Why Do Students with Disabilities Drop Out of High School - Essay Example

?CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY Introduction Due to the rates of special education who drop out of high school and the alarming negative consequences of noncompletion, this study will focus on identifying the top reasons why these students decide to drop out of high school in order to develop more effective dropout prevention programs. The study is focused in finding out the reasons why the special education students drop out, hence putting emphasis on the students’ experiences. The method to use in this type of study is the phenomenological approach which asserts that the meaning of phenomena can be understood through the experiences of those who are involved (Wiggan, 2008, p. 322). Research Questions Given this objective, the key question that will be answered in this proposed study is “Why do students with disabilities drop out of high school?” This chapter discusses how this question will be answered. Because it is a “why” question, the qualitative methodology was selected as it is more appropriate when contending with such abstract human behaviors, such as the act of dropping out of school. This proposed study requires a flexible research design because it addresses a human phenomenon that should also make space for behavioral factors. Hence, the qualitative method’s objectives of describing and explaining variations, relationships, individual experiences and group norms make it the most suitable for this study. For instance, when observing and interviewing participants, the set of interview questions determined beforehand should allow enough room for follow-up questions. This is by using a nonstructured format (Morocco, et al, 2006). Likewise, analyzing the data to be gathered will involve flexibility as categories that are not expected will arise and factors that seem inconsequential may became significant. The study may need to be adjusted in the coding and analysis of the data as these previously insignificant factors and categories may become more important in order to be able to present more accurate and comprehensive results. Design Qualitative research can “see precisely which events led to which consequences and derive fruitful explanations” (Miles and Huberman, 1994, p. 1). Moreover, it has a higher chance of being able to arrive at unanticipated findings and new combinations and reationships (Miles and Huberman, 1994). These reasons are why the qualitative research design has been selected for this study as it can provide a clear view of why students with disabilities drop out of high school. It must be clarified that although quantitative data, such as statistics and percentages, will be used in the study, it only serves as supportive numbers that will lay the groundwork for this study. Furthermore, it is intended for this qualitative research to act as a precursive study for more accurate and extensive quantitative study on the same topic. Active Observation The study will employ a qualitative research design that will be based on active observation with “a nonstructured format to allow for maximum flexibility” (Morocco, et al, 2006, p. 140). The qualitative research design has been criticized by many for its supposed inexactness due to its “interpretative, subjective, impressionistic and diagnostic” nature as it has been claimed that there are no unbiased observers (Thomson, 2007). However, when contending with abstract data, like “the often contradictory behaviors, beliefs, opinions, emotions, and relationships of individuals” and in this case, the reasons why certain people act a particular way, active observation is best employed as its strength lies in its capability to be able to provide a textual characterization of complex events such as human experience (Mack, et al., 2005). Intensive Interview Data will be collected through intensive interviews of special education high school student dropouts through personal (face-to-face) meetings and via electronic mail (e-mail). An iterative questionnaire would follow the interview in order to elicit the needed response. The data gathered will be interpreted and analyzed through the use of a coding system that will be made to fit the design of the study and its objectives and include all significant variables, both status and alterable. Data analysis will involve the grounding of the results on the various relevant theories and strategies for dropout prevention that will be encountered through the course of secondary research. These references are cited accordingly within the body and at the end of the study. Participants Identifying the top reasons why special education students drop out of high school is a complex task that involves varying factors and variables. It must be noted that the reasons why students with disabilities drop out are personal; and so, it is also imperative to include a characterization of the students and incorporate this into the data analyses. The participants in the study will include male and female special education high school dropouts from Ridgeville High School who dropped out of school during the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 school years. The age of these students will range from 16 to 18 years old. The students will also have dropped out during their third or fourth year in high school. Aside from students with disabilities, tenured faculty members, the principal, and other staff members will be interviewed with regards to their experiences and educated opinions on why these students dropped out. These high school levels were selected because they are the ones closest to graduation, which operates on the premise that these students must have had very specific reasons for deciding not to complete their high school education when graduation was not far away. This does not mean that high school freshmen and sophomores do not have the same significant reasons; but they have more time to go back to school. For these juniors and seniors, they must have had significant reasons for not graduating. What could their reasons be that they could not endure them for the short period of time until graduation? There are many factors and variables that relate to why they dropped out of high school (Lehr, et al., 2004, p. 12). It must be clarified, though, that this characterization should not be treated as a diagnosis or opinion of psychological professionals. The study will not delve deeply into the personality of the participants. Sampling. Sampling in qualitative research means obtaining a sample from an entire population. For instance, all the residents of a city or community need not