Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 19, No. 6, 1990

T i m e and Academic Achievement Thomas Ewin Smith 1

Received June 12, 1990; accepted July 21, 1990

In questionnaire and achievement-test data from 1584 seventh- and ninthgrade students, relationships between academic achievement and amounts of time devoted to various uses related to school, family, peers, and the mass media are examined, with relevant demographic factors controlled. Multiple regression analyses support hypotheses of (a) a negative relationship among ninth graders between achievement and time spent listening to radio and records, (c) an interaction between parental occupation and time spent watching television, with trends toward positive association between achievement and TV time when occupational status is low and negative association when it is high, and (d) a positive relationship between reading and overall achievement and time spent on leisure reading. Hypotheses of positive relationships between achievement and time spent on homework in this age range and mere time spent with the parent receive no support. The relationship between achievement and time spent on household chores is explored without a hypothesis, and the relationship is found to be negative. The findings are discussed in terms of the impact of the adolescent subculture and in terms of the family, school, peer group, and mass media as agencies of socialization relevant to academic achievement.

It is generally assumed that one of the major resources available to students for improving their academic achievement is time. Since one intuitively believes that achievement can be increased by time spent on intellectually stimulating activities or limited by a frivolous use of time, considerable research has investigated relationships between academic 1Professor, Department of Sociology, The University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208. Professor Smith has a Ph.D. in sociology and a history of research on parental influence and parent-adolescent relations. Currently, he is conducting research on the antecedents of academic achievement. 539

0047-2891D0/1200-0539506.009 1990PlenumPublishingCorporation

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achievement and students' use of time. The research, however, has been narrowly focused on time devoted to viewing television, which has been suspected of being a frivolous activity which might limit academic achievement. Thus, the research has concentrated on one segment (TV) of only one of the major agencies for socializing the y o u n g - t h e mass media. Research on students' allocations of time has largely ignored the other mass media on which many young people spend much time (radio, records, and print) and the other important agencies of socialization (i.e., the family, the peer group, and the school). The present study related academic achievement to students' allocations of time to several mass media, homework, friends, parents, and household chores. The intention was to investigate the relationships between achievement and various major agencies of socialization, using a common metric--time. The following paragraphs discuss the previous research and theory which has suggested the hypotheses that were tested in the present study. Findings on the relationship between academic achievement and television viewing have been complex, not the simple negative association which might be assumed by an intelligent person familiar with TV fare. The negative association, albeit a weak one, has generally been found (e.g., Fetler, 1984; Hornik, 1981; Keith et aL, 1986; Morgan and Gross, 1981; Williams et al., 1982). Synthesizing 23 different studies done between 1954 and 1980, Williams et aL (1982) found a median correlation of -.06 between academic achievement and amount of television viewing. The weakness of the association appeared, in part, to be attributable to the curvilinearity of the relationship. Williams e t al. (1982) found evidence that viewing television up to 10 hr per week had a positive impact on achievement but that viewing more than 10 hr per week had a negative impact. In research published since 1980, Morgan and Gross (1981) and Fetler (1984) found similar patterns, but Keith et al. (1986) failed to find curvilinearity. However, the preponderance of evidence suggests that moderate television viewing promotes academic achievement but that heavy viewing is detrimental. In addition to curvilinearity, that other weakener of associations between variables-the interaction effect-also seems to play a role in the relationship between television viewing and academic achievement. The negative effect of heavy viewing on achievement appears to be greater among high-IQ than among low-IQ students, whereas the positive effect of moderate viewing appears to be greater for those with low measured intelligence (Hornik, 1981; Keith, 1986; Morgan and Gross, 1981; Williams et al., 1982). And Fetler (1984) found that amount of viewing interacted with parental occupation. Heavy TV viewing had an especially negative effect on the achievement of students whose parents were

