Apathy: Junior high, high school, and college students

The purpose of the present research was to examine the features of apathy i n relation to how adolescents feel about their lives during 3 levels of sch ooling : junior high school, high school, and college. A questionnaire cove ring apathy and such topics as school adaptation and social support was giv en to 275 junior high school students (142 boys and 133 girls), 337 high sc hool students (169 boys and 168 girls), and 337 college students (164 men, 159 women, and 14 unidentified), for a total of 949 students. The main resu lts were as follows : (1) Factor analysis revealed 3 factors in the apathy scale : self-unknowing, personal distrust and dissatisfaction, and feeling of fatigue. (2) The results of ANOVA showed that the factors of self-unknow ing and feeling of fatigue fell in the college student level, and that the developmental aspects of personal distrust and dissatisfaction varied, depe nding on the student's gender. (3) In the junior high school and high schoo l students, feelings of school adaptation about wanting to study and relati ons with friends were connected with apathy. For the male college students, but not the females, friends' support was strongly connected with the fact or of personal distrust and dissatisfaction.