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Abstract:
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Recent reports have shown that the United States continues to fall short of
achieving it educational goals set forth in the Goal 2000: Educate America Act signed
into law by President Clinton in 1994 which set a high school graduation rate goal of
90% by 2000. However, in 2000, 27.8% of Hispanics, 13.1% of Blacks, and 6.9% of
Whites dropped out of high school. Not only does the United States fail to meet its
national goals, but on the global scene, the United States lagged behind Germany and
Japan in high school graduation rates for young adults between the ages of 25-34.
Although many investigations have acknowledged the importance of the environmental
context when examining educational outcomes mass exodus from Skinner’s assertion that
“A person does not act upon the world, the world acts him” has resulted in an explosion
of perception related research in the literature. While it is agreed that “social address”
variables on their own do not adequately explain the complexities of educational
dynamics, the author believed that the complete abandonment of one thought in
preference to another can result in the lost of key components that can assist in finding
enduring solutions to the array of problems with which the education community is faced.
The general purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among chosen
environmental factors and personal factors on high school completion on a national
sample of young adults. A secondary purpose of the study was to test the plausibility of a
hypothesized high school completion model. The final purpose of the study was to
develop a model of high school completion among young adults. A combination of
descriptive analysis, logistic regression analysis and structural equation modeling were
employed to answer two research questions. Results indicated that there was acombination of the variables that could satisfactorily predict high school completion. In
addition, the proposed model, with a minor modification, provided an adequate fit for the
data. Furthermore, five findings were noteworthy: 1)the environment was an important
determinant of a young adult’s high school completion status, 2) the environment impacts
personal and self factors, more so than personal and self factors impact the environment,
3) socioeconomic status played an important role in determining academic outcomes, 4)
locus of control beliefs and self-concept were important components of the self-system
with locus of control beliefs being a more significant component than self-concept, and
they can be reliably utilized as measure of personal factors; and 5) school climate was an
important component of environment. Implications for education and future research
were also addressed. |