Discusses how the computer can be used to help students learn to revise their writing through peer review, rereading their writing, and reacting and reshaping their writing in response to their peer's comments. (MG)

Evaluation with over 4,000 seventh and eighth graders in California and Oregon showed that Project ALERT, a curriculum to curb drug use by teaching resistance to pressures, successfully dampened cognitive risk factors for cigarette and marijuana use but had limited impact on beliefs about alcohol. (SK)

Analysis of survey data from 6,096 students in 31 colleges and universities found that academic dishonesty was associated with the existence of a campus honor code, student perceptions of the certainty of being reported, severity of penalties, and cheating among peers. (Author/MSE)

Sampled 1,004 eighth and tenth graders in 23 rural communities to examine peer influence and drug use. Students who perceived higher degree of drug use among friends and who received more information about drugs from friends used drugs more frequently. Findings support theory that peer pressure is related to drug abuse. (Author/NB)

Two studies explored factors relating to children's willingness to perform tasks that are not traditional to their gender. More untraditional behavior was elicited with male than with female examiners. Mechanisms that may underlie this effect are discussed. (BC)

Eleven learning-handicapped students (ages 8-13) worked in dyads during a microcomputer-based writing activity, and their behaviors were coded as initiations/responses, verbal/nonverbal. Overall, student interactions had a negative impact on story production. Students exhibited higher levels of assertive, demanding behavior than requests for peer…

A longitudinal sample of 3,454 urban and rural school students in grades 6 through 8 at baseline was used to examine developmental changes in peer factors and their influence on marijuana initiation. Friends' drug-related behaviors, rather then attitudes, were more strongly related to respondents' likelihood of initiating drug use. (TJH)

Examined the effect of observation of gender-related information in the peer group on preschoolers' attention to toys that were not clearly delineated as appropriate for one sex or the other. Contemporaneous peer involvement was significantly associated with children's toy adoption, but cumulative peer involvement was not. (Author/BB)

Surveyed 1,340 students in grades 6 through 12 to test model of antecedents of adolescent alcohol use/misuse. Found that two largest direct effects on both adolescent alcohol use and misuse were from susceptibility to peer pressure and peer use and approval of alcohol use. Other predictors, including parental behaviors, were significant when…

Reports on a survey of high school students in two school systems. Information was obtained on patterns of alcohol and other drug (AOD) use, indices of AOD use for grade and gender, and relationships of indices to individual, family, and social competence/adjustment risk factors. (SM)

Explores the value of peer-response groups in English-as-a-Second-Language writing classes. Analysis of Asian students' journal entries, peer-response sessions, and draft and final versions of students writing indicated that students tended to be positive about peer response but had some concerns. During the sessions, students engaged in varied…

Predictors of alcohol consumption were investigated across age and sex among junior and senior high school students (N=1,942). The dominant predictor for young boys was whether their friends drink; for girls it was related to interpersonal disorder. Peer pressure was important for older girls and continued dominant for boys. (EMK)

Examined natural behavior contingencies as mechanisms by which peers influence children's school motivation. Found that the more students were motivated, the more likely they were to receive approval from peer-group members following active, on-task behaviors. The less students were motivated, the more they received disapproval from nonmembers…

Uses data from a random sample of 13,250 adolescents. Results show that mother/adolescent bonding and family drug problems have modest, indirect effects on the likelihood of adolescent drug use; father/adolescent bonding, parental monitoring, and family aggression have relatively weak effects on adolescent drug use; and religious students do not…

Describes Wisconsin's HIV-prevention peer-education programs, examining written survey responses from advisors of 27 established programs. Results found similarities in program objectives and variations in program implementation. Few programs were designed to specifically reach youth at highest risk for HIV transmission. Advisors were extremely…