HELP PEER REVIEW

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Detailed analysis about the Most Important Factors That Influence Dropping Out of High School

The auhtor says:

The genesis of this paper is risk factors in an individual’s life that might lead to dropping out of high school.

In their paper, the authors are focuded and supports the view on two sides effects : low socioeconomic status and acadamic achievemnt

Research on school dropout extends from early 20th-century pioneers until now, marking trends of causes and prevention. However, specific dropout causes reported by students from several nationally representative studies have never been examined together, which, if done, could lead to a better understanding of the dropout problem.

Dropping out of high school has a variety of negative consequences. Those without a high school diploma have in general lower salary than those with a diploma or are unemployed and have difficulties securing a job. As a consequence, they are more likely to live in poverty, which can have an influence on other factors such as criminality

The authors found different reasons why students drop out of high school, such as not liking school, pregnancy or the need to get a job. Push, pull, and falling out factors provide a framework for understanding dropouts. Push factors include school-consequence on attendance or discipline. Pull factors include out-of-school enticements like jobs and family. Finally, falling out factors refer to disengagement in students not caused by school or outside pulling factors. Since 1966, most nationally representative studies depicted pull factors as ranking the highest. Also, administrators in one study corroborated pull out factors for younger dropouts, not older ones, while most recent research cites push factors as highest overall.

The main strengths of this paper was to discuss findings about potential risk factors for dropping out of high school.

As such this article represents the risks of low socioeconomic status and bad academic performance it also represents different findings e.g from Harding (2003) that he suggests that neighborhood effects plays a important rule.

But in the study from Rendon they showed that schools can not only have a mediating, but also an independent effect of the dropout issue.

Some of the weaknesses are the not always easy readability of the text which establishes unclear logical links between the studys.

Another possible criticism could be that,???

This is the Text : ORginal

The aim of this article was to discuss findings about potential risk factors for dropping out of high school. Since high school dropout is a worldwide problem and the consequences are negative for the individual as well as the community, there should be a great interest in identifying these factors in order to develop useful prevention and intervention strategies. Due to the variety of risk factors, not all of them could be considered in this paper. The focus was on the risks of low socioeconomic status and bad academic performance. The findings of Harding (2003) suggest that neighborhood effects, especially low SES have a significant impact on dropping out of high school. Many studies have not discussed school effects separately from neighborhood effects, but Rendón’s (2013) study showed that schools can not only have a mediating, but also an independent effect of the dropout issue. While acknowledging the influences of environmental factors, most research is more concerned with behavioral and psychological factors because they are more useful for developing intervention and prevention methods for those students at risk. Battin-Pearson et 7 al. (2000) claimed that academic achievement is the strongest predictor of dropping out of high school, and Lan and Lanthier’s (2009) as well as Bowers et al.’s (2013) findings are consistent with this claim. The studies used for this review were not without limitations. Although Harding (2003) took the selection effect into account, Johnson (2012) argued that the concern about selection effects should remain, because the existence of this bias could possibly influence the results in another way. Rendón (2013) stated that she only included a few neighborhood factors, making it possible that not included factors would have let to a different outcome. Furthermore, her ability to assess the underlying mechanisms was limited because she only used census tract data. Lan and Lanthier (2009) admitted that the factors self-esteem and locus of control might not have significant results because the items that were used to measure these factors were too general. Bowers et al. (2013) reported difficulties in choosing articles for his analysis because most did not contain the necessary data for the calculations. Furthermore, there were divergent definitions of a dropout across articles. For example, a person who dropped out of high school but returned to school and completed his or her degree at a later date was considered a dropout in some articles but not in others. More research is needed to clarify several things that remain uncertain. First, Rendón (2013) suggested more research into the relationship of the ethnic composition of a school and high school dropout. Second, Lan et al (2009) encourage more research to understand the underlying processes during the transition to high school. Third, Bowers et al hope to see improved accuracy and identification of possible risk factors in future research. Finally, the results of Suh and Suh (2007) indicate that all three major risk factors have almost the same influence on dropout rates. It is therefore out of the question that socioeconomic status and academic achievement are strong predictors of high school dropout. However, studies in which the impact of socioeconomic status and academic achievement on high school dropout are being compared are few. The question about the most important factors that influence dropping out of high school can be answered in the following manner: It has been demonstrated that low socioeconomic status and poor academic achievement both have an impact on the probability of dropping out. But for now, research does not suggest that one factor outweighs the other in importance. Accordingly, intervention and prevention programs should keep considering more possible risk factors instead of focusing on one. Otherwise, students at risk might be overlooked.