Evaluating the adolescents' perceptions about adults from view of other variables

ABSTRACTThe aim of this research is to develop an instrument for measure adolescents' perceptions about adults and evaluate the adolescents' perceptions about adults from view of other variables. The model that used during the research is scanning model. The target population of the study is composed of 6.588 students that going to Anatolian high schools in 2015-2016 Spring Education Period where locate in the Malatya's Battalgazi district. The instrument development study's sample is composed 1.008 students that going to schools where in this district and been there when scales applied and wanted to join this research. The second study's sample is composed 905 students that going to schools where in this district and been there when scales applied and wanted to join this research voluntarily that chosen by stratified sampling. 434 of population are girls and 471 of population boys. In this study, to collect data, four instruments were used: Perception About Adults Scale For Adolescents, Parenting Style Scale, The Adolescent Risk-Taking Scale and Life Satisfaction Scale. To analyze the gained data here used SPSS 20.0 and LİSREL 9.2 packaged softwares. The data were analyzed in instrument development process using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, for the second study the data analyzed using descriptive analysis as well as significance test such as t-test, variance analysis (ANOVA). Results show that scale measures perceptions about adults in two factors as positive and negative. Perception About Adults Scale For Adolescent is reliable and valid scale.Looking the view of demographic variables shows that adolescents' perception of adult changes with gender. Girls perceive adults more negative than boys. Perception about adults don't change with age, number of siblings, birth line, academic success, school type and mother and father education. As a result of the research, it is revealed that perception about adults changes with parenting style, risk taking and life satisfaction. Adolescents that have positive perception about adults perceive their parents more democratic and show less risk taking behavior. Adolescents that have positive perception about adults have significantly higher life satisfaction than adolescents that have negative perception about adults. Key Words: Adolescence, Perception of Adult, Parenting Style, The Adolescent Risk-Taking, and Life Satisfaction