Attitudes and Experiences of High School Students

Dr. Yong Lao

SBS 366

Prepared by:

Hernan Ramirez & Antonio Gomez

California State University Monterey Bay

December 17, 2012

Abstract

High school dropouts and Latinos low performance in schools is a problem in our

society that prevents Latinos from pursuing a higher education. This paper explores

students’ experiences and situations that contribute to high school drop outs and students’

low performance in school. The paper will analyze more specifically how schools could

help Latinos improve their performance in the Santa Cruz and Monterey County. This

paper also provides information about the methods that will be applied in order to gather

evidence and information to support the argument about preventing high school drop outs

and students low performance in school by looking at students’ life experiences or

problems. In addition, the paper describes how many scholars have done research about

high school drop outs and students low performance in class. The paper recounts how

scholars found that Latino immigrant students face acts of discrimination, remain out of

school because of suspension rates, feel alienated from schools and how their personal

experiences for not having a quiet space for doing their homework or not getting the help

from parents contribute to Latinos drop outs and their low performance in schools.

Introduction

In this research proposal, I will explore high school dropouts and students’ low

performance in schools. I plan to focus in discovering if optimistic attitudes and

experiences of high school students are positive/negative related to their GPAs. In this

proposal, I will include my research questions, an explanation for why this topic is

important to me and personal reasons that influenced my choice in this subject. Further, I

will mention why this research is important to my field of study, a theory that I will use

to get a better understanding of the subject, existing literature and studies on the topic,
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and the methodology I will be using. In addition, I will include what I plan to learn from

the research, a research timeline, and a list of references used in this study.

Some of my questions include:

1. How schools can help Latinos/students improve their performance in the

education system?

2. How (high school) students feel about high school?

3. How (high school) students describe their experiences in high school?

4. Are optimistic attitudes and experiences of high school students (in high school)

positive or negative related to their GPAs?

5. How are the experiences of high school students in and out of the classrooms with

students, teachers and school personnel?

This research is important because it tries to help Latinos succeed in the education

system, so that they can improve their living conditions while helping our community,

society, and the economy. Moreover, this topic is meaningful for personal reasons that

influenced my choice, which include; my experience in high school, seeing many of my

friends dropping out of school, and seeing many students doing academically poorly in

their classes.

Since I was in high school, I have noticed how my friends and other students from my

class started to disappear from school. I saw how at the beginning of the year there were a

lot of students, but after each year, the number of students was declining more and more,

and eventually in my senior year, the number of students that were going to graduate had

dropped by a huge amount. Some didn’t graduate because they didn’t pass the CA High

School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) or didn’t pass their classes and needed more credits, others
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didn’t graduate because they got involve in fights or had excessive amount of cuts or

were expel from school, and the rest just stopped attending to school for unknown

reasons. While I was in high school, I didn’t have much knowledge about how the

dropout rates impacted our Latino community. The environment in which I lived in as a

high school student made me think that dropping out of school was something normal in

our culture and that was how things were for us. Since I graduated from high school, I

have always wondered why my friends and other students stopped going to school.

I want to know the reasons or behaviors that contribute to the dropout of many high

school students and through the social and behavioral sciences; I know I can accomplish

my goal. This topic is important to my field of study, social and behavioral sciences,

because as a social scientist I want to find out how to help institutions to solve social

problems in our society. Furthermore, I want to become a high school counselor and it is

important to know how a counselor can help and encourage students to pursue and

continue their education.

Literature Review

Many social and behavioral scientists have done research about high school

dropouts and students low performance in class. At the same time, scholars have found

information about the experiences that contribute to the dropouts and to the low

performance of students in their education. Sox (2009) found that Latino immigrant

students faced acts of discrimination as name-calling, fighting, demeaning glances,

making fun of students’ mispronunciations, educational policies directed at immigrant

students which caused a feeling of alienation in their schools and made them feel

discriminated against due to their language and immigration status. Moreover, Aviles,

Guerrero, Howarth, and Thomas (1999) found that discrimination, under education, low
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expectations, and lower aspirations slow down Latinos from pursuing their educational

interest. The authors also found that many Chicano/Latino students remain out of school

because of increasing suspension rates and suggested that cultural differences between

students and schools may result in alienation or dropouts from school (Aviles, et al,

1999).