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professionals, while moderate viewing had an especially positive effect among those whose parents were unskilled workers and some positive effect among children of skilled workers and semiprofessionals. The reason for television viewing's statistical interactions with intellectual ability and parental occupation might involve differences in nontelevision activities of high- and low-ability children and of advantaged and disadvantaged children. For those of high intelligence or those in upper-middle-class families, television often may replace more intellectually stimulating activities, whereas TV may supply more intellectual stimulation than most of the alternative activities available to low-ability children or to disadvantaged children (Keith et al., 1986). Furthermore, television shows may expose lower- and working-class children to middle-class culture and styles of interaction, which are more valued in the schools than the culture and interaction styles of lower socioeconomic categories. The findings on homework have been less complex than those related to television viewing. The research has found a straightforward positive relationship between amount of homework and academic achievement (e.g., Foyle, 1984; Keith and Page, 1985; Keith et al., 1986; Paschal et aL, 1984). The past research generally has dealt with the amount of homework assigned, rather than students' reports of the amount of time spent on it, but time spent on homework is obviously a factor to be considered in an examination of the relationship between academic achievement and students' allocations of their time. It is equally obvious that several variables which have had less attention than television and homework also deserve consideration. Young people, especially adolescents, spend considerable time with friends (the peer groups which are always included in discussions of socializing agencies), and there are reasons to suspect that time spent with friends may reduce academic achievement. Coleman (1961) showed that adolescent peer groups generally participate in an "adolescent subculture," with norms and values inimical to academic pursuits. 2 Furthermore, Larson (1983) found that the systematic features of adolescent friendships approximated "positive feedback systems," as conceptualized in cybernetics theory. As theories of communication suggested, these friendship interactions were experienced by adolescents as pleasurable, but they lacked the corrective nature of negative feedback and tended to become "out of control." Larson (1983) also found that high-school students' time spent with friends was associated with greater school absenteeism, lower 2Some groups of adolescents, of course, reject the general teen subculture and even support academic values. Nevertheless, the bulk of adolescent peer groups undoubtedly hold values that are more anti- than proacademic. In general, therefore, time spent with friends was expected to inhibit academic achievement.

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academic performance, and lower teacher ratings of intellectual involvem e n t in class. F u r t h e r m o r e , the overall negative effect on academic achievement from time spent with friends might be expected to increase as adolescents grow older. The friends of older adolescents probably would be more heavily involved in the adolescent subculture than the peers of younger ones, and the out-of-control interaction promoted by positive f e e d b a c k systems would have had m o r e time to affect the achievement of older than younger adolescents. Another major portion of adolescent time is devoted to radio and records. Since the music to which most adolescents listen on radio and records is an integral part of the antiacademic leisure-oriented adolescent subculture described by Coleman (1961), it was expected that academic achievement would be negatively related to time devoted to radio and record listening. Most adolescents also find some time to spend with their parents. In fact, Montemayor (1982) found that adolescents devoted roughly equal amounts of time to parents and friends. Massive evidence has been accumulated to show that academic achievement and school performance are related to parental involvement in the child's schooling (e.g., Bloom, 1984; Epstein, 1984; Marjoribanks, 1983; Seginer, 1983; Walberg, 1984). If time spent with parents is related to parental involvement in schooling, one would expect a positive association between academic achievement and time with parents. And Larson (1983), in an intensive study of 75 high-school students, found a tendency toward a positive association between time spent with the family and school performance and invOlvement. Two additional ways for adolescents to spend their time which adults generally view positively are leisure reading (i.e., nonschool reading) and household chores. Reading is an obvious candidate for a variable to have a positive effect on academic achievement, as much of academic achievement involves or is based on reading. The expected effect of chores was less obvious. On the one hand, household chores might develop the kind of discipline and responsibility which would enc o u r a g e academic a c h i e v e m e n t (Larson, 1983). On the o t h e r hand, c h o r e s might c o m p e t e for time with school work and intellectually stimulating n o n s c h o o l activities, thus reducing activities that would p r o m o t e academic achievement more directly. No hypothesis regarding the effect of household chores was formed, but an exploratory examination of the relationship between achievement and chores was included in the present research. On the basis of the research findings and ideas discussed in the preceding paragraphs, several hypotheses were formed. It was predicted

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that academic achievement would be positively associated with time spent on (a) homework, (b) leisure reading, and (c) parents. It was predicted that achievement would be negatively associated with time spent on (a) television, (b) friends, and (c) radio and records. For television, a curvilinear relationship was expected, with a moderate amount of viewing having a positive effect on achievement, but with heavy viewing having a negative effect. Furthermore, the overall negative effect of time spent on television was expected to be greater among adolescents whose parents were high in occupational status or formal education than among those whose parents were low. For time spent with friends, an interaction with age of the adolescent was predicted. The negative effect of time spent with friends was expected to be greater among older adolescents than among younger ones. These hypotheses suggested that academic achievement would be promoted by allocation of time to the school and the family and to the mass medium of communication with the most intellectual reputation, print, and would be deterred by allocation of time to peer g r o u p s especially for older a d o l e s c e n t s - a n d to the less intellectually oriented mass media, television, radio and records. Time spent on household chores, a family-oriented activity whose probable effect seemed uncertain, was included in the analyses that tested the hypotheses, so that its effect on academic achievement could be examined. Several demographic factors were included as controls.