be interviewed in order to achieve valid findings (Mack, et al., 2005, p. 5). The study will make use of purposive sampling, which “groups participants according to preselected criteria relevant to a particular research question” (Mack, et al., 2005, p. 5). In this case, the sample will be limited to third and fourth year high school students with disabilities who dropped out of the Charlottesville high school during the 2007-2008 school year. The sampling size of the study is 33.Purposive sampling has been selected over quota sampling because the study does not aim to work on a strict quota wherein, for example, a fixed and equal number of male and female participants need to be covered. The study will also present some percentages to determine the major reasons why students with disabilities drop out of high school. It must be noted that not all of the Ridgeville high school dropouts targeted for this study may give their consent. Ridgeville High School was chosen for this study because it has a relatively high percentage of special education high school student dropouts. Demographics. The demographics of the sample population will be determined during the preliminary data collection procedure wherein the school records of the future participants will be accessed with the school administration’s permission. Age, gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic background, native language, region, mobility, ability, disability, parental employment, and family structure are the categories for status variables that will be identified for each special education high school dropout (Lehr, et al., 2004, p. 12). These variables will comprise the demographics of the study. Because demographics inherently work with statistics, the researcher will tally the results to be able to compute percentages per category. The demographics will follow the list of status variables that are commonly used by dropout prevention researchers. Setting/Site All participants either were or still are a part of Ridgeville High School located in the state of Virginia. This includes special education students, dropouts, school administrators and special education teachers. Procedures This study would not be successful if the administrators of Ridgeville High School would not permit the researcher to conduct a study within their school, so a requisite permit should be obtained from them. The participants would be contacted if they wish to be a part of the study by using forms of agreement. The qualitative data would then be obtained from these participants. Approximately 33 people would be interviewed for the study and they would be asked through personal, phone or email interviews. This would be recorded by using the questionnaire, the sound recorder and through the use of field notes. The data gathered would be kept confidential. Replication of the Study A study’s ability to be replicated strengthens its reliability and validity. Qualitative research is usually designed to build on “a rich and complex understanding of a specific social context or phenomenon typically takes precedence over eliciting data that can be generalized to other geographical areas or populations” (Mack, et al., 2005, p. 2). Due to this fact, qualitative studies can usually be replicated only with similar characteristics, but not with larger populations. And because this study will contend with a very specific target population, the qualitative research design proved to be an appropriate methodology for this study. Furthermore, because one of the objectives of this study is to give schools and school districts a better method for preventing further incidence of dropping out, especially with special education students, this study will provide results tailored to the specific schools’ demographics, the qualitative research design was found to be very suitable for these purposes. This study is highly replicable. The Researcher’s Role I have been a special education teacher for 10 years, with a Master’s degree in Education in Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment and in Educational Leadership from Walden University and The University of Scranton. I also have an Ed.S. in Educational Leadership from Liberty University. I have also coordinated a program called WALK (Work Achieves Lasting Knowledge) that help at-risk students, many of whom are special education students, graduate on time. This program reinforced my aspiration to provide a better quality of special education that will increase the graduation rates of students with disabilities. I am responsible for gathering primary, as well as secondary research. After synthesizing and analyzing the research collected, he will then organize it into meaningful data that will support the thesis statement. I am accountable for all of the procedures in the study, which includes: selecting and obtaining the consent of all the participants, acquiring the authorization and cooperation of the chosen high school (Ridgeville High School), implementing the strict confidentiality guidelines, obtaining the assistance of the school counselor who will act as a third party observer. I would be validating and triangulating the study, tabulating the results, and making recommendations based on the results of the study. I will attempt to execute all of the tasks involved with the study with an unbiased and objective perspective; although it must be noted that a completely unbiased take on the study is impossible. Data Collection Procedures The data collection procedures will be carried on in the same qualitative manner. There will be several forms of data gathering that the study employs. They will involve keen observation and accurate research, as well as good communication skills. It will be established that preliminary data will be provided by the students’ school records after securing the forms of agreement that state that the subjects would willfully participate in the study. They are promised of confidentiality. Aside from the demographics, the researcher also will aim to obtain certain information, like when they dropped out, their grades before they quit school, the classes they had been taking and the teachers they have had, in order to validate the students’ claims. It must be noted that all possible correlations will be viewed. The preliminary alterable variables to be considered are: grades, disruptive behavior, school policies, absenteeism, school climate, and retention (Lehr, et al., 2004, pp. 12-13). The school’s permission will be asked in order to get access to these records. Ridgeville High School is also responsible for providing the contact information for these dropout students, like