Addressing Diversity in Rural Education

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Overview of Rural High SchoolAspirations Study
Judith L. Meece, UNC-CH Matthew Irvin,
UNC-CH Robert Petrin, Penn State Univ. Kai
Schafft, Penn State Univ.
U.S. Department of Education, Institute of
Educational Sciences Research and Development
Center Grant R305A040056-06
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Collaborators
Thomas W. Farmer, Co-Principal Investigator Soo-yo
ng Byun, Postdoctoral Scholar Bryan Hutchins,
Research Associate Kimberly Dadisman,
Investigator Dylan Robertson, Investigator Glen
Elder, Investigator Vonnie McLoyd, Investigator
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Objectives of Overview

• Describe aims and design of Rural HSA Project
• Present information on rural youths adult
  aspirations
• Present information on educational barriers of
  rural youth
• Present information on influence of community
• context on youths future aspirations
• Discuss the implications of the research for
  school
• programs and school-community relations.

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Aims of Rural HSA Study

• To generate new information about rural high
  school students educational, vocational, and
  residential plans and aspirations for the future
• To assess rural high school students preparatory
  activities and planning for postsecondary
  education, work, and adult life
• To examine the impact of school experiences,
  geographical location, economic status, cultural
  or ethnic origins, family background, peer
  relations, and community characteristics on rural
  students aspirations and preparatory activities.

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Giving a Voice to Rural Schools

• A lot of our students dont think they have a
  future. Its hard to motivate them.
• (School Guidance Counselor)
• We moved to a rural community to escape city
  schools. There is a lot that city schools can
  learn from rural schools.
• (Parent of Participant)
• I plan to be a millionaire and to be very
  successful. Thank you for coming to our school.
  (High School Student)

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Design of RHSA Study
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Rural HSA Sample Selection

• Sampling frame was 101,104 public schools in
• the 2004-05 Common Core of Data
• Schools with one or more students in 9th grade
• or above were included
• Schools were classified according to
• subtypes based on locale designations
• (6, 7, 8, 43), and eligibility for Rural
  Education
• Achievement Programs (RLIS SRSA)
• Sample currently includes 73 randomly selected
• schools across these school types.
• Focus groups in 12 randomly selected school
  sites.

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Rural High School Aspiration Sitesby Type of
School
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Rural HSA Sample
School Type Number of Schools School Size Poverty Status Minority Percent
Rural Remote 43 32 - 418 0 - 99 0 - 95
Rural Distant 19 81 - 661 18 - 82 1 - 99
Rural Fringe 3 123 - 400 31 - 81 3 - 85
Small Town 8 165 - 1883 16 - 51 1 - 56
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Rural Education Achievement Programs
School Type RLIS SRSA
Rural Remote 7 15
Rural Distant 8 5
Rural Fringe 1 1
Small Town 3 1
Total 19 22
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Rural HSA Measures Students

• Demographic characteristics
• Educational and vocational expectations
• Perceived educational and vocational barriers
• Family background characteristics
• School engagement, connection, and participation
• Peer and friend networks
• Self-reported academic achievement, efficacy, and
  values
• Postsecondary preparation activities from school,
  family, and community resources

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Rural HSA Measures Parents Teachers

• Items paralleled student survey with regards to
• Educational vocational expectations for
  individual students in the sample
• Perceived barriers for educational and vocational
  plans for individual students in the sample
• Behavioral and academic characteristics for
  individual students in the sample
• Perceptions of academic preparation, school
  climate
• Background information on parents and teachers

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Rural HSA MeasuresAdministrator Survey

• Teacher quality
• Residence
• Class size
• Programs available
• High school transitions programs
• Strengths of schools and community
• Challenges of schools and community
• Employment opportunities in community

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Aspiration Questions

• Educational Aspirations
• How far in school would you MOST like to go?
• Occupational Aspirations
• What type of job or occupation do you plan to
  have right after high school?
• At age 30, what kind of job or occupation would
  you MOST like to have at age 30?
• Residential Aspirations
• Where do you WANT to live when you are age 30?

