Define the problem
We chose to study how divorce affects teens today when it comes to many different important aspect of a teenager’s day-to-day life. For example, maintaining a relationship with a person of the opposite sex for a long period of time, trusting others who are close to them and the amount of social activities with friends or their significant other that they participate in outside of school related activities. We decided to follow these topics because it gave us a wide variety of room to come up with questions as well as get results. As teenagers ourselves we know what it is like to have relationships, participate in social activities and feel like we have to carefully choose whom to lay our trust in. So knowing that these are important factors in our lives, we wanted to see how having parents who are divorced or parents who are together would affect each of those factors.
We both have friends whose parents are divorced and we have noticed that many have more difficulty holding down a longer relationship than those whose parents are together. As another result of divorce, our friends of divorced families have certain living situations that will affect their want to be out of the house more in order to avoid having to deal with those problems. Trust is another thing that we noticed a difference in our friends with divorced parents, they often times have a more difficult time trusting then most people whose parents are together. This is why we chose this study to survey. We wanted to determine if our observations were true on a larger scale of teens instead of just in our circle of friends.
Hypothesis
1. Teens with divorced parents will participate in social activities more frequently then teens with married parents.
2. Teens with divorced parents will say they have trouble trusting others in a relationship more often than teens with parents who are together.
3. Teens who believe marriage is important will last longer than 5 months in their relationships then those teens who believe marriage is not necessary or is an obligation.
Methodology
· We formed our questions based on our survey based on the hypothesis’ we formed.
· We forgot to include a key question that related to on of our hypotheses.
· We also had problems distinguishing between teens with divorced parents, and teens with parents still together.
· We had to do more research sand alternate our hypotheses based on the questions answered on the surveys.
· When choosing classes, we decided to pick ones with more senior and junior students because they would be more likely to have more dating experience.
· We also would go to classes that we have had previously with nice teachers who like to participate in school events.
· All the classes we chose were mixed with students with differences in maturity and intellect. We chose these classes because we wanted a wide sample to base research on.
· Many students in the class would laugh and lie on the surveys, some wouldn’t participate, and it made administering the surveys more challenging.
· Many students were of mixed races and we did not provide an answer for our ethnicity question that included mixed raced student.
· Students would also answer both number 9 and 10 instead of the one that applied to them, and it made counting the data more difficult.
· We found that students in the classes with honors would take the surveys more seriously and the students in classes with mainly college prep would be more rebellious and not participate.
Results
Hypothesis One: Teens with divorced parents will participate in social activities more frequently then teens with married parents.
Explanation: From the data we collected from our surveys, we found that our hypothesis was incorrect. The data showed that children with parents that are together actually participate in social activities more than children with divorced parents, which was opposite of what we originally thought. The results from the surveys showed that 44% of teens with parents that are together participate in social activities outside of school compared to the 42% of teens with divorced parents that do social activities outside of school. We can conclude that from this information, parental relationships do not affect the amount of times a week a child engages in social activities outside of school.
3 Times a Week or Less / 4 Times a Week or MoreChildren with Divorced Parents / 14 / 10
3 Times a Week or Less / 4 times a Week or More
Children with Together Parents / 43 / 34
Hypothesis Two: Teens with divorced parents will say they have trouble trusting others in a relationship more often than teens with parents who are together.
Explanation: Through the surveys and questions we learned that teens with divorced parents would have more difficulty trusting others in a relationship then teens with parents still together. Our hypothesis was proved accurate when we discovered that 13 out of 23 teens of divorced parents say they will have trouble trusting others in a relationship compared the 25 out of 77 teens with parents still together that said they would have problems trusting others in a relationship. Because of the large difference in sums of these readings, we can pleasantly say that this hypothesis was correct and that parents who divorce will cause their children to lose trust in their significant other.
Marriage is Important / Marriage is Not NecessaryRelationship 4- Months / 24 / 11
Relationship 5+ Months / 44 / 5
Hypothesis Three: Teens who believe marriage is important will last longer then five months in their relationships then those teens who believe marriage is not necessary or is an obligation.
Explanation: By observing the surveys we collected from our sample classes, we can see that teens who believe marriage is important will last longer than five months in their relationship then those teens who believe marriage isn’t necessary or is an obligation. The data collected showed that 44 teens that believe marriage is important would be in relationships longer than five months, compared to the 5 students who believe marriage is not important or an obligation that were in relationships longer than 5 months. This data proved our hypothesis to be correct and supported our theories that teens will stay in a relationship longer is they believe marriage is important.
Trouble Trusting Others / No Trouble Trusting OthersChildren with Divorced Parents / 10 / 13
Trouble Trusting Others / No Trouble Trusting Others
Children with Together Parents / 25 / 52
Conclusion
We believe that a teenager’s parents’ relationship status and past will have an effect on their Childs relationships, views on marriage, and trusting ability. We believe that those children who believe marriage to be important will last longer in relationships then those who believe it to be not necessary. These opinions of the child could be implicated by what that child sees in his/her home life with their parents, and whether they believe that dating is necessary step toward marriage. We believe the results came out this way, because teenagers who believe marriage to be important, want to a successful, long-lasting relationship in hopes to lead to marriage, and might put up with more from their partners then they would have if they didn’t believe marriage was important. We have also concluded that teens with divorced parents will have more problems trusting others in a relationship then teens with parents still together. This result could infer that divorce in a parents’ relationship could cause their kid(s) to be more cynical of people, causing them to not trust their significant other in future relationships. These results went along with many of the articles we have read from the internet, such as Here-to-Listen, on kids and divorce which clearly states that teens whom experience divorce in youth can go through serious emotional trauma. We believe that these results came out this way because teens that experience a parents’ divorce, will be less trusting of people, because of the emotional distress caused when their parents separated. However, in order to fully support the theories we concluded, we would need to ask more questions, asking about the implications that led to a parent’s divorce, and that teens’ prior relationship history.