This applied dissertation was designed to describe and explain the dropout phenomenon occurring in a rural high school in southeastern North Carolina. Caucasian students were dropping out at a disproportionate rate compared to other ethnic groups in the school. Over the last 4 years, 68 students did not graduate with their prospective class at the southeastern rural North Carolina high school research site; approximately 63% of those students were Caucasian, and 37% were non-Caucasian. Caucasian students were the smallest population at the selected high school (40%); however, they accounted for the highest average percentage of dropouts (63%). In 2011, Caucasian students alone accounted for 81% of the total dropouts. In essence, the largest ethnic group not graduating in this rural school district was Caucasian students. In an effort to investigate the academic, social, and home factors (strains) that may have contributed to the high dropout rate of Caucasian students, a study was conducted at the high school. The study involved investigating perceptions of professional staff at the selected high school. Professional staff completed a survey that measured perceptions as to why Caucasian students dropped out a higher rate than other ethnic groups. The general research design answering the 2 research questions for this study was a explanatory mixed-methods research design utilizing quantitative and qualitative data collected sequentially. After calculating descriptive statistics from survey responses (means and frequency of occurrence), performing a chi-square goodness-of-fit test, and conducting focus-group interviews, the results of the study indicated that professional staff members at the selected high school perceived that academic and home and community setting strains, not social strains, were the greatest influence on why Caucasian students were not graduating at the same rate as non-Caucasian high school students at the selected rural high school.

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A vocational horticulture curriculum was assessed for its effectiveness in strengthening social bonds and changing attitudes about personal success and job preparedness in a group of juvenile offenders. The curriculum focused on vocational training and entry-level job skills in horticulture and landscaping and prepared the youth for internship positions in grounds maintenance. Pre/post-tests based on Hirsch=s tests of social bond for juvenile delinquents were developed to address attitudes toward school, teachers, peers, opinions on personal success, and environmental attitudes. A separate pre/post test dealt with careers and aspirations. Results from these tests were compared to tests administered at a comparable program in an urban setting. Behavioral records for one semester before and the semester during the horticulture curriculum were compared. Daily journals maintained by service-learning student mentors were analyzed for observational themes, as were teachers' observations and project follow-up interviews. Success of the program was based on the students' successful completion of the program, students' desire and ability to be hired for summer internships and/or employment in horticultural related jobs. Due to the limited size of the study group (6), this research project intends only to provide a profile of several youths' response to vocational horticultural training with regard to the objectives stated above. It is exploratory in nature and offers ideas for future larger scale research and confirms some existing trends in research with juvenile offenders. / Master of Science

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The purpose of this to determine the perceptions of senior North Carolina community college administrators regarding retention efforts in place on their campuses for at-risk students. The term "at-risk" was used to identify a student who was considered likely to perform academically at a level below that of average students and who was more likely to drop out than was an average student. One-hundred-forty-four of 177 senior administrators (chief executive officers, chief academic officers, chief student development officers) in North Carolina community colleges completedthe survey instrument that provided the data for this study. The percentage of surveys returnedwas 81.4%. The SAS Institute program procedures were used for the analysis of data. An alphalevel of .05 was used for all statistical tests. Results indicated that a variety of programs and strategies were being used by communitycolleges in North Carolina on efforts to retain at-risk students. Statistically significant differences in perceptions among senior administrators regarding the effectiveness of the retention strategies were found on six of the 34 strategies listed on the survey instrument. The study also identified the four strongest and the four weakest retention strategies as perceived by the senior administrators. Conclusions of the study emphasized the difficulty of teaching, training, and retaining an increasing number of at-risk students accepted to North Carolina community colleges under an open-admissions policy. The study also determined that for community colleges in North Carolina to fulfill their egalitarian role in the state's educational efforts, at-risk students must be accepted, taught, and retained until their goals have been met. Eight recommendations for improving the retention of at-risk students, and three recommendations for further research were presented by the study.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among four specific typologies of environmental factors and at-risk teenagers. The four typologies explored were influences by parents and peers, teachers, educational setting, and factors relating to school behavior. Six research questions guided the study and six null hypotheses were formulated and tested at the .05 level of significance. The degree of relationship between the independent variables and the environmental factors was analyzed by using the Independent samples t-test and One Way ANOVA. The study sample consisted of 195 middle school students in three counties in Northwestern North Carolina and Northeast Tennessee. The results of this study indicate significant relationships between students and two factors, teacher expectations and school behavior as studied in the three counties. The relationships between students and the factor, parents and peers, appear to be equally strong for all students in each of the three counties. This also held true for the factor, educational setting, and the students. An inherent purpose of this study was to enhance perceptions of the value of parent involvement, to encourage more research on the relationships between peers and student achievement, and to show that teacher expectations and the educational setting can have a positive impact on student achievement. Parents, peers, students, teachers, and educational settings are allies in that they share the common goal of helping students to become lifelong learners.

