The purpose of this study was to investigate the problem of dropouts or withdrawals among the pupils of the secondary schools of Port Arthur, Texas. It was hoped that some significant information could be compiled as to the reasons why such students in this particular city leave school before high-school graduation, and that academic, environmental, and personal factors might be identified in their relationship to the causation of dropouts or withdrawals.

The problem of this study was to determine if there was a difference in the self-concept of two groups of ninth-grade students when one group received the services of junior and senior students in a Peer Assistance and Leadership class. The results of the Piers-Harris Children's—Self—Concept Scale were used to determine the difference between the mean self-concept scores of the two groups and also to determine if there was a relationship between the criterion variable of the total self-concept score and eight predictor variables as identified by House Bill 1010: Limited English proficiency, age, school attendance, achievement scores two or more years below grade level in reading and mathematics on a norm-referenced test, failure to master any portion of the Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills, failure in two or more subjects, grade retention, and eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch. A total of 105 students, 50 in the experimental group and 55 in the control group, participated. The findings revealed that there was no significant difference in the mean self-concept scores of the two groups. The correlation revealed that there were significant differences between self-concept and the variables of mathematics achievement scores, failing grades, and eligibility for free lunch.

The government of Lesotho and the parent expect all learners to attend school daily to receive the best education so that they can have a bright future. Education prepares the learner for life; if the learner drops out, he/she will struggle to succeed in life. The ever increasing rate of primary school dropouts in Lesotho is of great concern as it has negatively impacted on education in the area. The education system as well as the Basotho community has over the years been affected in various ways. For example, school dropouts become liabilities to the community as they are not able to contribute maximally to nation building. In most cases the dropouts engage in anti-social criminal activities. They also cause educational wastage in the form of resources. For these reasons, it was of paramount importance to determine the reasons for dropouts and establish the possible solutions to this national problem. This study has examined factors influencing learners to dropout. It employed a qualitative research design, using focus group interviews and field notes to succeed in investigating the causal factors of learner dropouts. Purposive sampling was used for the research because it was convenient for the research in terms of time. By using purposive sampling, the researcher was able to include participants according to the relevant criteria based on the emerging research question: What are the factors influencing learner dropout? The main objective was to identify the factors influencing primary school learner dropouts in Teyateyaneng, Lesotho. The focus group interviews were made up of one principal and five educators from each of the three primary schools which are located in Teyateyaneng in the Berea district of Lesotho. This type of sampling was used because the researcher wanted rich information from participants regarding the reasons for learners dropping out of school. It has emerged from the empirical findings of the study that learner dropout is inter alia caused by school and home related factors. The study revealed that some learners dropped out of school because they were orphans, while others dropped out of school after being absent for a number of weeks. Mainstream classrooms were also found to encourage dropping out because educators are not fully trained to address problems that learners with disabilities bring to the classrooms. Lack of parental involvement was found to drive learners away from schools and into the streets. Due to poor financial situations learners leave school and are forced into child labour to better their families‟living conditions. Student educators were found to be a factor because they lack the necessary skills in developing learners. Other learners decided to stop schooling totally after repeating a grade.Due to the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS many learners are taken out of school to take care of their ill relatives. Some learners drop out of school after being abused and neglected. Due to the high unemployment rate and poverty in Lesotho, many learners quit school to support their families. All the above causes for learners dropping out of school have been discussed in detail in chapter four. These factors are complex issues, which should be handled by trained people. As learners spend a great ideal of time in their school environments, the educators play an integral part in alleviating the learners' social problems. It is essential that learners with social problems seek professional help at an early stage. Educators are obliged to help these learners although they are not necessarily equipped to give the required assistance. Suggestions and recommendations are mentioned to alleviate the situation. The study recommends that primary school learners should be encouraged to complete their primary level education. The Ministry of Education and Training should develop policy guidelines on inclusive education, facilitate legislation on compulsory basic education, improve teaching and learning conditions in all schools, abolish child labour, create employment opportunities for parents to prevent child labour, regulate traditional circumcision and solicit parental support. All the above suggestions hoped to be solutions to the problems of learner dropouts as discussed in detail in chapter two. / Inclusive Education / M. Ed. (Inclusive Education)

