Improving graduation rates: Legitimate practices and gaming strategies

Accountability pressures faced by teachers and leaders may lead well-intentioned educators to engage in strategic reporting and operational practices to increase test scores, graduation rates, and other indicators of student success. Such practices are referred to as gaming behaviors. School district personnel attending a Georgia educational conference (N=146) reported a significant prevalence of two such practices – purging data for students enrolled for a short period of time and fabricating withdrawal forms in case of audit. Exploratory factor analysis yielded three categories of strategies employed by school districts to improve reported graduation rates: a) practices that directly contradict the rules governing ethical reporting of data (Factor1); b) legitimate educational practices aiming to enhance student learning (Factor2); and c) possible gaming strategies aiming to exclude low performing students from the computation of graduation rates (Factor3). Latent profile analysis distinguished a) a group with average scores on all factors (N=120); and b) a group with significantly higher scores on Factor1 and Factor3 (N=26). The second group included a significantly larger proportion of individuals from districts with 5,000 – 10,000 students; districts of this size may have the expertise in-house to understand calculations and take strategic action with their data reporting practices.

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Understanding School Truancy: Risk–Need Latent Profiles of Adolescents

Assessment ◽

10.1177/1073191116672329 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 25 (8) ◽

pp. 978-987 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Andrew Iverson ◽

Brian F. French ◽

Paul S. Strand ◽

Chad M. Gotch ◽

Carl McCurley

Keyword(s):

School Districts ◽

Latent Profile Analysis ◽

Service Providers ◽

Profile Analysis ◽

Maladaptive Behaviors ◽

Court System ◽

Social Emotional ◽

Youth Service ◽

Unexcused Absences ◽

School Truancy

Washington state requires school districts to file court petitions on students with excessive unexcused absences resulting in thousands of youth becoming involved in the court system. Once in the system, decisions are made about the level of risk each youth has for maladaptive behaviors. The Washington Assessment of the Risks and Needs of Students was created to assist youth service providers, courts, and schools to identify an adolescent’s needs for social, emotional, or educational intervention. However, the profile-based decisions advocated for by test developers lack empirical justification. This study employed latent profile analysis to examine risk and needs profiles of adolescents based on the Washington Assessment of the Risks and Needs of Students assessment. Profiles were developed to aid understanding of behaviors associated with school truancy, and examined across outcome variables (e.g., suspensions, arrests) to evaluate evidence in support of predictive claims. Results suggest distinct profiles that differ on important outcomes.

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Identifying Suicide Typologies Among Trauma-Exposed Veterans

Crisis ◽

10.1027/0227-5910/a000637 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 41 (4) ◽

pp. 288-295 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Nadia Bounoua ◽

Jasmeet P. Hayes ◽

Naomi Sadeh

Keyword(s):

Latent Profile Analysis ◽

Suicide Attempts ◽

Clinical Symptoms ◽

Profile Analysis ◽

Risky Behaviors ◽

Self Report ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Research Priority ◽

Self Harm ◽

And Behaviors

Abstract. Background: Suicide among veterans has increased in recent years, making the identification of those at greatest risk for self-injurious behavior a high research priority. Aims: We investigated whether affective impulsivity and risky behaviors distinguished typologies of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors in a sample of trauma-exposed veterans. Method: A total of 95 trauma-exposed veterans (ages 21–55; 87% men) completed self-report measures of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors, impulsivity, and clinical symptoms. Results: A latent profile analysis produced three classes that differed in suicidal ideation, suicide attempts and nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI): A low class that reported little to no self-injurious thoughts or behaviors; a self-injurious thoughts (ST) class that endorsed high levels of ideation but no self-harm behaviors; and a self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (STaB) class that reported ideation, suicide attempts and NSSI. Membership in the STaB class was associated with greater affective impulsivity, disinhibition, and distress/arousal than the other two classes. Limitations: Limitations include an overrepresentation of males in our sample, the cross-sectional nature of the data, and reliance on self-report measures. Conclusion: Findings point to affective impulsivity and risky behaviors as important characteristics of veterans who engage in self-injurious behaviors.

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