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Educational Aspirations
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Educational Aspirations of Rural Youth Totals vs.
Rural Remote
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Where Do Rural Youth Plan To Attain Postsecondary
Education?
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SummaryRural Students Educational Plans

• Approximately 7 of youth reported that they were
  unsure of their educational plans after high
  school.
• Only a small percent (6) of rural youth expected
  to discontinue their education after high school.
• Approximately 13 of rural youth expected to
  attend and complete two years of postsecondary
  education at a community college or
  vocational/trade school.
• Approximately 77 of rural youth plan to complete
  college or an advanced graduate or professional
  degree.
• Educational plans of youth in Rural Remote
  locations were comparable to other rural youth in
  the RHSA sample.

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Future Vocational Aspirations
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Vocational Aspirations (at age 30) of Rural Youth
Total vs. Rural Remote
Total Total Rural Remote Rural Remote
  N N
Professional 3,520 51.3 1,438 48.8
Education (School teacher) 477 6.9 216 7.3
Technical 376 5.5 157 5.3
Manager 134 2 55 1.9
Proprietor 123 1.8 48 1.6
Sales 53 0.8 21 0.7
Clerical 22 0.3 7 0.2
Craftsman 99 1.4 40 1.4
Farmer 132 1.9 79 2.7
Military 147 2.1 61 2.1
Protective Service 293 4.3 119 4
Homemaker 7 0.1 4 0.1
Service 546 8 250 8.5
Operative 159 2.3 64 2.2
Laborer 501 7.3 252 8.5
Don't know 272 4 134 4.5
No, None, Retired 5 0.1 3 0.1
Total 6,866 100 2,948 100
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Required Educational Levels of Rural YouthTotal
vs. Rural Remote
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Summary Rural Students Vocational Plans

• Approximately 13 of rural students planned to
  work in a full-time job right after high school
  (work-bound) only 16 of these students knew the
  type of job they planned to pursue.
• Only 9 of rural students thought they would have
  the same job or career as a family member.
• By age 30, 90 of rural students planned to work
  or to have a career.
• Nearly 50 of rural youth aspired to careers in
  healthcare, education, and technical fields.

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Future Residential Plans
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Residential Aspirations (at age 30) of Rural Youth
Same State (54)
Another State (41)
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Conclusions

• A large percent of rural youth plan to pursue
  professional careers that require a college
  degree (38) or advanced degree (18).
• Geographical isolation was not a strong predictor
  of rural youths educational and vocational
  plans.
• Approximately one-third of sample were undecided
  about their residential plans another 24 of the
  sample planned to live in their own community or
  another rural town or area.
• The findings have important implications for
  secondary educational programs to prepare rural
  youth for their postsecondary transition to
  adulthood.
• The findings also have important implications for
  rural communities if their youth leave to seek
  educational and vocational opportunities
  elsewhere and not return to their home
  communities.

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Educational Barriers
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Theoretical Framework

• Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT)
  postulates bidirectional relations between
  cognitive-person (e.g., self-efficacy),
  behavioral, and contextual variables.
• SCCT initially posited recent work explicitly
  integrated role of barriers

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Educational Barriers

• Studies have begun to demonstrate their
  importance
• perceived barriers predict career aspirations
  outcome expectations
• findings are mixed
• Educational barriers predict postsecondary
  educational expectations among rural Appalachian
  youth living in high poverty areas (Ali
  McWhirter, 2006)
• Barriers predictive of career outcome
  expectations but not academic outcome
  expectations among Midwestern rural youth
  (Wettersten et al., 2005)

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Need to Consider Educational Barriers

• Perceived barriers central to postsecondary
  attainment as can prevent youth from pursuing
  aspirations and interests
• Identifying individual differences especially
  important for youth that may encounter
  difficulties in reaching postsecondary goals
• found gender and ethnic differences

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Need to Consider Educational Barriers