Objectif prioritaire du ministère de l’éducation nationale, la prévention du décrochage scolaire fait l’objet d’une prescription abondante en France. Le repérage du risque de décrochage ainsi que la mise en œuvre de réponses adaptées pose aux enseignants des problèmes professionnels nouveaux. Le propos est ici d’étudier l’impact de la prise en compte des élèves à risque de décrochage au sein des cours disciplinaires sur l’activité de travail des enseignants, à travers une intervention-recherche menée avec un collectif de professeurs de collège dans une classe de sixième, selon le cadre théorique et méthodologique de la clinique de l’activité et de l’ergonomie de l’activité enseignante. Nous tentons ici de comprendre le travail pour le transformer, mais aussi de transformer le travail pour le comprendre, à la demande des professionnels et avec leur concours. Nous cherchons donc à provoquer puis à étudier le développement professionnel des participants, notamment à partir de questions problématiques, soulevées par les acteurs eux-mêmes et en nous appuyant sur la méthodologie de l’autoconfrontation simple et croisée.Cette alliance entre une chercheure et un collectif de travailleurs enseignants aboutit pour ces derniers à un développement du pouvoir d’agir dans l’identification et la prévention du risque de décrochage chez leurs élèves, et offre des perspectives d’actions innovantes et de production de ressources pour la formation dans ce domaine. Sur le plan épistémique, elle ouvre des pistes vers une production d’invariants du développement du pouvoir d’agir et vers un certain nombre de conditions pouvant favoriser ce développement. / Priority of the national education ministry, dropout prevention is the subject of a lot of prescription in France. The identification of dropout risk and implementation of appropriate responses poses new professional problems.The purpose is to study the impact of the inclusion of students at risk of dropping out within disciplinary courses on teachers' working activity through an action-research conducted with a group of college professors in a sixth class, according to the theoretical and methodological framework of clinical activity and the ergonomics of the teaching activity. Here we try to understand work to transform it, but also transform work to understand, at the request of professionals and with their assistance. So we look to cause and study the professional development of participants, especially from problematic issues raised by the actors themselves and building on the methodology of simple and crossed self-confrontation.This alliance between a researcher and a group of teachers for these workers leads to a development of the power to act in identifying and preventing the risk of dropout students, and offers prospects for innovative actions and production resources for training in this area. On the epistemological level, it opens the way towards the production of invariants of the development of power to act and to a number of conditions that can promote this development.

This study is participant observational research focused on the culture of one successful alternative education program. The survey of the literature showed that the problem of high school dropouts is one of numbers and persistence over time. Most research in the past attempted to list characteristics of high school dropouts or elements of successful alternative education programs. Researchers such as Wehlage (1986) and Catterall (1987) have begun to look at a different approach. Their work looks at schools as systems and suggests that educators should direct their attention to the interaction of the school environment with the characteristics of the students. This view fits into a body of work that looks at schools and classrooms as microcultures. The work presented here looks at an alternative education program as a microculture and asks "What appears to be the distinguishing microculture created by the participants of Tri City Alternative Program?" The researcher collected data from interviews, observations, student projects and work, staff meetings, and program materials and records. The data were analyzed and organized to find patterns of behavior and interactions and to determine the meaning the participants attached to their interactions. The elements that distinguish the microculture of the alternative education program were divided into the features of the context and the features of the interactions. The elements of the context were described by the physical setting, the daily instructional schedule, and the non-instructional daily schedule. The elements of the interaction were described by clearly stated expectations, staff and student attention to culture, sense of caring and defining competence, and sense of humor. The researcher concludes by proposing three future areas of work. One is to develop a model of synchronization between the context and interactions of educational programs. The second is to complete additional cultural studies of high school dropouts. The last recommendation is to train teachers and students to use participant observational techniques in their classrooms to build their understanding of their own microcultures.

