying information such as names or dates of birth will be obtained. Interested students were given a consent form for the parents to sign, and the Aspiration Index Scale to complete. Once participants were done with the survey and had their parents sign the consent form, they dropped them off at the research room. The survey data was then analyzed and recorded as quantitative data. For each survey the combined numbers in each category were added up and averaged. Then all those averaged numbers for each survey in that category were added together and averaged again to get a final score in that category. Standard deviations were also then recorded and listed with the means. The results of the data collection were then compared to the data of the three research articles.
Results
Articles that examine adolescents’ aspirations using the same instrument. (Bradshaw et al., 2021; Fu et al., 2018; Merkas et al., 2011) were examined and analyzed as baseline data.
Bradshaw, Shahdra, Ciarrochi, Martos, and Ryan (2021)administered the Aspiration Index to 1,632 Year 12 Australian students (median age 16.6). The students scored higher on growth, relationship, and community which are all areas of intrinsic aspirations. In addition, the students also scored higher on the health area which is considered an area for both intrinsic and extrinsic aspirations.
Another study by Fu, Liu, Yang, Zhang, and Kou (2018) examined the aspirations of 236 Chinese 7-12 grade students (average age 14.78). Adolescents placed more importance on intrinsic aspirations and students scored growth and relationships as most important while social recognition was shown as the least important.
Merkas, Raboteg-Saric, and Mijikovic (2011) administered the Aspiration Index to 468 high school students from grades 9-12 (mean age 16.4). The students there placed the most importance on intrinsic aspirations shown by how health and relationships were most important. On the other hand, the students identified social recognition to be the least important.
Throughout all the studies examined, all of them showed a trend towards intrinsic aspirations and for both Bradshaw et al. (2021), and Merkas, Raboteg-Saric, and Mijikovic (2011), the two studies that measured health both showed a lean towards health or physical fitness.
Intrinsic aspirations are higher than the extrinsic aspirations, the highest overall was health, and the lowest overall was fame. The intrinsic aspirations scored an average of 5.32 while the extrinsic aspirations scored an average of 3.30. The aspiration that scored the highest was health or physical fitness with an average of 5.70. The aspiration that scored the lowest was fame or social recognition with an average of 2.79. Qualitative data was not used in this study.
Discussion
Twenty-six surveys were analyzed in total. The results reject the hypothesis because they show many of the same patterns in the past studies. Intrinsic aspirations are higher than the extrinsic aspirations, the highest overall was health, and the lowest overall was fame. This shows that the results are similar to the studies before the COVID-19 pandemic.
There was no outlier data. Most of the data matched up with what was reported in the past studies and there were no unusual results to report.
A limitation of this experiment was that there were only twenty-six participants which is not a large sample size. These participants were all located in one school which cannot be compared to data in other schools located nearby, in urban or rural settings, or even in other countries. One of the surveys missed two questions which could have skewed the data slightly. The data collected between different grade levels were not entirely even, with some grades being more prominent than others. In the future, the researcher could try to aim for an equal number of participants in each grade level or only focus on one grade level at a time. In addition, data could be collected from schools in rural, urban, and suburban areas and compared to see if there is a difference based on location. One possible issue with this experiment that applies to all surveys is that a person taking the survey may have stretched the truth of what they thought or even outright lied. On the other hand, a person may have instead not really thought about how they really felt and only circled the things that made them look good or feel better about themselves. People are biased towards themselves which means that what may be projected in the results may just be an idealist version of how they see themselves and may not show the truth.
Future research could look at other demographics like children, college students, adults, etc. Another study could get a larger sample size of participants. With future research, examining data in other environments such as urban or rural settings may show different results than a study just taking place in a suburban area. Conducting research in different countries like third-world countries compared to first-world countries would be valuable. In addition, it would be interesting to collect data from students in other local schools to see how the data compares. Another idea of future research could look to measure the aspirations of people in Ukraine after the war to see how aspirations may have changed in another stressful situation. It would be interesting to see if stress can make people lean towards intrinsic factors.