High school students dropout rate prevention A research

High school students’ drop-out rate prevention: A research proposal based on an organization’s theory of action Nora El-Bilawi

Hopeworks The Organization’s Theory of Action The organization is trying to implement strong programs in order to reduce the high school dropout rate for African-American and Hispanic youth in Camden, New Jersey.

The Problem The organization claims to work on programs that hope to reduce high school dropout rate especially among African-American and Hispanic students. However, I found that they are focusing on providing those students with the technological tools that help them compete in the job market, but nothing about identifying the cause of the problem for early prevention procedures or the core strategies that this organization is providing to reduce the dropout rate.

The Purpose The purpose of this research is to provide: First, a logical explanation of high school students drop-out. Second, shed light on some research-based strategies that the organization can integrate in their programs -this part will be found in the discussion of further studies and proposed strategies in order to reduce this demographics’ dropout rates.

Conceptual Framework Internal attribution (Weiner, 1986, 1992); social control theory (Connell & Wellborn, 1991); Ecological theory of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979)

Research Questions 1. What are some the individual reasons and/or characteristics that lead high school students to drop -out? (To further enrich and investigate the body of literature). 2. What are some of the strategies to prevent this population’s drop-out rate?

Methods Participants: ¢ ¢ New Jersy’s inner-city Camden youth ages 14 -23, Both who are in school and those who are not. They are mainly at-risk minority students who are African. American and Hispanic. Ages of 17 and 25 who have dropped out of school Data collection: ¡ Measures & procedures HSRB, prepare for the visit, consent forms, appointments, interviewing.

Methods. . Data analysis: ¡ Transcribing ¢ ¢ & coding Reread, notice, collect, think (Maxwell, 2005), Organizational categories.

Discussion Lehr, Hansen, Sinclair, & Christenson (2003) categorized successful interventions : Personal/affective (e. g. , retreats designed to enhance selfesteem, regularly scheduled classroom-based discussion, individual counseling, participation in an interpersonal relations class); Academic (e. g. , provision of special academic courses, individualized methods of instruction, tutoring); Family outreach (e. g. , strategies that include increased feedback to parents or home visits); School structure (e. g. , implementation of school within a school, re-definition of the role of the homeroom teacher, reducing class size, creation of an alternative school); and Work related (e. g. , vocational training, participation in volunteer or service programs).

References Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts Connell JP, Wellborn JG. (1991). Competence, autonomy, and relatedness: a motivational analysis of self-system processes. In Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology, ed. M Gunnar, LA Sroufe, 23: 43– 77. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Lehr, C. A. , Hansen, A. , Sinclair, M. F. , & Christenson, S. L. (2003). Moving beyond dropout towards school completion: An integrative review of data-based interventions. School Psychology Review, 32(3), 342 -364. Maxwell, J. A. (2005). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (2 nd ed. ). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Weiner B. 1985. An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion. Psychol. Rev. 92: 548– 73 Weiner B. 1992. Human Motivation: Metaphors, Theories, and Research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage