High School Completion: Investigating the roles of social goals, degree of motivation/resiliency, and differential impact of sex among students in an alternative high school

Abstract

The majority of literature exploring high school completion and dropout has specifically investigated dropout percentages, reasons behind drop out, and what types of students decide to drop out. Information concerning alterable variables and why students complete high school is less abundant. Often, reasons behind high school dropout include variables that are out of the students' and schools' control. For instance, location (urban, rural, suburban), socioeconomic status (SES), and family education and support are not situations that can be easily altered by students or schools. As a result, the problem of high school dropout is more understood, but is not remediated. The purpose of the current study was to determine what influence, if any, social goals, degree of motivation/resiliency, and gender had on high school completion in an alternative high school. The alterable variables of social goals and motivation/resiliency were of particular interest to the researcher as the basis for potential interventions and strategies to be implemented by schools in order to improve graduation rates. Data were collected from 212 young men (n= 102) and women (n= 110) who began the 2007-08 school year at an alternative high school in Philadelphia, PA. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was utilized for this study. Information regarding social goals and degree of motivation/resiliency was obtained with measures created by staff members at the school. Findings suggest that students who graduated from this alternative high school demonstrated more specific and realistic social goals as compared to students who dropped out.