Jarad Harris
Research Methods 2
Journal assignment
Due: 9/25/12
To start off this journal assignment, I will state that I found this article fairly easily.
The name of the article is, “Structure of School, Personality, and High School Dropouts”,
written by Russell W. Irvine from the Educational Foundations Department at Georgia
State University. The first thing I did was open up the school’s library web page and
clicked on the databases link. The second step was clicking on “Sociology” in the
section for databases by subject. That action then brought me to a new page that
consisted of a search engine of multiple Sociology databases that I had to choose from
or search for. My next move was to click on the Sociological Abstracts database link. I
chose the Sociological Abstracts database link because I’ve used it in the past for a few
different Sociology courses, including a directed study, Social Movements, and others. I
felt like my chances of finding an article with this database was high and I was very
confident with it. ProQuest is the next page that opens up that has a search engine on it
that narrows the search down to “Peer Reviewed” article if that’s what you want. I
clicked the “peer review” box and then typed, “Alternative Diploma Program”, into the
search engine. As a result of this search, five articles were found, which is unusually
small. Before I got discouraged, I looked through the results instead of attempting a new
approach because I wanted to at least see what I got. I skimmed through them and the
last one caught my eye because it had, “Structure of School” and “High School
Dropouts”, in the title and I knew that was exactly what I was looking for. I clicked on the
article and I was brought to the abstract of the article along with the indexing details.
This is the page where I found out that the article is part of a book of articles called,
“The Journal of Negro Education”. For my final step, I clicked a link on the right side of
the page that reads, “Link to full text”. This brought me to the article itself.
The methods of this article were very specific and detailed and at the same time
covered a small group of subjects and demographic. The purpose of this article was to
find out if the structure of schools engages and/or interacts with the personality of high
School dropouts. The study specifically wants to compare High School dropouts to high
School graduates and see whether or not they see school as a “feminine” institution or
not. The study consisted of 40 High School dropouts and 31 High School graduates, all
of whom were black between the ages of 18-20. This study defines a dropout as
someone who officially withdraws from high school for reasons other than health or
medical. Also, all the subjects began their high school careers in an urban part of a
Midwestern city. The article indicates that the dropout subjects we all pursuing high
school diplomas at an Alternative Diploma Program ran by the public school system or
an Alternative Private school designed specifically for students that officially dropped
out. The subjects were all matched on age, socio-economic level, and lastly on their
family integrity. Some other stats are that the average age of the dropout group was
18.7 years, while the average age of the graduate group was 18.9 years old. The
average number of parents was almost identical: 1.4 parents for the dropouts and 1.5
for the graduates.
In terms of types of methods used in this study, the most obvious ones that I
could identify are surveying and the cross-sectional method. Before I get into explaining
if I think they worked or not, let me state the two hypothesizes that the study was trying
to prove. They first hypothesis was that black high school dropouts will manifest greater
masculine characteristics than black high school graduates on a measure of
masculinity. The second hypothesis was that black high school dropouts perceive, to a
greater extent than black high school grads, that school is a “feminine” institution. Now,
as a part of the methods that were followed to prove these, an instrument called a CPI
was utilized. CPI stands for, California Psychological Inventory, and it was designed to
measure a total of 18 different personality dimensions. Along with this tool, researchers
also used a 50 item schedule that used a Likert Scale to determine whether the subject
agreed or disagreed with each and every 50 statements.
As a result of using the surveying method, it helped to find out which subjects
were more masculine. This was essential to this particular study because the research
indicates that school is more feminine because it takes characteristics like patience and
perseverance to get through it and those attributes are deemed “feminine” by society.
The survey helped to find out the levels of masculinity by having the subjects rate
carefully thought out statements that would determine if they were more masculine or
less. The cross-sectional approach to this particular study was extremely essential for
the findings because it allowed the researchers to compare successful students to the
students who weren’t successful, which then helped to determine patterns of the
interactions between personality and the structure of the schools. The only part of their
approach to this study, that leaves some unanswered questions, was the idea that they
could figure out whether an individual is more masculine or not and whether or not they
view schools as a “feminine” institution, but it doesn’t prove or conclude that any of
those facts are they exact reason why the specific students actually dropped out or
completed school. There can be other significant reasons why individuals dropped out
that have nothing to do with whether they thought school was “feminine” and/or whether
they had more masculine traits than the graduates.
After the survey was given and there was enough evidence to see if the
hypotheses were proven, the results and findings were interpreted and broken down. In
order to understand the findings, you must also understand how the CPI works. As the
value of the CPI increases, the level of masculinity decreases and then visa versa. The
dropouts had a majority of their scores fell between 10-16, while the graduates’ scores
were mostly from 16-23. In addition to that data, the average score for the dropouts was
15.8 and the average score for the graduates was 18.0. Therefore, this study shows
that dropouts have higher levels of masculinity compared to the graduates. As a result,
hypothesis #1 is supported and is true.
However, these findings do not support hypothesis #2. The reason for this is
because the findings only show us the levels of masculinity between the two groups and
not whether or not they see schools as “feminine” institutions. I believe it’s fair to say
that the subjects that had lower levels of masculinity might have had an easier time
completing high school than the subjects with higher levels of masculinity. However, just
because their levels of masculinity vary, doesn’t mean they perceive schools as being
“feminine” to a greater extent than lower level subjects. High level of masculinity
subjects can still view school as masculine depending on the type of school. For
example, a subject with a high level of masculinity can view school as a positive place if
he is better at a trade school. I truly think that any person, male or female, can succeed
in school under the right conditions and structure.
In conclusion, I have learned that there are many methodologies that can work
for finding out specific information. I learned that in order to be accurate, using more
than one method is necessary to gain information on a wider scale. Also, it’s important
to have a clear purpose and hypothesis so the appropriate methods are used. This is
also essential to filter out any unnecessary data that can hinder the study from proving
its hypothesis. I think my group can take some constructive things from this study such
as how to choose our subjects to survey, a comparison of two different groups, the
concept of comparing the structures of the institutions, being aware of all the
circumstances that the subjects are facing, and lastly to make sure our focus is clear
and concise.
Citation
Irvine, Russell W. 1979. "Structure of School, Personality and High School Dropouts." The Journal of
Negro Education 48(1):67-72 (http://search.proquest.com/docview/61196711?accountid=14575).