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Intervention: New Chance
Intervention: New Chance
January 24, 2008

Effectiveness


Findings

The WWC review of interventions for dropout prevention addresses student outcomes in three domains: staying in school, progressing in school, and completing school. The New Chance study by Quint et al. examined outcomes in the completing school domain.

Completing school. The study showed a statistically significant difference between New Chance and control group youth on the likelihood of receiving a high school diploma or GED certificate. Three and a half years after random assignment, 52% of the New Chance group had earned a diploma or GED certificate, compared with 44% of the control group. This positive effect on completion came entirely from New Chance’s positive and statistically significant effect on the likelihood of receiving a GED certificate. New Chance was found to have a small, but statistically significant, negative effect on the likelihood of earning a high school diploma.6

Rating of effectiveness

The WWC rates the effects of an intervention in a given outcome domain as positive, potentially positive, mixed, no discernible effects, potentially negative, or negative. The rating of effectiveness takes into account four factors: the quality of the research design, the statistical significance of the findings, the size of the difference between participants in the intervention and the comparison conditions, and the consistency in findings across studies (see the PDF File WWC Intervention Rating Scheme (112 KB).7

6 As in other WWC dropout prevention reviews, the combined effect of New Chance on receiving a high school diploma or GED certificate was used to determine the effectiveness rating. These results are reported in Appendix A3. The separate effects of New Chance on receiving a high school diploma or a GED certificate are reported in Appendix A4.2.
7 The level of statistical significance was reported by the study authors, or where necessary, calculated by the WWC to correct for clustering within classrooms or schools and for multiple comparisons. For an explanation, see the WWC Tutorial on Mismatch. For the formulas the WWC used to calculate statistical significance, see Technical Details of WWC-Conducted Computations. For the Quint et al. (1997) study summarized here, no corrections for clustering or multiple comparisons were needed.