Project Activities
The research activities will accomplish three aims. First, the research team will investigate the relative salience and cumulative effects of poverty-related risk factors on key school and post-school outcomes among adolescents with disabilities. Second, the team will identify malleable individual, family, and school-based risk factors that mediate the relationship between poverty and key outcomes. Finally, they will identify malleable individual, family, and school-based protective factors that moderate the outcomes associated with exposure to poverty.
Structured Abstract
Setting
NLTS2 includes data on students with disabilities from across the United States.
Sample
The researchers will use the NLTS2 dataset, which includes a nationally representative sample of secondary students with disabilities. For this project, the researchers will focus on NLTS2 data (2001-2010) for the sample of over 3,000 students receiving special education services in the United States in each federally recognized disability category (i.e., autism, deaf blindness, emotional disturbance, hearing impairment, learning disability, mental retardation, multiple disabilities, orthopedic impairment, other health impairment, speech and language impairment, traumatic brain injury, and visual impairment).
There is no intervention.
Research design and methods
The research team will conduct secondary data analyses using the NLTS2 dataset, which includes a nationally representative sample of secondary students with disabilities followed for 10 years. The data were collected through direct assessments, parental and student telephone interviews, teacher surveys, school program surveys, and the school characteristics survey. A two-stage sampling plan was used to select students with disabilities ranging from 13 to 16 years of age. Districts were randomly selected and then students with disabilities were randomly selected from the chosen districts.
Control condition
Due to the nature of the research design, there is no control condition.
Key measures
The researchers will use the following key measures included in the NLTS2 dataset: poverty (i.e., federal poverty level, income, parental education, parental employment status), student characteristics and factors (i.e., disability status, race/ethnicity, self-determination, social skills, risk behaviors), family factors (i.e., parental involvement and support), school factors (i.e., transition planning, teacher-student relationships), and school/post-school outcomes (i.e., graduation, employment, postsecondary education).
Data analytic strategy
Logistic regression models will be estimated when examining dichotomous dependent measures (e.g., employed vs. not employed) at one assessment wave. Cohort sequential longitudinal models will be applied when examining multiple assessment waves for a variety of dependent measures (e.g., hierarchical linear models for continuous and hierarchical generalized linear models for dichotomous outcome variables). Survival analyses will be applied to event history data (e.g., time to graduation). Mediation models will test proximal factors associated with poverty and outcomes. Moderation analysis will test the extent to which malleable factors may play a role in increasing positive outcomes despite exposure to poverty.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Project contributors
Products and publications
Products: The products of this project include published reports and presentations on the results of all analyses.
Journal article, monograph, or newsletter
Doren, B., Murray, C., and Gau, J.M. (2014). Salient Predictors of School Dropout Among Secondary Students With Learning Disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 29(4): 150-159. doi:10.1111/ldrp.12044
Murray, C., Doren, B., Gau, J.M., Zvoch, K., and Seeley, J.R. (2015). Constructing and Validating a Multiple-Indicator Construct of Economic Hardship in a National Sample of Adolescents With Disabilities. Exceptional Children, 81(4): 507-522. doi:10.1177/0014402914563701
Additional project information
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
