Dropout Problem Research Articles

Dropping out: Why are students leaving junior high in China's poor rural areas?

Despite requirements of and support for universal education up to grade 9, there are concerning reports that poor rural areas in China suffer from high and maybe even rising dropout rates. Although aggregated statistics from the Ministry of Education show almost universal compliance with the 9-year compulsory education law, there have been few independent, survey-based studies regarding dropout rates in China. Between 2009 and 2010 we surveyed over 7800 grade 7, 8, and 9 students from 46 randomly selected junior high schools in four counties in two provinces in North and Northwest China to measure the dropout rate. We also used the survey data to examine factors correlated with dropping out, such as the opportunity cost of going to school, household poverty, and poor academic performance. According to the study's findings, drop out rates between grade 7 and grade 8 reached 5.7% and dropout rates between grade 8 and grade 9 reached 9.0%. In sum, among the total number of students attending junior high school during the first month of the first term of grade 7, 14.2% had left school by the first month of grade 9. Dropout rates were even higher for students that were older, from poorer families (and families in which the parents were not healthy), or were performing more poorly academically. We conclude that although the government's policy of reducing tuition and fees for junior high students may be necessary, it is not sufficient to solve the dropout problem.

An Information System for Coping with Student Dropout

Student dropout prevention is one of the most important challenges of the education system. This study examines the effectiveness of a Local Authority Information Center (LAIC), developed in Israel to cope with that problem. The research population included 418 regular attendance officers (RAOs), educators who deal with students who drop out and those who are at risk of dropping out. The RAOs were divided into an experimental group, who performed their work using the information system, and a control group who used manual means. The research findings show that the information system improved the comprehensive nature of the information and its relevance for students at risk of dropping out, and resulted in an increase in the number of students treated by the RAOs. This improvement was maintained over a period of three years. The LAIC is likely to offer an effective and professional approach to reducing the problem of student dropout.

School Dropouts and Conditional Cash Transfers: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial in Rural China's Junior High Schools

Recent anecdotal reports suggest that dropout rates may be higher and actually increasing over time in poor rural areas. There are many reasons not to be surprised that there is a dropout problem, given the fact that China has a high level of poverty among the rural population, a highly competitive education system and rapidly increasing wages for unskilled workers. The overall goal of this study is to examine if there is a dropout problem in rural China and to explore the effectiveness that a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program could have on dropouts (and mechanism by which the CCT might affect drop outs). To meet this objective, we conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a CCT using a sample of 300 junior high school students in a nationally-designated poor county in Northwest China. Using our data, we found that the annual dropout rate in the study county was high, about 7.0%. We find, however, that a CCT program reduces drop outs by 60%; the dropout rate is 13.3% in the control group and 5.3 % in the treatment group. The program is most effective in the case of girls, younger students and the poorest performing students.

School Dropouts and Conditional Cash Transfers: Evidence from a Randomised Controlled Trial in Rural China's Junior High Schools

The overall goal of this study is to examine if there is a dropout problem in rural China and to explore the effectiveness of a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme on the rate of dropping out. To meet this goal, we conduct a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to assess the impact of the CCT using a sample of the poorest 300 junior high school students in a nationally-designated poor county in Northwest China. We find that the annual dropout rate in the study county was 7.8 per cent and even higher, 13.3 per cent, among the children of poor households. We demonstrate that a CCT program reduces dropout by 60 per cent. The programme is most effective among students with poor academic performance, and likely more effective among girls and younger students.

Need for Human Rights Education for Female Children: A Case Study in Tuticorin District, Tamil Nadu

Education is a fundamental human right as well as a catalyst for economic growth and human development. Women's education is extremely important intrinsically as it is their human right and is required for the flourishing of many of their capacities. The present study has been conducted with an objective to have in-depth insight into the problem of female school dropouts in primary to higher secondary classes in Tuticorin District of Tamil Nadu.

Need for Human Rights Education for Female Children: A Case Study in Tuticorin District, Tamil Nadu

Education is a fundamental human right as well as a catalyst for economic growth and human development. Women's education is extremely important intrinsically as it is their human right and is required for the flourishing of many of their capacities. The present study has been conducted with an objective to have in-depth insight into the problem of female school dropouts in primary to higher secondary classes in Tuticorin District of Tamil Nadu.

