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Adolescents' self-esteem and NCC performance
Author
Tan, Guek Quee
Supervisor
Lui, Elena Hah Wah
Abstract
The relationship between adolescents' self-esteem and participation in National Cadet Corps (NCC) is investigated in this study. The study examined (a) the correlation between NCC performance and self-esteem, (b) compared the level of self-esteem among Secondary 1, 2 and 3 NCC cadets (N=84) and (c) reasons for joining NCC. Cadets are from Northland Secondary School NCC (Land) Boys Unit. Fifty-eight percent, 32% and 10% of these cadets are in Express, Normal (Academic) and Normal (Technical) courses respectively and 92% of them stay in public flats. Self-esteem Checklist (Revised) [SECr] consisting of 35 items from 6 subscales, i.e. General Self, Academic-School, Peers-Social, Home-Parents, Leadership and Participation, was used to measure the level of self-esteem. SECr is modified from Self-esteem Checklist (SEC) and includes two new subscales, i.e. Leadership and Participation. Item analysis was carried out for SECr in a pilot study involving 88 cadets attending an annual Specialists' Course. The reliability for SECr is .77 (Kuder-Richardson-20) and item-total correlation ranged from -.10 to .44 in the pilot study. NCC Performance Checklist consisting of 27 activities was used to measure performance in NCC. Reasons Checklist was constructed by compiling reasons given by cadets in the second round of data collection and was used to provide more insights into the reasons for joining NCC. No significant correlation was found between NCC performance and Total self-esteem. Correlation between NCC performance and Total self-esteem scores were -.01, .09 and .35 for Secondary 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Significant correlation was found between NCC performance and Participation self-esteem with r=.25 (p=.05) for combined level and r=.46 (p=.05) for Sec. 3 level. No significant difference was found among self-esteem scores from Secondary 1 to 3. The self-esteem mean scores for SECr ranged from 19.93 to 22.86. The most common reason for joining NCC is to improve physical fitness. The least common reason is that NCC activities are fun. Results suggested that participation in NCC is associated with self-esteem and may prevent the decrease in self-esteem during adolescence. The author feels it would be beneficial if the effect of NCC performance on adolescents' development could be further examined.
Date Issued
2002
Call Number
BF724.3.S36 Tan
Date Submitted
2002