METHOD AND PROCEDURES

The Respondents The data were supplied in 1986 by 1584 seventh- and ninth-grade students in 14 selected public schools in the county which contains the bulk of the population of a racially mixed and economically diverse mediumsized Southeastern metropolitan area. Questionnaires which elicited information about sibling structure and interaction and parental attitudes, in addition to the present research variables, were administered in classrooms selected to supply a full range of the non-educationally handicapped seventh and ninth graders in the county's public schools. Questionnaire data and academic achievement test scores were originally obtained for 2236 students. Tests of the representativeness of the sample found that the respondents were essentially the same in racial composition as students in the 14 schools from which they were drawn and were similar to county residents

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of their age level in racial composition and family type but that they were above the average for the 14 schools in academic achievement) The primary explanation for this difference is that the educationally handicapped students in the schools were not included in the sample. Also, high achievers probably have fewer absences than others and a stronger motivation to attend to informed consent forms given to them in school, which were necessary for obtaining achievement test results. Both questionnaire data and achievement test results were obtained for 2236 students, but deletion of Asians and Hispanics, who were too few for analysis (74), reduced the number to 2162. Listwise deletion of those with missing data on at least one of the variables used in the analysis (578) reduced the actual N to 1584 (74.3% of the black and white respondents). The only major change in the composition of the respondents produced by the listwise deletion was a reduction of black students to 41%.

M e a s u r e m e n t and A n a l y s i s

Academic Achievement. The dependent variables were reading, language, mathematics, and overall achievement, which were measured by equal-interval scale scores from the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS) Form U, levels H and J, administered by the schools less than a month after the collection of the questionnaire data. The CTBS, for which norms were developed in a nationally representative sample of 250,000 students, is a set of tests administered in 313 minutes, spread over four sessions (CTB/McGraw-Hill, 1982). The reading scale is based on tests of Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension. The language scale is based on tests of Language Mechanics and Language Expression. Mathematics Computation and a Test of Mathematics Concepts and Applications are the basis for the mathematics scale. The overall, "Total Battery," scale is based on a combination of the reading, language, and mathematics scores, with equal weights given to the three subscales. The equal-interval scales were developed, by means of an overlapping pooled-analysis procedure, to be 3The percentage of minorities was 49.9 in the sample, 49.4 among seventh and ninth graders in the 14 schools, and 50.1 among 1980 residents of the county from fire through 17 years of age. The percentage in single-parent households was 22.0 among 1980 noninstitutionalized residents of the county under 18 years of age, compared to 24.9 for the respondents. In these respects, the sample also reflects most Southeastern metropolitan areas and some Northern cities reasonablywell. The seventh- and ninth-grade students in the 14 schools had a mean total battery (overall academic achievement) score on the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills of 731.1 (SD = 36.8), while the mean for the respondents was 739.9 (SD = 33.5).

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comparable across grade levels, in the sense of indicating changes in achievement from one grade level to another. The Independent Variables. All of the variables reflecting use of time were measured in terms of the number of hours per week devoted to the particular activity or persons. In each case, the measure constituted the sum of responses to a questionnaire item which elicited number of hours on an average weekend and an item which elicited number of hours after school on an average weekday. The latter item was given a weight of four, rather than five, on the assumption that time after school on Fridays is regarded as a part of the weekend. The only one of the seven time variables that requires further explanation is "time spent with parent." It would have been possible to use a variable based on the sum of the amounts of time spent with the mother and the father, but the use of such a measure presented two problems. A l m o s t o n e - f o u r t h o f the r e s p o n d e n t s were living in s i n g l e - p a r e n t households, and for those in two-parent families, time spent with the mother and father often overlaps. To circumvent these problems, a variable was created which reflected the number of hours per week spent with the parent (either mother or father) with whom the respondent reported spending the greater amount of time. In addition to the time variables, six demographic factors were used as independent variables: (a) race (coded 0 for whites and 1 for blacks), (b) sex (coded 0 for males and 1 for females), (c) year in school (0 for seventh and 1 for ninth), (d) family type (decomposed into two dummy variables) (e) parental occupation, and (f) parental education. One of the dummy variables representing family type, "single parent," was coded 1 if the biological parents were separated and the parent with whom the child was living had not remarried; the other, "remarriage," was coded 1 if the biological parents were separated and the parent with whom the child was living had remarried. Occupations were measured initially by an updated version of the Hollingshead (1957) scale, ranging f r o m 1 (unskilled workers) through 7 (major professionals, higher executives, and owners of large businesses). Parental occupation was represented by the mean occupational level of the mother and father, if information on both was available. Otherwise, the occupational level of the one available parent was used. Education was measured in terms of four levels: 1, high school graduation or less; 2, a year or more of formal education beyond high school; 3, a 4-year college degree; and 4, a postgraduate degree. Parental education was the mean formal education of the mother and father, if information on both was available. Otherwise, one parent was used. The StatisticalAnalysis. The hypotheses were tested in multiple regression analyses, using SPSS x "Regression" (SPSS, 1986). Reading, language,