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking Completes Another Milestone

I am pleased to bring you the 2010 December issue of CyberPsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Not only does this issue mark the completion of another successful and informative year, it also marks one full year of publication under the Journal’s new title and expanded scope that lead to the official inclusion of the rapidly growing field of social networking. During this year, the Journal has undergone several changes. It is now ranked 5th out of 54 in the ‘‘Communication’’ category of the JCR Social Sciences Edition and its Impact Factor* has climbed from 1.295 to 1.591. In addition, there have been several changes to the Journal’s Editorial Board. Long time members Giuseppe Riva, Ph.D., and Stephane Bouchard, Ph.D., have become the Journal’s new European Editor and Associate Editor respectively, and for the first time, we have now included an Associate Editor from Asia. I am pleased to welcome Chia-Wen Tsai, Ph.D., from Ming Chuan University, Taiwan. Finally, we have enlarged our board to include several new members with expanded areas of expertise, reflecting the new scope of the Journal, and I bid them a warm welcome. This month’s articles follow five separate themes. The first of these is technology adoption and research. In their paper, researchers Sanford and Oh examine the role of user resistance to change in shaping users’ information technology adoption and usage behaviors. They postulate that resistance not only has a direct negative effect on IT usage, but also biases users when it comes to perceived usefulness and intention to use in a negative manner. This study enhances previous research in the area by demonstrating the importance of previously ignored inhibiting factors, establishing user resistance as an important construct to consider in IT usage research. Later in the issue, Hoerger addresses the problem of participant dropout in Internet-mediated research. Though this type of research allows for the recruitment of large participant samples, it does bring up technical, ethical, and methodological issues for researchers. The results of this study hold ramifications for study design considerations for investigators conducting Internet-mediated studies. Next is texting and cell-phone use. In their article, Jin and Park examine how interpersonal motives (such as affection, loneliness, and inclusion) motivate people to text and make calls on their cell phones. In addition, they explore how faceto-face interaction influences cell-phone use. Along the same lines, Junco, Merson, and Salter study how gender, ethnicity, and income level affect cell-phone ownership and use and instant messaging among college students. Because campus officials are increasingly relying on these technologies to communicate with students, the researchers aim to determine how best to reach the student population. Following in the tradition of the Journal, several papers in this issue address Internet misuse. Seigfried-Spellar and Rogers attempt to identify and understand the personality characteristics of female consumers of Internet Child Pornography (ICP). Traits examined include neuroticism, hedonism, and race as they relate to ICP consumption. Later, Stieger and Burger highlight the role of self-esteem in Internet addiction. As previous research has often found that people suffering from certain clinical disorders possess low explicit self-esteem while at the same time displaying high implicit self-esteem (a phenomenon called damaged self-esteem), the authors investigate whether the same might be true for those suffering from Internet addiction. First in the Rapid Communications section is an article examining the relationships between the online lifestyles of South Korean students and their tendency toward Internet addiction and level of cyber ethics. Lee’s preliminary study reveals that Internet users impose different meanings and values on their Internet experiences and these contribute to their behaviors online. Other articles are centered around online role-playing games. In the first article of this issue, Yeh presents information on design collaboration between consumers and developers in online role-playing games. The study explores how consumers’ prior experience affects their participation in and evaluation of these collaborations. Findings indicate that for the process to be successful, the potential market-segment focus should be on knowledgeable consumers who accept such products readily. Later, Han et al. report changes in brain activity between baseline and after six weeks of Internet video-game play. The researchers hypothesized that subjects with high levels of self-reported craving for Internet videogame play would have increased activity in the prefrontal cortex. The relationship between brain changes observed in this study and those observed in brains in the early stages of addiction are discussed. Next, Jin and Lee explore the possible uses of interactive 3-D virtual environments (like Second Life) for effective e-health marketing and e-brand management. Their study examines the effects of the regulatory fit that consumers experience in interactive e-health marketing on their brand satisfaction and brand trust.

On Estimating the Relationship between Longitudinal Measurements and Time‐to‐Event Data Using a Simple Two‐Stage Procedure

Ye, Lin, and Taylor (2008, Biometrics 64, 1238-1246) proposed a joint model for longitudinal measurements and time-to-event data in which the longitudinal measurements are modeled with a semiparametric mixed model to allow for the complex patterns in longitudinal biomarker data. They proposed a two-stage regression calibration approach that is simpler to implement than a joint modeling approach. In the first stage of their approach, the mixed model is fit without regard to the time-to-event data. In the second stage, the posterior expectation of an individual's random effects from the mixed-model are included as covariates in a Cox model. Although Ye et al. (2008) acknowledged that their regression calibration approach may cause a bias due to the problem of informative dropout and measurement error, they argued that the bias is small relative to alternative methods. In this article, we show that this bias may be substantial. We show how to alleviate much of this bias with an alternative regression calibration approach that can be applied for both discrete and continuous time-to-event data. Through simulations, the proposed approach is shown to have substantially less bias than the regression calibration approach proposed by Ye et al. (2008). In agreement with the methodology proposed by Ye et al. (2008), an advantage of our proposed approach over joint modeling is that it can be implemented with standard statistical software and does not require complex estimation techniques.