The focus of the research was to examine the academic intervention program implemented to address academic concerns in the middle grades in one large urban school district in central Florida. Educational leaders at all levels are concerned with the choice of one in four students who make the decision to not complete high school coursework, leaving before earning a high school diploma. The researcher examined to what extent, if any, participation in the middle grades academic intervention program affected academic success in coursework and what difference, if any, there were between academic coursework grade point averages and at-risk eligibility factors, for levels of student participation in the academic intervention program. The at-risk eligibility factors for placement into this middle grades intervention program included prior year retention, prior year course failure(s), and prior year grade point average of 2.0 or below on a 4.0 scale. The school district of study provided each middle grades school with one teaching allocation to support the academic intervention program. Data from six of the 12 middle schools that tracked students in the academic intervention program for the 2013-2014 school year were retrieved from the school district central office. Interviews were conducted with all 12 academic intervention program supervising administrators to determine the delivery method provided for the program at each school. The study provides information on the effectiveness of the academic intervention program, implications for practice, and recommendations for future research.

This study examined associations between foster mothers' state of mind in regards to attachment (as measured by the Adult Attachment Projective [AAP]) and foster mothers' descriptions of their foster children (as measured by the Parent Development Interview [PDI]) for 37 foster mothers. Sixteen foster mothers were classified as secure-autonomous while twenty-one were classified as insecure in regards to attachment. Approximately sixty percent of the insecure foster mothers were classified as unresolved with regards to attachment. It was hypothesized that there would be differences between secure and insecure foster mothers on the 13 PDI subscale scores. Results indicated that the two groups (secure and insecure foster mothers) differed significantly on 7 constructs in the PDI; namely pleasure, business of caregiving, achievement, comfort/safe haven, perspective taking, enmeshment, pleasure and pain. Findings suggest foster mothers' attachment status is related to their representations of their foster children. The distributions of attachment classifications in the current study are consistent with those found in other studies and suggest that foster mothers are unresolved in regards to attachment. It is suggested that focus should be on further research and the development of intervention programs related to quality foster parenting. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

This project aims to analyze the risk measures Value-at-Risk and Conditional-Value-at-Risk for three stock portfolios with the purpose of evaluating each method's accuracy in modelling Black Swan events. This is achieved by utilizing a parametric approach in the form of a modified (C)VaR with a Cornish-Fisher expansion, a historic approach with a time series spanning ten years and a Markov Monte Carlo simulation modeled with a Brownian motion. From this, it is revealed that the parametric approach at the 99\%-level generates the most favorable results for a 30-day-(C)VaR estimation for each portfolio, followed by the historic approach and, lastly, the Markov Monte Carlo simulation. As such, it is concluded that the parametric approach may serve as a method of evaluating a portfolio's exposure to Black Swan events. / Denna rapport syftar till att analysera riskmåtten Value-at-Risk och Conditional-Value-at-Risk för tre aktieportföljer med målet att utvärdera respektive metods precision i att modellera Black Swan-händelser. Detta uppnås genom att utnyttja en parametrisk metod som tar formen av en modifierad (C)VaR med en Cornish-Fisher-utveckling, en historisk metod med en tidsserie som sträcker sig tio år, och en Markov Monte Carlo-simulering modellerat med en Brownian Motion. Från detta påvisas det att den parametriska metoden vid en 99\%-ig nivå genererar de mest rättvisande resultaten för en 30-dagars-(C)VaR-estimering för respektive portfölj, följt av den historiska metoden och, till sist, Monte Carlo-simulering. På så sätt dras slutsatsen att den parametriska metoden skulle kunna tjäna som en metod för att utvärdera en aktieportföljs exponering till Black Swan-händelser.

The purpose of this study was to identify preservice teachers’ perceptions of the at-risk student and their perceptions toward their educational preparation to effectively teach the at-risk student. A ten-question survey was conducted to gain insight on 15 preservice teachers’ perceptions of the at-risk student. The results showed that 100% of the preservice teachers believe at-risk students could learn, but then were dissatisfied with the training that the teacher preparation program at the university has provided them. These findings suggest the importance of conducting further research on preservice teachers’ preparation programs. Preservice teachers’ ability to effectively teach the at-risk student can have a lasting impact on these students and their success in the future.