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

SE 2.605 1.487 3.157 1.061 .930 1.769 2.141 .085 .169 .213 .145 .120 .167 .219 .050 .090 .115 5.399

.425*** 1584

Race Sex Y e a r in S c h o o l Parental Occupation Parental Education Single P a r e n t Remarried Parent Parent Household Chores Race,Chores Homework Friends Year,Friends Television Occupation,TV Radio and Records Leisure Reading (Constant)

Adjusted R 2 N

B

-21.517"** 7.611"** 26.682*** 7.814"** 4.029*** -4.297* -4.571" - .119 - .915"** .459* .002 - ,213 - .506** .759*** - .158"* -.335*** .264* 713.536"**

Independent variable

Multiple

- .285 .101 .359 .367 .104 - .049 -.042 - .029 - .175 .093 .000 - .049 - .141 .170 -.181 -.081 .049

Beta

B

1584

1.722 1.884 1.761 .468 .908 2.173 2.731 .101 .125 .115 .175 .107 .089 .110 .022 .103 .134

SE

Bivariate

-31.658"** 4.986** 24.801"** 10.357"** 14.009"** - 12.985"** -3.331 - .670*** - 1.651"** - 1.840*** - .552** - .798*** .547*** -.853*** .133"** -.696*** -.559***

Regression

Beta -.419 .066 .334 .487 .361 - .149 -.031 - .165 - .315 - .374 - .079 - .184 .153 -.191 .153 -.168 -.105

.41 .58 .53 4.04 1.89 .24 .13 17.05 9.07 4.66 9.21 16.67 8.94 17.67 68.76 12.74 6.84

M

1584

.49 .49 .50 1.74 .96 .42 .34 9.13 7.07 7.53 5.31 8.58, 10.35 8.30 42.61 8.92 6.93

SD

Descr. stats

T a b l e 1. M u l t i p l e a n d B i v a r i a t e R e g r e s s i o n s o f O v e r a l l A c a d e m i c A c h i e v e m e n t ( M = 744.76; S D = 37.09) a n d D e s c r i p t i v e Statistics f o r I n d e p e n d e n t V a r i a b l e s

~r

*p < ,05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Adjusted R 2 N

.759*** -.245*** -.352** .581"** 713.536"**

-.506**

.427*** 1584

3.438 1.963 4.167 1.061 1.227 2.335 2.827 .112 .224 .213 .191 .158 .166 .219 .067 .119 .152 5.399

26.923*** 6.646*** 38.888*** 7.814"** 5.022*** - 4.544 -4.535 -.132 - 1.098"** .459* -.201 -.155

Race Sex Year Parental Occupation Parental Education Single Parent Remarried Parent Parent Chores Race,Chores Homework Friends Year,Friends Television Occupation,TV Radio and Records Reading (Constant)

-

SE

B

Independent variable -.270 .067 .396 .367 .099 -.039 -.032 -.025 -.158 .093 -.022 -.027 -.141 .167 -.213 -.064 .082

Beta

Reading achievement (M = 760.77; SD = 49.02)

3.594 2.052 4.356 1.464 1.283 2.441 2.955 .117 .234 .294 .199 .165 .230 .302 .070 .124 .159 7.449

SE

.333*** 1584

- 24.296*** 14.465"** 22.840*** 9.001"** 4.777*** - 6.880** - 7.509* -.104 -1.035"** .450 .027 -.339* -.664** .756* -.179" -.410"* .266 709.948***

B -.251 .150 .240 .330 .096 -.061 -.054 -.020 -.154 .071 .003 -.061 -.145 .132 -.160 -.077 .039

Beta

Language achievement (M = 740.57; SD = 47.51)

Dependent variable

1.733 .989 2.100 .706 .618 1.177 1.424 .056 .113 .142 .096 .080 .111 .146 .034 .060 .076 3.591

SE

.365*** 1584

.384** -.060 -.261"** -.029 719.950"**

-.282*

-.136

- 13.050"** 1.510 17.930"** 3.540*** 2.219"** - 1.389 - 1.837 -.123" -.606*** .368** .164

B

-.273 .032 .382 .263 .091 -.025 -.027 -.048 -.183 .118 .037 -.050 -.125 -.136 -.108 -.099 -.009

Beta

Mathematics achievement (M = 732.93; SD = 23.47)

Table II. Multiple Regressions of Reading, Language. and Mathematics Achievement

go

g~

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mathematics, and overall (total battery) achievement were the dependent variables. The hypothesis of curvilinearity in the effect of time spent watching television was tested by determining whether adding the square of the TV-time variables to the equation significantly increased the multiple R 2. Interactions were tested by determining whether adding the product of two variables made a significant increase in the multiple R 2. The .05 level was established as the criterion of statistical significance. However, to avoid capitalizing on chance through the use of several dependent variables, it was decided in advance that no statistically significant effect would be regarded as significant unless it occurred for at least two of the four dependent variables.