postal and e-mail addresses and phone numbers. After this preliminary data gathering, the researcher will rely on the methods of in-depth interview, the collection of field notes and intensive research. These instrumentations are discussed in detail in the following paragraphs. In-depth Interviews Because the study is personal in nature, in-depth interview will be the chosen method as it has been proven to be “very effective in giving a human face to research problems” (Mack, et al., 2005, p. 29). In this case, it was best to go to the dropouts themselves and ask them what their reasons are for dropping out shortly before graduation rather than have them come to school to be interviewed. In order for these interviews to produce useful, reliable and accurate data that can be analyzed certain steps need to be taken into account. First, the targeted participants will be sent an initial formal letter through regular or electronic mail to inform them of the research study and the researcher’s desire to for them to participate. The researcher will allow for three to seven days after the letters are mailed before phone calls will be placed to personally ask these students to participate in the study and be interviewed. This same process will be utilized for all participants who include special education high school dropouts, chosen faculty members and the principal. Interview Questions. Interview questions will be formulated before the in-depth interviews are conducted in order to ensure that important questions will be and in order to maintain uniformity and consistency (See Appendix E). The questions will also took into consideration alterable variables, such as sense of belonging, attitudes toward school, educational support in the home, parental employment (in cases wherein the school records were not updated), and stressful life events (Lehr, et al., 2004, p. 13). Additional and follow-up questions will be made at the discretion of the interviewer, especially in cases where the interviewee seems to be too shy to answer or too nonchalant and general with their replies. The questions will be semistructured so that it would seem informal but it would have embedded questions in them that would elicit the needed information from the interviewees (Mattson, 2007, p. 245). Informality in the conversations are important because informal conversations with the observer over the course of the day give students opportunities to express their thoughts and experiences related to classes, homework, teachers, the school, and friends. All of the interviews will be recorded and transcribed (Morocco, et al, 2006). The set of interview questions are to be sent via e-mail for those who cannot come for face-to-face interviews. It will be composed in such a way that even follow-up questions are included. When participants send in vague answers or forms that are incomplete, they will be e-mailed questions that will clarify their answers. If the follow-up e-mail is not replied to after two to three days, they will be called on the phone to make the clarifications possible. If no contact is able to be made, the vague answers will not be included in the data analysis. Field Notes Throughout the course of the interviews and transcription, the researcher/interviewer will make note of what is deemed important based on analytical observation. A third party that will act as an observer will make note of events and statements worth remembering during the personal interviews. There will be no other observations outside of the interviews. Field notes are highly important, especially during data analysis, as they highlight events and statements that prove to be significant to the study. It also provides support for some of the things that the interviewer might miss. Expert Opinion A school counselor will also be present at all interviews. This will ensure that the answers being given are interpreted and analyzed through the eyes of an expert. The expert will also be consulted when the e-mail interviews have been completed. His or her field notes will be used in the discussion, as well as during the coding process. The expert will also serve to reinforce the study’s reliability and validity. Qualitative Data Analysis Qualitative data analysis (QDA) involves a flexible process of mainly noticing things, collecting them, and thinking about them (Seidel, 1998). This process is derived from the QDA process of “Noticing, Collecting, and Thinking about interesting things” developed by John V. Seidel (1998). Noticing things pertinent to the topic involves the observations made during the course of research and in-depth interviews. These observations translate into field notes and the transcription of the interviews will be read thoroughly and reviewed. The Coding Process During this process of noticing interesting things, coding will also begin. As the data is being reviewed and analyzed, the researcher will code the data and classify it into general categories. This process is essentially the coding system that is known today. Codes serve to summarize, synthesize, and sort many observations made of the data....coding becomes the fundamental means of developing the analysis....Researchers use codes to pull together and categorize a series of otherwise discrete events, statements, and observations which they identify in the data (Charmaz, 1983, p. 112 cited in Seidel, 1998). Once the data is coded, it becomes imperative to collect and sort it. This involves “searching for types, classes, sequences, processes, patterns or wholes” that will “assemble or reconstruct the data in a meaningful or comprehensible fashion” (Jorgensen, 1989, p. 107 cited in Seidel, 1998). In this way, the coded data could be organized and categorized into meaningful groups of data that could easily be analyzed and examined. Subcategories were made when necessary and new categories arose throughout the course of sifting through data that had already been initially coded. Throughout this process, the data would make more sense and spotting correlations and relationships between variables and the reasons why special education students drop out of high school would become less problematic and complicated. Analyzing the data that had been coded and collected has three main objectives: 1) to classify data found on various categories and subcategories; 2) to find and identify patterns and relationships between categories and subcategories and between various types of general categories; and 3) to analyze these relationships to be able to come up with new findings (Seidel, 1998). This part will be the most difficult and effort-intensive as the researcher needs to