Personal, Home, and School Factors Related to Eleventh Graders' Drug Attitudes

Abstract

Students (47,000, 11th graders) were tested in 1974 as part of a statewide educational quality assessment procedure in Pennsylvania, USA. Two drug attitude items were selected for analysis from the assessment scales. Abusive and abstinent attitude groups were formed from a random sample of students (3568), and compared across 24 other assessment variables related to demographic, personal, home, and school characteristics. Significant differences were found between the 2 groups for 20 of the variables. The findings support earlier research relating psychosocial constructs to substance-abuse attitudes and use-patterns, and can be interpreted as supportive of comprehensive preventive education strategies.