RESULTS Table I shows the results of a multiple regression of overall achievement upon the independent variables and three interaction variables which significantly increased the multiple R 2, plus the results of bivariate regressions of overall achievement upon the same variables and the means and standard deviations of the variables in these analyses. Bivariate regression results were included for readers who want to examine them, but the results will be discussed in terms of the multiple regressions, as each variable in the real world is embedded in a context of many other variables. The results of multiple regressions of reading, language, and mathematics achievement upon the independent variables and the three interaction variables are shown in Table II. The correlation matrix is not shown, but a copy can be obtained from the author. Naturally, the interaction variables were strongly related to their components, the strongest being the correlation between race and race times time spent on household chores (.746). The strongest correlation between pairs of independent variables was that of parental occupation with parental education (.585); the next strongest was between race and parental occupation (-.363). There was no evidence of multicolinearity problems. The effects of the demographic factors are generally in accord with the results of previous research. On all four academic-achievement scales, whites were much higher than blacks, and ninth graders were much higher than seventh graders. Parental occupation had strong positive effects and parental education had weaker but still highly significant positive effects on all of the dependent variables. Females had considerably higher language achievement and somewhat higher reading and overall achievement than males. And students from either single-parent or remarriage families

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were slightly, but significantly, lower on language and overall achievement than those living with both of their biological parents.

T h e Candidates for Positive Influences on A c h i e v e m e n t

It was hypothesized that academic achievement would be positively associated with three of the time variables--time spent on homework, on leisure reading, and with the parent. Of these three hypotheses, only the one pertaining to leisure reading received any support. Time spent with the parent had only one statistically significant effect, representing a weak association with mathematics achievement, and that one was negative rather than positive in direction. Academic achievement appears not to be promoted by the mere amount of time spent with parents, but this does not mean that achievement is unrelated to parental attitudes and behavior. The previous research discussed earlier has repeatedly found that school performance and academic achievement are positively related to parental involvement in children's schooling. The present data set included measures of perceived maternal and paternal educational encouragement based on reports of parental educational aspirations for the child, frequency of mentioning the aspiration, and importance attached by the parent to school performance. These variables are beyond the scope of the present analysis of student allocations of time, but they were used in special analyses to discover whether parental educational encouragement was related to academic achievement, even though time spent with parents was not. The special analyses included four multiple regressions which were the same as those reported in Tables I and II, except that time with the parent was replaced with educational encouragement by the parent (representing the level of encouragement by the parent perceived as giving the greater amount of encouragement). The partial regressions showed that, with the other variables controlled, parental educational encouragement had rather weak but positive and statistically significant associations with all four of the achievement variables (betas ranged from .064 to .073; p's ranged from .0005 to .0041). Thus all of the achievement measures were positively related to educational encouragement by the parent, even though none of them were positively associated with overall time spent with the parent. In most families, undoubtedly, only a portion of time with parents involves activities or interactions that promote achievement. Time spent on homework lacked any statistically significant effect, although its relationship with mathematics achievement approached significance. The age of the subjects may be the reason why the present findings

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on homework differ from the results of previous research. Whereas the present subjects were seventh- and ninth-grade students, the empirical evidence for a positive association between academic achievement and students' reports of time spent on homework rests primarily on analyses of data from high-school seniors, in the High School and Beyond Study (Keith and Page, 1985; Keith et al., 1986). Thus, it is possible that the association found by Keith and his associates develops only in the later years of school. Since the present data came from seventh- and ninth-grade students, it was possible tentatively to explore the possibility of a grade-level difference in the relationship between achievement and homework time. Tests for statistical interactions between year in school and time spent on homework found a significant increase in R 2 only with reading achievement as the dependent variable [change in R 2 = .0027; F (1, 1568) = 7.247, p < .01]. The tests for the other three dependent variables fell far short of significance, with F's ranging from .563 to 2.196. The interaction between year in school and homework time did not meet the previously established requirement of significant effects upon at least two of the four achievement variables. However, the relationship between each of the achievement measures and time spent on homework was more positive among the ninth than among the seventh graders. The betas for homework time ranged from -.064 to .009 among the seventh graders and from .009 to .073 among the ninth graders. In short, the present data do not strongly support but are compatible with the idea that the positive relationship between homework time and academic achievement found by previous research on high-school seniors may vary by year in school and may be absent at the middle-school level. Time spent on leisure reading had significant positive associations with overall achievement (p < .05) and reading achievement (p < .001), supporting the leisure-reading hypothesis. It appears that reading achievement at least is positively related to time spent on leisure reading, although the partial relationship was rather weak (beta = .082). In general, the time variables expected to affect academic achievement positively showed little evidence of such impact, the only exceptions being the positive statistical effects of leisure reading on overall and reading achievement. There was no evidence that mere amount of time spent with the parent or mere amount of time spent on homework at this age level are related to academic achievement.

