School engagement mediates long-term prevention effects for Mexican American adolescents.
Gonzales, N., Wong, J., Toomey, R., Millsap, R., Dumka, L., & Mauricio, A. (2014). Prevention Science, 15(6), 929–939.
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examining420Students, grades7-12
Practice Guide
Review Details
Reviewed: September 2017
- Practice Guide (findings for Dropout Prevention)
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Meets WWC standards without reservations because it is a randomized controlled trial with low attrition.
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Findings
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Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Did not drop out (%) |
Dropout Prevention vs. Business as usual |
5 Years |
Full sample;
|
88.00 |
75.00 |
Yes |
|
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Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Sample Characteristics
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
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West
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Ethnicity Hispanic 100%
Study Details
Setting
The study was conducted with three cohorts of seventh-grade students in each of four urban, Title 1 schools located in a southwestern metropolitan area. The intervention included two home visits for each participant, but no information is provided regarding where the nine weekly intervention sessions took place. Similarly, no information is provided regarding where the workshop for the comparison group took place.
Study sample
The authors don't present descriptive information for the analytic sample used to assess the outcome of high school dropout, but they do present descriptive information for the sample that was initially randomized. The randomized sample consisted of 516 Mexican American adolescents who attended 7th grade at one of four high schools in a Southwestern metropolitan area. 82% of these students were born in the U.S. Of those born in Mexico, the median age at which they arrived in the U.S. was five. 49% of students were male and 51% were female. The average age of students at the time of the baseline survey was 12.3 years. The sample appears to have been predominantly low income; across all four schools, 75-85% of students were eligible for free or reduced price lunch.
Intervention Group
The Bridges/Puentes intervention consisted of a two-hour session for student participants once a week for nine weeks, and participating students and their families received two home visits. The student sessions focused on increasing students' abilities to imagine future possible selves, self-regulate, and develop coping strategies. They also sought to promote positive engagement with family members and peers in order to support the adolescents' learning goals and school success. The family sessions focused on parenting strategies, as well as improvement of parent-child communication, positive reinforcement, and schoolwork monitoring from parents, all in the service of facilitating school success. Parents also received information on the expectations of the school and strategies for effective parent-teacher communication.
Comparison Group
Students in the comparison group participated with their parents in a single workshop that was 1.5 hours in duration. Unlike the intervention sessions which focused on specific strategies for school success, during this workshop students and parents simply received handouts on school resources, discussed challenges to school success, and developed their own plans to support school success.
Support for implementation
The authors do not present any information on the staff training or technical assistance used to support the implementation of the intervention.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
An outcome is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are attained as a result of an activity. An outcome measures is an instrument, device, or method that provides data on the outcome.
A finding that is included in the effectiveness rating. Excluded findings may include subgroups and subscales.
The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
The timing of the post-intervention outcome measure.
The number of students included in the analysis.
The mean score of students in the intervention group.
The mean score of students in the comparison group.
The WWC considers a finding to be statistically significant if the likelihood that the finding is due to chance alone, rather than a real difference, is less than five percent.
The WWC reviews studies for WWC products, Department of Education grant competitions, and IES performance measures.
The name and version of the document used to guide the review of the study.
The version of the WWC design standards used to guide the review of the study.
The result of the WWC assessment of the study. The rating is based on the strength of evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention. Studies are given a rating of Meets WWC Design Standards without Reservations, Meets WWC Design Standards with Reservations, or >Does Not Meet WWC Design Standards.
A related publication that was reviewed alongside the main study of interest.
Study findings for this report.
Based on the direction, magnitude, and statistical significance of the findings within a domain, the WWC characterizes the findings from a study as one of the following: statistically significant positive effects, substantively important positive effects, indeterminate effects, substantively important negative effects, and statistically significant negative effects. For more, please see the WWC Handbook.
The WWC may review studies for multiple purposes, including different reports and re-reviews using updated standards. Each WWC review of this study is listed in the dropdown. Details on any review may be accessed by making a selection from the drop down list.
Tier 1 Strong indicates strong evidence of effectiveness,
Tier 2 Moderate indicates moderate evidence of effectiveness, and
Tier 3 Promising indicates promising evidence of effectiveness,
as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).