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High school students’ drop-out rate prevention: A research

proposal based on an organization’s theory of action

Nora El-Bilawi

HopeworksThe 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.

DiscussionLehr, Hansen, Sinclair, & Christenson (2003) categorized

successful interventions : Personal/affective (e.g., retreats designed to enhance

self-esteem, 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).

ReferencesBronfenbrenner, 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 (2nd 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