Campus Location
Abilene Campus (Residential)
Date of Award
Spring 5-2018
Document Type
Thesis
Department
Social Work
Degree Name
Master of Science
Committee Chair or Primary Advisor
Thomas Winter
Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor
Stephanie Hamm
Third Committee Member or Committee Reader
Sarah McLean
Abstract
The following study seeks to answer the question: What impact does a local Communities In Schools (CIS), a nationwide dropout prevention program, affiliate's interventions have on a high school student's academic performance, absenteeism, and completion rates? To do this, the study examines the grade point average, absenteeism rate, and completion rate of 1298 students across four years of existing data from a local school district. For comparison purposes, the study uses a quasi-experimental approach and breaks the data into four groups: two experimental groups (At-Risk CIS students and Not-At-Risk CIS students) and two control groups (At-Risk students and Not-At-Risk students). To calculate the above variables for the four groups, two-sample t-tests were conducted for grade point average and absenteeism, with a cross tabulation analysis was conducted to compare the completion rate of the four groups. Findings report that At-Risk students who received CIS services at one or more points during their high school career experience an average increase of 6.6% in their grade point averages, there was virtually no difference in absenteeism between those At-Risk students who received CIS services and those who did not, and there was virtually no change in the completion rate of At-Risk students who received CIS services and those who did not.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Spruill, Coleton Cooper Dean, "An Examination of the Impact That Communities In Schools' Interventions Make On High School Academic Performance" (2018). Digital Commons @ ACU, Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 97.
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/97