• Little work has focused on rural youth or
  involved limited samples of rural youth
• Over 50 of U.S. districts and 10 million
  students are rural
• Less apt to complete college
• (Johnson Strange, 2007 Kusmin, 2007 Provasnik
  et al., 2007)

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Purpose

• Describe educational barriers clarify
  individual differences in perceived educational
  barriers among diverse sample of rural youth

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Student-Report Measure of Educational Barriers

• asked whether planning to continue his/her
  education beyond high school (No, Yes, and
  Not Sure)
• if No asked how much each of several factors
  have affected plan not to continue his/her
  education beyond high school
• if Yes or Not Sure asked how difficult (1
  not at all to 7 very much) each of several
  factors may make it to complete his/her
  postsecondary education

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Item Response Theory (IRT) Measurement Models
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Rural High School StudentsPerceptions of Their
Local Economy and Economic Prospects

Robert A. Petrin Center for Education and
Development Science Pennsylvania State University
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Overview

• Part of our research has focused on what we have
  been referring to as students perceptions of
  community
• Gauging students impressions of various aspects
  of their rural communities (perceptions of
  community)
• Understanding how these perceptions are
  associated with student life choices and plans
  for the future
• Understanding how these perceptions are
  correlated with student, peer group, school, and
  community characteristics

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Overview (Cont.)

• Today provide a sense of some of the directions
  weve been taking with this research, and some
  what weve been finding
• Focus for this talk 6 Items from survey
  pertaining to sense of local economy and economic
  prospects

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Overview (Cont.)

• In working with these items we draw upon various
  methodologies to . . .
• Aggregate student responses to make them more
  analytically tractable, easier to use
• Evaluate meaningful patterns of responses
• In particular, weve made extensive use of
• Factor Analysis()
• Latent Class Analysis

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Overview (Cont.)

• In this case, the indicators are categorical, the
  resulting CFA measures are interval-scaled
• Can use resulting measures to make simple mean
  comparisons, by selected outcomes and predictors

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Student Perceptions Vary By Locale Overall
Rural Remote Students Have The Least Robust
Outlook Regarding Economic Prospects
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Perceptions of Economic Conditions Matter Less
with Respect to Educational Aspirations than Do
Perceptions of Economic Prospects . . .
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Overall, Perceptions of Economic Conditions Have
a Stronger Association with Getting Away From
Area than Do Perceptions of Economic Prospects
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Additional Analyses

• We have also used regression-style analyses to
  examine predictors of Economic Conditions,
  Economic Prospects
• Throughout our exploratory analyses (not shown),
  we consistently found evidence that such
  associations differed by gender
• Therefore we modeled differences in predictive
  relationships by gender

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Selected Findings

• In these gender-specific analyses we found . . .
• For Boys
• Self-reported academic program tends to play a
  stronger role for boys than is case for girls
• College Prep boys have a less robust sense of
  economic prospects (vs. boys in General Program)
• Voc/Tech/Ag boys have a more robust sense of
  economic prospects (vs. boys in General Program)

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Selected Findings (Cont.)

• For Boys (Cont.)
• Preliminary analyses suggest that school
  isolation plays a stronger role for boys than for
  girls
• Boys from more highly educated households have a
  more favorable opinion of economic prospects

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Selected Findings (Cont.)

• For Girls
• Higher achieving girls have a more robust sense
  of local economic conditions (but perhaps a less
  robust sense of their own prospects)
• There are statistically significant regional
  effects on perceptions of local economic
  conditions (all regions are more favorable
  relative to North East)

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Selected Findings (Cont.)

• For Both Boys and Girls
• Students in higher grade levels tend to have a
  less favorable sense of local economy
• Students in poorer schools have less favorable
  views of local economy, and a less favorable
  views of their economic prospects

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Additional Analyses

• Latent Class Analyses
• Distinct typologies exist by gender
• Generally the structure of girls responses is
  more complex than boys
• Multilevel Analyses (i.e., HLM-type models)
• Provide a richer perspective on the unique
  contribution of various community factors by
  controlling for individual schools
  idiosyncrasies