Furthermore, Mehring (2004) found that there are high numbers of high school

dropouts among Latinos and that there is an education gap because of their lower

incomes and their language barriers. Kralovec and Buell (2005) also found that some

administrators felt pressured by the “No Child Left Behind” testing, which seemed to

make teachers’ careers depend on the results of the standardized tests, and as a result,

some administrators encouraged low performing students to dropout while not reporting

the dropouts to state officials. In addition, the authors believe that testing and loads of

homework affect poor minority communities because of students’ personal experiences

of not having a quiet space for doing their homework, having to take care of siblings, and

not getting help from parents (Kralovec and Buell, 2005).

Other scholars such as George and Louise Spindler (2000) describe how schools

in the Arunta and Hutterite systems are designed for and to guarantee success, not failure

and because success means an acceptable place in the social, and economic systems, it is

accomplished through education. Louise Spindler (2000) also argues that our initiation

service in education appears to guarantee success for some, and failure for others.

Richard Arum (2011) similarly discusses how boys are more vulnerable to the

consequences of disorderly learning environments as they are exposed to less social

control from family members or norms than girls. Likewise, Karen Hawley Miles (2011)
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explains how students’ performance in school has seen little improvement even when

spending on public schools has nearly doubled.

Sox’s, Aviles’ et al., Kralovec’s and Buell’s articles helped me understand the

struggles that Latinos encounter in school which might lead to low performance in

schools and dropouts. The authors provide good arguments about the dropout rate among

Latinos, but none of them focused in deep on how family or family problems could affect

the students’ perception about school or pursuing a higher education, or the housing

conditions in which students live in, nor the access they might not have to educational

materials. Moreover, the authors don’t mention if the housing conditions in which

students live in and the access they might or might not have to educational materials such

as computers, dictionaries, calculators, library books, etc. affect the educational

performance of the students. The authors don’t describe the students’ family relations or

problems, so I wish to know more about a typical day of the students and their connection

with their families, family problems, and activities inside and outside of school.

Data Collection

In order to collect data, I will look for articles, books, and other scholarly

publications related to the subject to get a better understanding about the subject.

Individuals will be the unit of analysis and more specifically high school students. The

dependent variable is GPAs and the independent variable students’ attitudes and

experiences in high school. I will try to measure both variables by looking if there is a

relation between GPAs and students’ attitudes and experiences at school. I expect to

collect the data from Watsonville High School students by distributing surveys in

classrooms with the consent of teachers. I will select a sample of ESL students, students
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to whom English is their second language, which includes new comers, students who

recently migrated to the United States.

Theory/Method

My plan for this research is to explore why and what causes or contributes to

students’ low performance in schools and to the dropout rate among Latinos in the Santa

Cruz and Monterey County. I will try to find out if positive attitudes and experiences of

students in high school are related to their GPAs. It will be helpful to practice both types

of methodology in my research, qualitative and quantitative analyses.

I will (try to) interview students, parents, teachers, counselors, community

members, school personnel and securities from schools. I will try to look or interpret how

students’ lives are in a daily basis, and describe how a day in their lives really is by

looking at their lives in school and at home with their families and friends. I will look at

the activities students do or are involve in, how they interact with parents/family,

community, friends, etc. I will describe the housing conditions in which they live in,

neighborhoods, access to educational materials such as computers, library, etc. and the

distance from home to school, to libraries and to parks. I will also use Collins’ conflict

theory to analyze my findings.

In conflict theory, Collins explains how people struggle for resources such as

power, prestige and wealth (Seidman, 2008). Collins’ conflict theory will help me

understand how the education system serves as a socialization structure where people

compete against each other in order to get some kind of power, prestige or wealth. This

theory will help me analyze my research findings by helping me understand how people

with power, prestige, or wealth influence the decision making in the education system

benefitting some and keeping others away from power, prestige, and/or wealth. In
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addition, this theory will helping analyze my findings by helping me understand how

people with power, prestige, or wealth have more probabilities to do well in school than

students from poor communities which might lack of educational resources.