The purpose of this research was twofold. Since e-mentoring is relatively new, there have been very few studies that have explored the impact of an e-mentoring program on both the academic and psychological outcomes of its participants. In addition, there is little research on the quality of implementing, or what we will call the working quality, of an e-mentoring model. This study addressed both. First, the study examined whether or not e-mentoring had an academic and psychological impact on 32 high school students who were at-risk of dropping out of school. The students were enrolled in a GED Exit Option program at two technical centers in a large urban school district in Florida. Each student was matched with a mentor who was a business partner and involved with one or both of the technical centers in an advisory capacity. The students and mentors were randomly matched and never met face-to-face during the program. All of their communication and mentoring was done online using a secure e-mail program. Second, the working quality of the e-mentoring model was addressed. By using the design experiment methodology during the course of the study and examining the quality of each component of the e-mentoring model as it was being implemented, revisions were made as problems were identified during each component of the e-mentoring program. The structured e-mentoring model used was based on a review of the literature and specifically on the research of Single and Muller (1999). The students, mentors, and instructors who participated were co-participants in the design and analysis and provided input using surveys and focus groups at several intervals throughout the e-mentoring program. The design experiment approach was intended to help researchers deal with and learn from events in classrooms where it is impossible to control many variables and where the objective of the research is to refine a system (e.g., an e-mentoring program) or a curriculum. Analysis of the data showed there were no significant differences between the participants and the non-participants in the program as it related to self-esteem, career indecision, attendance, and academic achievement. However, the rich dialogue that occurred throughout the program allowed the researcher to examine the working quality of the program in progress. The modifications and improvements made to the e-mentoring process will provide an excellent foundation for future e-mentoring programs.

The primary purpose of this study was to examine how leadership strategies and practices contribute to student retention and sustained improvement in student graduation rates. The issue of students' success and graduation is important because educational attainment is positively correlated with every single important life outcome, and high school completion is widely regarded as the minimum education qualification needed to be able to earn an adequate income in the labour market (Levin, 2006). The conceptual framework of the study was built on Leithwood's transformational leadership model: setting direction (visions, goals and higher expectations), developing people (individualized support, intellectual stimulation and modeling), and redesigning the organization (culture, structure, policy and community relationships). Nine principals, were interviewed from four zone six Alberta school jurisdictions with significantly larger than provincial average three and five-year completion data, to determine how these formal leaders relate or support leadership strategies and Leithwood's Leadership practices to positively effect retention and graduation. Although many of the factors that impact on educational outcomes lie entirely outside the scope and responsibility of the school system, school leaders can utilize Leithwood's transformational leadership practices to increase the commitment of teachers to boost graduation rates. Leaders can and should seek to engage the support of teachers for this vision for the school and to enhance their capacities to contribute to achieving this goal. In general, leaders need to recognize the multi-faceted nature of the concept of at-risk and its affect on retention and graduation rates, and need to develop broad, multi-faceted prevention strategies and practices. / x, 160 leaves ; 29 cm.

The purpose of this study was to determine which academic and demographic factors predict students' achievement in the nursing major of a baccalaureate program. Records of 128 full time subjects were examined to extract the factors selected to be included in the analysis.Data pertaining to each independent variable were organized into three distinct groups based on the known performance of each subject following certification. One group passed all course work in the nursing major; one group failed one or more courses in the nursing major delaying completion; and one group was no longer enrolled. To investigate the differences in the group membership, discriminant function analyses were performed to examine academic and demographic predictors. A classification technique was utilized to test the adequacy of each discriminant function analysis. All classification analyses were 72.3 percent and above in probability level.Two null hypotheses guided this study: Hypothesis I proposed that academic factors do not predict attrition and/or retention in a baccalaureate nursing program; and Hypothesis II proposed that demographic factors do not interact with academic factors in predicting success. Hypothesis I was rejected , and Hypothesis II was not fully accepted based on discriminant function analyses.The following conclusions were identified from the findings of this study:1. Grade point averages in the required prerequisite courses predicted group membership (achievement) in the nursing major.2. Grade point averages of 3.0 during progression in the nursing major predicted membership in a group defined as continuing successfully in the first attempt of course work and graduating on time.3. Grade point averages of less than 3.0 following the first semester in the nursing major predicted membership in a group defined as failing at least one course, or perhaps predict membership in a group that will experience attrition.4. Ethnicity made a significant contribution with academic factors to predicting group membership for achievement.These results suggest that nursing educators and counselors need to consider the importance of not only closely monitoring each subject's semester grade point average, but also referring the identified problem to the appropriate service provider for intervention.3 / Department of Educational Leadership

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Leadership and Foundations. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Instructional Systems and Workforce Development. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.