| Patricia Polanski
University of North Carolina-Greensboro
Why some at-risk students do not dropout: An ecological -developmental model of educational persistence
FINAL REPORT:
The decision to drop out of school is not necessarily the end of the educational road for adolescents. Often after dropping out some adolescents return to school or enroll in alternative programs to complete their education, while an even greater number opt to take a high school equivalency test such as the General Educational Development (GED) test. The primary focus of this study was to understand why some students who are at risk for dropping out of school, remain persistent in obtaining a high school diploma or Graduate Equivalency Diploma (GED).
A conceptual model is proposed in which such educational persistence is viewed as being influenced by students' school engagement, self-appraisals, and future expectations. Also included in the proposed conceptual model are social/environmental factors hypothesized to influence school engagement (i.e, parental involvement, adult support, peers, and school climate). Developmental aspects of this phenomenon were explored by using data that included measures of a sample of adolescents (N=589) at three points in time, namely, in the 8th, 10th, and 12th grades.
Structural equation modeling was utilized to analyze data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88). Analyses revealed that school engagement (participation and valuing aspects), self-appraisals, and future expectations did not significantly influence educational persistence and that school engagement was not a potent mediator of the influence of social factors on dropouts' decision to persist in their formal education. Some plausible reasons for these results include (a) the greater influence of family versus school variables on adolescent developmental outcomes, (b) the timing of the measures, and (c) the complex nature of the alternative pathways among dropouts.
Significant relationships were found between the social/environmental factors and school engagement. A positive and supportive school environment was shown to significantly influence school engagement for both 8th and 10th graders. Along with school climate, parental involvement was shown to significantly influence 8th graders' perceptions of school as valuable. Relationships with peers who hold positive values toward school was shown to significantly influence 10th graders participation in school. The variations in these relationships across the 8th and lOth grades is congruent with previous research related to developmental changes during adolescence regarding the differential influences of parents and peers.
The implications of these results for increasing the effectiveness of counselors working with at-risk adolescents include: (a) counselors need to not only work to prevent school dropout, but also to help meet the needs of adolescents who choose to leave school before graduating, (b) given the significant influence of school climate on at-risk students engagement in school, counselors must become systemic change agents within the school organization, and (c) counselors need to be trained to think systemically with regard to adolescent development in order to be able to expand their interventions beyond the level of the individual.
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