aspirations. The examined variables all predicted educational aspirations better than they did occupational aspirations.
Mau and Bikos (2000) reported some applications for their findings. It was noted that the data can be used in developing counseling interventions that address both the positive and negative effects of the investigated variables. Also, it was reported that counseling offices can build a profile of each student based on the those factors observed in the study to be predictive of aspirations and so provide counselors with additional information about students' occupational and educational aspirations; using these profiles, counselors could more easily identify those students who may need help in developing their aspirations. In addition, it was noted that if counselors were interested in research, the data could be used to generate a number of additional studies in the area of predicting academic and occupational aspirations.
Espelage, Bosworth and Simon (2000) explored for the contribution of several factors (familial variables, peer influences, and environmental factors) on bullying behavior in school. Subjects were 558 middle school students in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. All subjects in the study were required to complete questionnaires assessing familial and adult influences, number and frequency of bullying behaviors, degree of negative peer influences, and environmental/contextual factors related to neighborhood safety, access to guns, and feeling unsafe at school.
Results of the study indicated that bullying behavior (as measured by number and frequency of a wide range of bulling behaviors engaged in the last month) was relatively high in the sample with only 19.5 percent of students reporting no such behaviors. The frequency of bullying was found to increase with increases in parental physical discipline, amount of time spent without adult supervision, negative peer influences, and lack ...