Do we have what it takes to put all students on the graduation path?

According to current estimates, more than a quarter of all students and over 40 percent of African American and Hispanic students do not graduate from high school on time. The vast majority of those young people who do not graduate with their peers drop out. The enormous costs to these individuals, their communities, and our society require us to invest in systems that accurately identify young people at risk of dropping out and provide the supports necessary to keep them on track to graduation. This chapter offers a framework for action that calls on communities to identify the scale and scope of the dropout problem and understand why students disengage from school; transform or replace low-performing schools; install early warning and multitiered response systems that provide comprehensive, targeted, and intensive supports to students in and out of school; establish supportive policies and resource allocations; and build community will and capacity so positive changes are deeply implemented and sustained.

Examining School Related Factors Leading to Dropout Through Children's Conceptions and Experiences: Development of a Scale for Attitudes Towards Elementary School

Despite state support for mass education in Turkey, there are many primary school children who do not attend school or who drop out before finishing school. This study is part of a project investigating the problem of school dropout in a district of Istanbul. Factors related to school, such as failure, non-acceptance by teachers and peers, poor attendance, and low levels of involvement, have been associated with increased likelihood of dropout. Modifying the instructional environment, strengthening school membership, and creating alternative schools have been suggested as means to prevent dropout. A questionnaire assessing attitudes toward school was administered to 480 students from 13 elementary schools for the purpose of identifying the characteristics of schools that lead to dropout. Factor analysis results indicated five factors of school-related attitudes, including attitudes toward learning; toward teachers; toward school and school facilities; and students' perceptions of parent-school relationships.

Schools as Sites for Transformation: Exploring the Contribution of Habitus

Schools are often criticized for their role in creating the dropout problem. This article illustrates that with the right resources and approach, educational programs could become sites of transformation rather than reproducers of social inequality. Narrative and thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with graduates of a nationwide program that serves high school dropouts reveals that its asset-based, mission-driven approach touched many aspects of these students’ lives and produced changes in elements of their habitus. Aspects of the program that appeared to be central in changing participants’ habitus include the development of self-esteem, the ability to accomplish something of value, and the capacity to contribute to the welfare of others. Implications of these findings for influencing the habitus of school dropouts and improving upward social mobility are discussed.

Female Dropouts in Botswana Junior Secondary Schools

A serious problem in Botswana is the large number of girls and young women who drop out of school. Just over half of the female population attends secondary schools, and the percentage of school-enrolled females has fallen in recent years. Few researchers have studied the dropout problem in Botswana. Twenty-four individuals selected for this study were associated with a junior secondary school (grades 8–10) and a nongovernmental agency located in a section of Gaborone, the capital city that began as a squatter camp but has now been registered by the Botswana government as a residential area. Case study and portraiture methods were utilized to examine the experiences and perceptions of the female dropouts and the role of education in their lives.

Segmented assimilation in the Netherlands? Young migrants and early school leaving

There has been ongoing debate in the Netherlands in recent years about second-generation immigrant youth, a debate fuelled by two rather persistent phenomena: high school dropout and unemployment among migrant youth. Fear exists that migrant youth will become marginalized. This raises the question: to what extent the position of migrant youth can be viewed as manifesting downward mobility, leading to a form of segmented assimilation? This article examines the problems of education and dropout, and discusses the significance of the many statistics which either prove or refute the assumed gravity of the problem. Then follows an outline of the policy landscape and the concomitant discriminatory effects to complete the picture. We conclude that downward segmented assimilation is not the dominant trend, and end with a discussion of new forms of ethnic exclusion that lay the blame for not integrating well into Dutch society on migrant youth themselves.

On Estimating the Relationship between Longitudinal Measurements and Time-to-Event Data Using a Simple Two-Stage Procedure

Summary Ye, Lin, and Taylor (2008, Biometrics 64, 1238–1246) proposed a joint model for longitudinal measurements and time-to-event data in which the longitudinal measurements are modeled with a semiparametric mixed model to allow for the complex patterns in longitudinal biomarker data. They proposed a two-stage regression calibration approach that is simpler to implement than a joint modeling approach. In the first stage of their approach, the mixed model is fit without regard to the time-to-event data. In the second stage, the posterior expectation of an individual's random effects from the mixed-model are included as covariates in a Cox model. Although Ye et al. (2008) acknowledged that their regression calibration approach may cause a bias due to the problem of informative dropout and measurement error, they argued that the bias is small relative to alternative methods. In this article, we show that this bias may be substantial. We show how to alleviate much of this bias with an alternative regression calibration approach that can be applied for both discrete and continuous time-to-event data. Through simulations, the proposed approach is shown to have substantially less bias than the regression calibration approach proposed by Ye et al. (2008). In agreement with the methodology proposed by Ye et al. (2008), an advantage of our proposed approach over joint modeling is that it can be implemented with standard statistical software and does not require complex estimation techniques.

