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Dropout
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 QOP study by Schirm and his colleagues examined outcomes in the progressing in school and completing school domains.
Progressing in school. Schirm and his colleagues found no statistically significant or substantively important7 difference between QOP and control group youth in their average credits earned toward graduation five years after they entered the program. 8
Completing school. Schirm and his colleagues found that QOP had no statistically significant or substantively important effect on the likelihood that participants earned a high school diploma or received a GED within nine years of entering the program. 9
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,10 the size of the difference between participants in the intervention and the comparison conditions, and the consistency in findings across studies (see the WWC Intervention Rating Scheme).
8 These results were presented in an earlier report from the same study (see Schirm, Rodriguez-Planas, & Tuttle, 2003).
9 Two earlier reports from this study found that QOP also had no statistically significant or substantively important effect on high school diploma or GED receipt at four years (Schirm, Rodriguez-Planas, & Tuttle, 2003) and seven years after program entry (Schirm & Rodriguez-Planas, 2004).
10 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. See the Technical Details of WWC-Conducted Computations for the formulas the WWC used to calculate the statistical significance. In the case of the Schirm et al. (2003, 2004) study summarized here, no corrections for clustering or multiple comparisons were needed.
