Postsecondary Educational Transitions for At-Risk Youth: Exploration of the College Transition Support Program

• Main Author: Downey-McCarthy, Rosemarie
• Other Authors: Stormshak, Elizabeth
• Language: en_US
• Published: University of Oregon 2013
• Subjects: Alternative education; At-risk youth; Postsecondary education transitions; Program evaluation; Support program
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1794/13404

Working within a Social Cognitive Career Theory framework, the study explored outcomes associated with participation in a dual-enrollment (high school and community college) College Transition Support Program (CTSP). The study used three data points over a nine month period to explore whether participation in the CTSP was associated with changes in college self-efficacy, education-related future aspirations and goals, perceived barriers, perceived support, locus of control, depression, anxiety, academic achievement-related expectations, academic achievement-related fears, and academic achievement-related expectation-fear balance, as well as college persistence and cumulative college GPA. Repeated measure responses of a group of 34 CTSP students were contrasted with a group of 34 students in a non-equivalent comparison group. Baseline data for a group of 207 non-CTSP alternative high school students were also used to test for selection bias for both of the longitudinal groups. Doubly multivariate repeated measures analysis of variance (DMRM-ANOVA) procedures were conducted. Multivariate results suggested that participation in the CTSP was associated with positive, statistically significant growth in the weighted linear combination of outcome variables. Repeated measures univariate analyses were also conducted to provide more detail. CTSP participation was associated with growth over time on several positive student outcomes, including college self-efficacy, education-related future aspirations and goals, academic achievement-related expectation-fear balance, academic locus of control, and college persistence/retention. In addition, CTSP students earned significantly higher cumulative college GPAs over their first year at the community college.