The purpose of the study is to identify school-based, social predictors of adolescent adjustment. Subjects will be 552, ninth-and tenth-grade adolescents who served in an earlier study on behavioral correlates of sociometric status. Social predictors include peer sociometric status, teacher ratings, nominations, and rankings of social and academic behavior, and direct observation of children on the playground and in the classroom interacting with peers and teachers. The social predictors for the subjects were collected in the earlier study when the subjects were in the second through fifth grades. Measures of adolescent adjustment will include (a) school truancy, (b) juvenile delinquency (police contact, parent and youth reported delinquency), and (c) dysfunctional behavior (youth-, parent-, and teacher-reported) including drug use. Data analysis will accomplish four goals. First, to develop adjustment construct for predictor and criterion measures. Factor analysis will be used to evaluate the measurement models, and structural equation modeling will then be used to evaluate the fit of childhood adjustment to adolescent adjustment using single and multiple predictors. Third, to develop an optimal prediction strategy using discriminant function analysis and longit regression. Fourth, to develop cost-effective, multi-stage screening procedures. A relative-improvement-over-chance index will be calculated allowing comparison of our predictive efficiency with other studies using family predictors. All analyses will use Cohort 1 as a construction sample and Cohort 2 as a replication sample.
