Christle, Christine A., Kristine Jolivette, and C. Michael Nelson. “School Characteristics Related to High School Dropout Rates.”Remedial and Special Education. no. 6 (2007). http://0-web.b.ebscohost.com.books.redlands.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=6ad6ba67-c3a0-49b5-8e3f-e9452ada29a7@sessionmgr114&vid=1&hid=127 (accessed March 30, 2014).

Dropping out of high school can have negative effects on the individual and his or her community, but high school dropout rates have remained fairly consistent over the last 30 years. The research topic of this article is high school dropout rate. The question this research paper is trying to answer is, “Are there school characteristics that effect the high school dropout rate at that particular school?”

The authors use high school dropout rates, 12 different school characteristics, and climate characteristics. Data for this project was collected at the school-level, using high schools in Kentucky that had grades 9-12, a total of 196 schools. Quantitative data was obtained from the Kentucky Department of Education’s (KDE) and Kentucky Center for School Safety’s (KCSS) annual reports. The qualitative data was gathered using questionnaires that were given to selected schools. These questionnaires contained survey questions with choices to circle and questions with room provided for short answers. Staff and administrators were surveyed, and researchers also performed observations to obtain the climate characteristics of each school.

The analysis was done in three stages. During the first stage, the authors looked at the dropout rate and 12 school variables chosen to assess the school. These school variables were used in a correlation analysis. Stage two used the dropout rate to choose the 20 schools reporting the lowest dropout rates and the 20 schools reporting the highest dropout rates. A multivariate analysis of variance was used to determine if there are any significant differences in the 12 school variables between the two groups of schools. An ANOVA test was also performed on each dependent variable. For the third stage, four schools from each of the twenty schools (four from the schools with the lowest dropout rates and four from the schools with the highest dropout rates) were chosen. From these schools, the researchers collected qualitative data using the surveys and observations and qualitative data was examined to develop an understanding of what was happening at a micro level.

This research described its limitations, discussed its findings, and suggested the implications of this research on real-world practice. I was interested that they used dropout rates as they were reported rather than using CPI, which has been very popular in the other literature I reviewed. Some scholars claim the dropout rates are not as reliable without calculating CPI, but the researchers were thoughtful about this project, so I trust their choice. This research was different from other research I have looked at concerning graduation or dropout rates because it looked at the effects of school characteristics. I appreciated finding this new point of view.