The Negative Effects on Achievement

Exposure to the Adolescent Subculture in the Form o f Radio and Records and Friends. As hypothesized, all four of the achievement variables

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were negatively associated with time spent listening to radio and records, and all of these relationships were statistically significant at the .01 level or better. If public radio and classical records were separated from the mass-appeal media which are tied to the adolescent subculture, their effect might be different, but the results indicate an overall negative association of radio and record listening with all forms of academic achievement, with the demographic factors and the other time variables controlled. Even if one assumes causality in these relationships, there is no means for deciding whether the negative effects of listening to radio and records result from competition of these media with activities which would do more to promote academic achievement or from "active antagonism" of popular radio and records to academic achievement, growing out of their connection with an antiacademic adolescent subculture. All four of the achievement variables were negatively related to time spent with friends, but none of the direct effects of time with friends was statistically significant with the hypothesized interaction between year in school and time with friends included in the equation. That interaction, however, was also negative, as predicted, and was statistically significant at the .05 level for mathematics achievement and at the .01 level for the other three achievement measures. When the data were analyzed separately for the two age levels, time spent with friends had negative effects among the ninth graders upon all four of the achievement variables which were significant at the .001 level, with betas ranging from -.158 to -.185; the effects of time with friends among the seventh graders were all nonsignificant, with betas ranging from -.017 to -.062. Thus, the significant negative effects of time spent with friends were confined to the ninth-grade level. These findings suggest that, among high-school students, spending time with friends may inhibit academic achievement, either because of the positive feedback systems in adolescent friendship groups or because of their involvement in an antiacademic adolescent subculture or both. Alternatively, of course, it is also possible that the statistical associations result from a tendency of high-achieving high-school students to devote less time than other students devote to friends. One suspects that the kind of friends would matter. The only means available in the present data for testing that possibility involved differentiating between students who were involved in some school-related extracurricular activity (e.g., band, cheerleading, or clubs) and those not involved in any such activity. A factor called activities, which embodied this distinction, was included in a special analysis and tested for statistical interaction with time spent with friends, on the assumption that the friends of students who were involved in school-related extracurricular activities might be more supportive of academic achievement than the friends of

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other students. However, the tests revealed no significant interaction effect (the p's ranged from .535 to .856). With no other means for identifying the kinds of friends a respondent might have, it is impossible to make any further empirical test in the present data of the logical idea that the kind of friends would make a difference in the effect of time spent with friends on academic achievement. In brief, the data indicate that academic achievement is negatively related to time spent listening to radio and records and, among ninth graders, is also negatively related to time spent with friends. One possible interpretation of this pattern of findings would be that involvement in the adolescent subculture inhibits academic achievement, since peer groups and popular radio and records are the adolescent's main channels to the adolescent subculture. Television. To test for the hypothesized curvilinear effect of time spent watching television, the square of the variable was added to the basic equation which included all of the independent variables but none of the interaction terms. The hypothesis of curvilinearity was not supported for any of the dependent variables. The increase in the multiple R2 for mathematics achievement (.0014) only approached significance IF (1, 1568) = 3.595]. The other three tests fell far short, with F's ranging from .207 to 1.426. Therefore, the simple measure of number of hours per week was used for TV viewing time, as for the other time variables. The hypothesized interactions of time spent watching television with parental occupation and parental education were strongly supported. The interaction between TV and parental occupation was significant at the .001 level for overall and reading achievement, at the .01 level for language achievement, and at the .05 level for mathematics achievement. Increases in multiple R2's ranged from .0018 to .0057; F ' s (1, 1568) ranged from 4.511 to 15.729. The interaction between TV and parental education was significant at the .01 level for overall and reading achievement and at the .05 level for language and mathematics. As would be expected, however, because of the association between occupation and education, neither of these interaction terms fared as well when added to an equation which already included the other. Under those conditions, TV times education failed to increase any of the R 2 significantly, and T V times occupation was significant at only the .05 level for only overall and reading achievement. Since the interaction between TV time and parental education was not significant when the other interaction was taken into account, it was not included in the final analysis. The interaction variable representing parental occupation times T V was included in the analyses shown in Tables I and II.

