Respond to a classmate who was assigned a different article than you by further supporting his or her critique or respectfully offering a differing perspective.
VICTORIA
My Evaluation of a purpose statement was conducted on Academic and School Behavioral Variables as Predictors of High School Graduation Among At-Risk Adolescents Enrolled in a Youth-Based Mentoring Program.
Hickman & Wright (2011 ) explains the significance of the identified problem of graduation among at-risk adolescents enrolled in a mentoring program. The authors notate that “the basic premise of mentoring is that providing at-risk adolescents a mature adult role model who can purvey support, nurturance, and guidance outside the immediate or extended family will lower the probability of such adolescents from experiencing and engaging in problematic behaviors”. (p. 1).
Hickman & Wright (2011) used signaling words and an infinitive verb to begin the purpose statement, “the purpose of this study was to examine whether academic and behavioral variables, as well as participants’ age at entry of program and duration in the program” (p.1). These signaling words helped the reader to identify the main purpose and identify the research approach of the article. The statement identified the participants of the study which were male and female adolescents within the mentor program. Hickman & Wright (2011) described the participants, “as well as participants’ age at entry of program and duration in the program, predicted completing the mentoring program and graduating from high school between at-risk male and female adolescents” (p.1).
The author’s main intent of the study is mentioned, “the singular objective of program completion was high school graduation as opposed to quitting the mentoring program because of earlier program termination and/or dropping out of high school” (p.1).
Hickman & Wright (2011) demonstrated their study by using a quantitative research approach. A central phenomenon is examined in a school setting. The central phenomenon was to examine whether academic and behavioral variables, as well as participants’ age at entry of the program and duration in the program, predicted completing the mentoring program and graduating from high school between at-risk male and female adolescents” (p.1).
The authors provided data, variables, and statistics from the study, “participants consisted of 447 males and females who participated in a large youth-based mentoring program and who were enrolled in the Cincinnati Public School system (CPS). Complete data were obtained from 174 males and 273 females. Their ages ranged from 10 to 18 years old. The ethnic breakdown included African Americans (79.4%), Caucasians (19.9%), and Asians (.7%). The gender of the participants included 38.9% female and 61.1% male. Grade levels of the participants were high school (72.9%), middle school (23.5%)” (p.3). This data showed the relevance of the study” (p.3).
During my evaluation of the purpose statement, I was able to understand better how to use a theory to interpret a more in-depth understanding of a problem. This understanding helped the authors decide on the quantitative research approach which was very useful in showing the cause and effect of the problem (Burkholder et al., 2018).
According to Babbie (2017), ” three common and useful purposes of research are exploration, description, ad explanation” (p.91). My position toward research and social change is anchored in the understanding that social workers cannot impact social change without completing adequate research that will yield implications for social work practice.
References
Hickman, G. P., & Wright, D. (2011). Academic and School Behavioral Variables as Predictors of High School Graduation Among At-Risk Adolescents Enrolled in a Youth-Based Mentoring Program. Journal of At-Risk Issues, 16(1), 25–33.
Babbie, E. (2017). Basics of social research (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Burkholder, G. J., Cox, K. A., Crawford, L. M., & Hitchcock, J. H. (Eds.). (2020). Research designs and methods: An applied guide for the scholar-practitioner. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
