Date of Award

Spring 5-2016

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Dr. Sherry DeVore

Second Advisor

Dr. Kathy Grover

Third Advisor

Dr. Terry Reid

Abstract

More families in the United States are beginning to choose private or homeschool education for children instead of a public school education (Hanna, 2011); therefore, college administrators must begin to evaluate each student’s educational background in order to help all students achieve academic success at the college level. The purpose of this study was to determine differences in multi-year college academic performance among public, private, and homeschool graduates who attended a private work college in the Midwest. The variables analyzed consisted of students’ final high school GPAs and ACT test scores, college cumulative GPAs and work point average (WPA) scores, as well as college graduation rates. Each educational background was examined independently, while also analyzing the varied educational backgrounds against one another and as groups. The results of the homeschool and private school students were not significantly different in all variables tested. The homeschool students maintained a slightly higher average overall; however, both homeschool and private school students’ scores were consistently higher than students who attended public schools using an equality of variance, ANOVA, and post-hoc analyses for high school cumulative GPA, ACT composite score, college cumulative GPA, and WPA variables. Both homeschool and private school students had a comparable college completion rate; however, public school students had a lower graduation rate. A chi square test of independence was used to determine whether a significant relationship existed between the educational background of students and college graduation. The analyses showed the graduation rate was dependent upon the educational background. Not only did public school students average the lowest percentage in all variables, but they were below the overall average of each variable tested.

Rights

Copyright 2016

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