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Tables I and II show positive direct effects for time spent viewing television and negative interaction effects for parental occupation times T V time on all four of the achievement variables. All of these were statistically significant, with the exception of the occupation times T V interaction effect upon mathematics achievement, which only approached significance. This pattern, of course, is in accord with Fetler's (1984) findings and indicates that television viewing and academic achievement were positively associated among students with parents in the lower ranges of occupational status and negatively associated among those with parents in the upper ranges. If one assumes causality, watching T V appears to be beneficial for lower but detrimental for higher-SES adolescents, suggesting a "leveling" effect of television viewing. HousehoM Chores. The exploration of the relationship of household chores with academic achievement discovered a negative direct effect and an interaction with race. In an exploratory analysis which tested all possible two-way interactions between independent variables, the interaction between race and household chores was the only nonhypothesized significant interaction found. When the race-times-chores variable was added to the basic equations, it caused increases in the multiple R2's ranging from .0017 to .0035; F's (1, 1568) ranged from 3.916 to 8.720. The interaction was statistically significant at the .01 level for overall and mathematics achievement and at the .05 level for reading and language achievement. Therefore, the race-times-chores interaction term was included in the analyses shown in Tables I and II, along with the 14 independent variables and the two interaction terms which have already been discussed. The results in Tables I and II show that the direct effects of household chores time on all four of the academic achievement variables were negative and statistically significant at the .001 level. The betas ranged from -.154 to -.183. These findings suggest that household chores may compete with academic achievement more than they promote it by building responsibility. The effects of the race-times-chores interaction term were positive in all cases and were statistically significant at the .01 level for mathematics achievement and at the .05 level for overall and reading achievement. The betas ranged from .071 to .118. Thus, the interaction between race and household chores was somewhat weaker in these equations represented in the tables, which included the hypothesized interaction terms, than in the initial tests; but it was still significant for all of the dependent variables except language achievement. Since race was coded 0 for white and 1 for black, the direct effects of time spent on household chores and the race-times-chores interaction effects, taken together, show that time spent on chores had substantial

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negative relationships with the achievement variables among the white respondents and weaker negative relationships with achievement among the blacks. When the data were analyzed separately for the two racial groups, the effects of time spent on household chores upon all four of the achievement variables were significant at the .001 level among whites, with betas ranging from -.166 to -.187. Among the black respondents, the equivalent effects were significant at the .05 level, except for the effect of chores upon mathematics achievement, which only approached significance (the betas ranged from -.067 to -.088). The reason why the negative association between academic achievement and time spent on chores was weaker among the black than among the white respondents is not clear. It was thought that the difference might have resulted from different effects among blacks and whites of time spent on chores upon two other variables with negative impacts on a c h i e v e m e n t time spent with friends and time spent listening to radio and records. To test that possibility, new analyses treated time spent with friends and time spent on radio and records as dependent variables. The other independent variables were the same as in the previous analyses. The tests for the effect of the race by chores interaction fell far short of statistical significance (p's ranged from .532 to .730). Therefore, explanation of the race difference must wait until additional research can be carried out. One possibility which might be investigated is that the difference is caused by racial subcultural differences pertaining to household chores. In the present data, the black students reported spending considerably more time on household chores than the whites reported. The mean number of hours per week for blacks was 11.43 (SD = 7.86), as compared to 7.45 (SD = 5.97) for whites. This substantial difference in time spent on chores may be only one of a number of differences between blacks and whites in behavior and attitudes pertaining to household chores for children and adolescents.

DISCUSSION The associations of adolescent academic achievement with amounts of time spent in seven different uses related to the family, school, peer group, and mass media were examined, with important demographic factors controlled. The three time variables which were expected to influence achievement positively-time spent on homework, leisure reading, and with the parent--generally failed to show significant positive effects on achievement. The only exception was time spent on leisure reading, which had weak but statistically significant positive associations with overall and reading achievement, suggesting that the oldest mass medium, print, may promote academic

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achievement. Failure to support the hypothesized positive association between achievement and homework suggests that the relationship found by previous research may not exist in the pre-high school years. If that is the case, increasing homework may do less to promote achievement than advocates of more homework, such as Keith et al. (1986) would expect. Furthermore, the failure to find a positive association between achievement and time spent with the p a r e n t - e v e n though achievement was positively related to parental educational encouragement-indicates that the mere amount of exposure to the institution of the family does not promote academic achievement in children. Mere parental time and mere homework time may not be enough. What parents do and say relevant to academics and the kinds of homework assigned by teachers and what they do with it in class may be more important than time in determining the family's and the school's influences on academic achievement. [Karweit (1981), in an insightful discussion of time spent in school, has recognized that what is done with the time is more important than the mere amount of time in school.] In brief, time devoted by a child to the adult-oriented agencies of socialization--the family and the s c h o o l - d o e s not necessarily enhance academic achievement, unless the adults in these institutions use the child's time for that purpose. The time variables for which negative effects were predicted generally lived up to expectations, although some of them exhibited some complexity. Time spent on television actually had positive effects on achievement among respondents with parents in lower-status occupations but negative effects among those whose parents were in higher-status occupations. Thus, the most pervasive of the mass media, television, may have a leveling effect, reducing academic achievement among some advantaged children and promoting it among some disadvantaged ones. Time spent on radio and records, the media most closely tied to the adolescent subculture, and (among ninth graders) time spent with friends had clear negative effects on academic achievement. These findings suggest that the informal agency of socialization over which adults have little control, the adolescent peer group, and the popular-music media which are important to the adolescent subculture may deter academic achievement, especially as early adolescents become middle adolescents. 4 Thus, the adultoriented agencies of socialization may not be promoting academic achievement as much as one might expect, and the adolescent-oriented agencies of socialization appear to be deterring achievement, especially as adolescents move into the high-school age level. 4In the absence of proof of the direction of causality, of course, it is also possible that high-achieving adolescents tend to spend less time than others listening to the radio and records and, as they grow older, tend to reduce the time they spend with friends, so that they can devote more time to academic achievement.