Finishing High School: Alternative Pathways and Dropout Recovery

John Tyler and Magnus Lofstrom take a close look at the problems posed when students do not complete high school. The authors begin by discussing the ongoing, sometimes heated, debate over how prevalent the dropout problem is. They note that one important reason for discrepancies in reported dropout rates is whether holders of the General Educational Development (GED) credential are counted as high school graduates. The authors also consider the availability of appropriate student data. The overall national dropout rate appears to be between 22 and 25 percent, but the rate is higher among black and Hispanic students, and it has not changed much in recent decades. Tyler and Lofstrom conclude that schools are apparently doing about as well now as they were forty years ago in terms of graduating students. But the increasingly competitive pressures associated with a global economy make education ever more important in determining personal and national well-being. A student's decision to drop out of school, say the authors, is affected by a number of complex factors and is often the culmination of a long process of disengagement from school. That decision, not surprisingly, carries great cost to both the student and society. Individual costs include lower earnings, higher likelihood of unemployment, and greater likelihood of health problems. Because minority and low-income students are significantly more likely than well-to-do white students to drop out of school, the individual costs fall unevenly across groups. Societal costs include loss of tax revenue, higher spending on public assistance, and higher crime rates. Tyler and Lofstrom go on to survey research on programs designed to reduce the chances of students' dropping out. Although the research base on this question is not strong, they say, close mentoring and monitoring of students appear to be critical components of successful programs. Other dropout-prevention approaches associated with success are family outreach and attention to students' out-of-school problems, as well as curricular reforms. The authors close with a discussion of second-chance programs, including the largest such program, the GED credential.

No shortcuts to outcome in MS clinical trials?

A major and unavoidable problem in disease-modifying treatment (DMT) trials in multiple sclerosis (MS) is that most randomized controlled trials (RCT) only run over 2 years, which is less than 1/15 of the life expectancy in MS. Longer studies are difficult to perform due to high dropout rates and problems with maintaining blinding. During a 2-year duration of the controlled and blinded phase of a RCT, which, in case of RRMS, usually starts a short time after the diagnosis has been established, one may expect few relapses and only slight accumulation of disability according to the natural history of the disease. Thus, a positive RCT has to show that patients in the treatment arm of a study, in terms of relapses and sustained increase in disability, do better than patients of the placebo arm, who are themselves expected to do relatively well within this narrow time …

Dropout Problem and Coaching Method Revision for Beginners in Brazil Kendo

Dropout Problem and Coaching Method Revision for Beginners in Brazil Kendo

A Research and Development Framework for the School Drop-out Problem

Persistent school drop-out rates signal limitations in existing research and development frameworks. Alternatives are needed. The alternative framework provided here begins with a new conception of student success. It illuminates the need for P-16, whole systems education reform. It emphasizes early warning and rapid response systems focused on four target populations, while illuminating the special needs of high-poverty school communities challenged by social exclusion and social isolation. Improved dropout planning depends on expanded models of school improvement, new roles for social/health service providers, expanded conceptions of teaching and learning, and genuine collaboration.

A Research and Development Framework for the School Drop-out Problem

Persistent school drop-out rates signal limitations in existing research and development frameworks. Alternatives are needed. The alternative framework provided here begins with a new conception of student success. It illuminates the need for P-16, whole systems education reform. It emphasizes early warning and rapid response systems focused on four target populations, while illuminating the special needs of high-poverty school communities challenged by social exclusion and social isolation. Improved dropout planning depends on expanded models of school improvement, new roles for social/health service providers, expanded conceptions of teaching and learning, and genuine collaboration.

Incorporating temporal information into active contour method for detecting heart wall boundary from echocardiographic image sequence

A new method which incorporates temporal information into the active contour function is proposed to solve the dropout and speckle noise problems encountered when detecting the inner heart wall boundary from echocardiographic image sequence. The ventricular boundary is considered to be composed of strong and weak segments. The weak segments are interfered by image degradations in ultrasound, and they are too weak to constrain the curve evolution. Temporal information is incorporated into the external energy of the active contour function to recover the missing boundary and strengthen the weak segments. Experimental results demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method for the intended task.