Discussions and discoveries

My research hypothesis states that positive attitudes and experiences of (high

school) students in school are positive related to their GPAs. I believe that students who

have good experiences in high school with teachers, other students and staff from school

are more likely to do better in school than students who have negative attitudes and

experiences towards high school. Through this research, I expect to confirm my

hypothesis using the result from my data collection which includes the survey analysis. I

believe I will be able to affirm my hypothesis because the likelihood of optimistic

experiences and attitudes of students towards high school seems very reasonable and

probable to be true.

Project Timeline

Introduction: Due to time limitations in the semester, I have to finish the proposal ion the

next four weeks. The introduction where I have to introduce my project, hypothesis,

define variable, and present my research question should take only one or two days.

Theory/Literature Review: After the introduction, I have to look for scholarly articles and

a theory that will help me get a better understanding of the topic. This should take a few

days, 3-4 days.

Data Collection: In order to collect the data, I will have to have developed a survey or

questionnaire to collect responses from students. This will take some time because I will

need to distribute those surveys.

Data Analysis: After I collect the data/surveys, I will have to analyze the responses which

will take a few days while I group it and make some charts.

Interpretation of Findings: After I finish analyzing the data and grouping it into charts if

possible, I will explain the results of my findings. This process might take a few days as

well depending in the results of my findings and the information that I want to present.

Acknowledgement of Research Limitations: After interpreting my findings, I will have to

describe the struggles/problems I encounter with this research and the time limitations

that made me do it in a short period of time.

According to this timeline, I plan to finish this research project within a time span

of three to four weeks, if I don’t encounter any problems with the plan. I will then

prepare a presentation of my research project to describe my findings in a professional

manner.

Discoveries/Conclusion

In order to collect our data we created a survey with 14 questions specifically for high

school students. We distributed our survey to a group of 34 students. Out of all 34

students 20 of them were females and 14 of them were males. There were on only 2

freshmen students, 19 sophomores, 11 juniors, and only 2 seniors. In this group of

students all of them were Hispanics or/and Latinos.

According to the responses of the students, we concluded that females have better GPAs

than males. As the table 1.1 and the chart 1.2 shows, we can see that in most of all

categories females are beyond males. Although for our research we had more females

than males participating, we insist that females have better GPAs. After comparing the
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responses from students and our expectations we can tell that students’ academic

achievements are not influenced by the way students feel at school, either if they feel safe

or not, and either they if like school or not their GPAs don’t have a relation with students

mood at school. Graph 1.3 and 1.4 show the results for students responses about feeling

safe and if they like attending school. Our sample is too small to create a Chi Square test;

therefore our recommendation is to increase the sample size in the future in order to

complete and obtain better results.

Graph 1.2 shows that females have better GPAs than males.

Graph 1.3

Graph 1.4
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References

Arum, R. (2011). Improve relationships to improve student performance. Phi Delta

Kappan, 93(2), 8-13.

Avilés, R., Guerrero, M., Howarth, H., & Thomas, G. (1999). Perceptions of

chicano/latino students who have dropped out of school. Journal of Counseling &

Development, 77(4), 465.

Kralovec, E., & Buell, J. (2005). High-Stakes Testing, Homework, and Gaming the

System. Humanist, 65(3), 17-18.

Mehring, J. (2004). Latinos' education gap. Business Week, 28.

Miles, K. (2011). Transformation or decline? Using tough times to create higher-

performing schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 93(2), 42-46.

Morrissette, P. (2011). Exploring student experiences within the alternative high school

context. Canadian Journal of Education, 34(2), 169-188.

Robert, P. (2010). Social origin, school choice, and student performance. Educational

Research & Evaluation, 16(2), 107-129.

Seidman, S. (2008). The Scientific Theory of Randall Collins and Peter Blau. Contested

Knowledge: Social Theory Today (4th ed., pp. 80-90). USA: Blackwell Pub.

Sox, A. (2009). Latino immigrant students in southern schools: What we know and still

need to learn. Theory into Practice, 48(4), 312.

Spindler, G. D., & Spindler, L. S. (2000).There are no dropouts among the arunta and the

hutterites (1989). Fifty Years of Anthropology and Education, 1950 -2000: a

Spindler Anthology (pp. 181-189). Hove, UK: L. Erlbaum Assoc.