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The time variable for which no prediction was made, time spent on household chores, also had a clear negative effect on academic achievement, although less strongly among black than among white students. Since parents ordinarily assign the household chores done by adolescents, this finding indicates that parents may inhibit academic achievement by excessive chore requirements, as well as sometimes promoting achievement through educational encouragement. Thus, the family, which considerable status-attainment research has credited with encouraging educational attainment, also may unknowingly reduce adolescent academic achievement at times. It is possible, of course, that the associations which have been reported resulted from differences in decisions about time allocation among adolescents of varying academic ability and/or motivation, rather than from time allocations affecting achievement. Longitudinal research is needed to settle that issue. Assuming for the sake of argument, however, that the statistical effects represent causal influences of time use on achievement, the time variables appeared to exert considerably more overall negative than positive influence on the adolescent respondents' academic achievement. The low academic achievement of American students which, in recent years, has concerned the public, politicians, and educators (e.g., Keith et al., 1986, pp. 373-374) may, in part, result from devoting more time to activities which compete with academics than to those which promote it. Adolescents spend far more time with friends and listening to radio and records than in leisure reading, for example. Even parents, generally supposed to be agents of socialization who encourage academic achievement, appear to assign enough household chores to compete with academics in the lives of a substantial proportion of adolescents. The young people themselves, however, freely choose to allocate large amounts of time to the more attractive activities which were negatively associated with academic achievement-socializing with friends and listening to radio and records. Unlike household chores, adolescent peer groups may inhibit academic achievement in ways other than simply competing for the adolescent's time. If the statistical effects of time spent with friends do reflect a negative causal influence on academic achievement, there are at least three possible explanations of such an influence. First, friends may simply compete for time with more intellectually stimulating activities. Second, friends may expose the student to the leisure-oriented antiacademic values and norms of the adolescent subculture, as described by Coleman (1961). Third, friendship systems of interaction, by emphasizing positive and deemphasizing negative feedback, as discussed by Larson (1983), may encourage an undisciplined approach to life which interferes with academic achievement. The elements of these explanations are probably closely related. Larson's positive-feedback friendship interaction systems are undoubtedly especially at home in

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Coleman's adolescent society. And the fun and excitement offered by positive-feedback friendship systems and the adolescent subculture are undoubtedly the reasons why the peer g r o u p - - t h e agency of socialization which appears generally to inhibit academic a c h i e v e m e n t - c o m p e t e s successfully for the time of adolescents. Time spent with friends, of course, is not without redeeming value, even though it may have an overall negative impact on academic achievement. Interaction with friends gives adolescents opportunities to develop a sense of reciprocity and role-taking skills (e.g., Mead, 1934; Piaget, 1965; Youniss, 1980). Furthermore, positive-feedback systems have been recognized as generators of innovation (e.g., Maruyama, 1963), and Larson (1983) found a negative association between time spent with friends and alienation from people. Interaction with friends is i m p o r t a n t to the socialization of children and adolescents. Furthermore, it provides pleasure, a value not totally to be despised, even in an adult perspective on the lives of young people. If the value to be promoted is academic achievement, however, a reduction in time spent with friends by the more sociable adolescents may be in order, especially at the high-school level. The same could be said of the other common adolescent fun activity which showed a clear negative effect on academic achievement in the present research, listening to radio and records. By merely competing for students' time or by promoting the antiacademic values of the adolescent subculture, radio and records may reduce achievement. In general, the ready accessibility of nonacademic fun in the nonadult agency of socialization--the peer group, with its youth subculture--may be a major reason for low academic achievement. However, the findings indicate that the family, the adult agency of socialization which is generally expected to support the efforts of the schools, may be falling down on the job. Lower levels of academic achievement appear to be associated with the amounts of household work assigned by many parents, indicating that academic achievement can be reduced by non-fun as well as by fun activities. And while academic achievement is positively related to parental educational encouragement, it is not related to the amount of time spent with parents, which suggests that many parents are not doing a great deal to promote academic achievement on the part of their children.

REFERENCES

Bloom, B. S. (1984). The search for methods of group instruction as effective as one-to-one tutoring. Educ. Leader. 41(8): 4-17. Coleman, J. S. (1961). The Adolescent Society, Free Press, Glencoe, IL.

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