exhaust all possibilities and examine and pinpoint significant correlations—whether or not these correlations and relationships were significant and useful. This makes up the final findings, which should also be supported by researched data and intensive analysis. This coding process had been chosen because of its comprehensive and analytical procedures that are iterative and progressive, recursive, and holographic in nature (Seidel, 1998). Iterative and Progressive. This qualitative coding process is iterative in that each step will be repeated over and over again until such time when the researcher had already exhausted all analytical possibilities. It is progressive because each step will bring the researcher closer to attaining the final results. Recursive. This process is recursive because there was is no single successive procedure that needs to be followed. It is not imperative for the first step of noticing things and coding data to be all completed before the researcher progresses to collecting data. As the qualitative data analysis progresses, the researcher will go back and begin noticing things and coding/recoding data again if needed. Holographic. This method of analysis is holographic in nature in that “each step in the process contains the entire process” (Seidel, 1998). For instance, while collecting and sorting through coded data, the researcher will also notice new things, recoding them and analyzing them. Triangulation In order to ensure that the data gathered is both reliable and valid, more than one method needs to be relied on. This is called triangulation, which operates under the logic that “a weakness in one method could be avoided by using a second method that is strong in the area that the first is weak” (Livesey, 2006, p. 5). In this case, the study’s main data collection method is intensive interviews, one weakness of which is not knowing for certain whether or not the participant is telling the truth. Aside from this, the school records will also be accessed in order to double check if the participant is being truthful. For instance, if the participant answers that the real reason why he or she dropped out is because of low grades, his or her school records will be checked, and if there are inconsistencies, he or she would be asked why the data is inconsistent and make him or her tell the real reason. Trustworthiness To validate the data that would be gathered in the study, the researcher would have to ensure trustworthiness in terms of data analysis. This includes credibility, dependability and triangulation of the data. Credibility. Because the researcher has been involved in education students with disabilities, he has firsthand knowledge of the monumental challenges that these students face. Because of this firsthand experience, the researcher also knows how to better communicate with them. In this way, the interview questions are formulated in a more focused manner and communicated in a way that can reach special education high school students to gain maximum input from their answers. Personal interviews will be done professionally, but at the same time, they will be conducted in an approach that can best illicit a more detailed and honest response from the interviewee. This would ensure the richness of the data gathered. The school counselor will also be present for personal interviews and will give his or her input during the decoding of the e-mail questionnaires to provide expert opinion, as well as additional analyses. Dependability. In order to guarantee the accuracy and the consistency of the data being gathered from the interviews, all will be recorded using a portable tape recorder. This will subsequently be transcribed by the researcher. Field notes taken by the researcher and a third party observer during the interview will also act as supplementary recordings. Ethical Considerations Because the study is going to involve participants who are minors, there are ethical guidelines that need to be adhered to in order to safeguard the rights of all the individuals that will be a part of the study. Informed Consent. The targeted participants will be made fully aware of the nature of the study before the interviews are conducted. It is vital to the validity of this study that the participants give their informed consent and that the researcher has tangible evidence of this consent. Hence, a short and concise form stating that they are giving their consent will be provided to the participants to be signed at least one day before the in-depth interviews are to be held or the e-mails to be sent and answered. Parental consent will also be secured for minors. The participants will also be asked where, when and what time is most convenient for them to be interviewed. This is to minimize the inconvenience of participating in the study. The option of sending an e-mail with the set of pre-determined interview questions will be provided as a last option. The written interview questions will only be offered when the participants hesitate to do the personal interview, are not available in the time allotted for the study to be completed or reject the request to participate in the study. Confidentiality. The researcher will guarantee that the participants’ identities will remain confidential. The student participants will be assigned pseudonyms so that personal information that might make them identifiable will not be disclosed in the study. The principal and some members of the faculty would be unnamed except for their job titles. They will be informed of this so that they might take this into consideration before giving their consent. The data will then be stored in a secure location that is only accessible to the researcher. Their identities will never be revealed. REFERENCES: Lehr, C. A., Johnson, D. R., Bremer, C. D., Cosio, A. and Thompson, M. (2004 May). Increasing rates of school completion: Moving from policy and research to practice. Minneapolis, MN: National Center on Secondary Education and Transition (NCSET). Mack, N., Woodsong, C., Macqueen, K. M., Guest, G. and Namey, E. (2005). Qualitative research methods: A data collector’s field guide. North Carolina, USA: Family Health International. Mattson, E.H., Roll-Pettersson, L. (2007). Segregated Groups or Inclusive Education? An Interview Study with Students Experiencing Failure in Reading and Writing. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 51(3), 239–252. Miles, M. B. and Huberman, A. M. (1994). An Expanded Sourcebook: Qualitative Data Analysis. California: SAGE Publications, Inc. Morocco, C.C., Aguilar, C.M., Clay, K., Brigham, N., Zigmond, N. 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