Consider this working paper abstract: There is growing concern that improving th
ID: 3302160 • Letter: C
Question
Consider this working paper abstract:
There is growing concern that improving the academic skills of disadvantaged youth is too difficult and costly, so policymakers should instead focus either on vocationally oriented instruction for teens or else on early childhood education. Yet this conclusion may be premature given that so few previous interventions have targeted a potential fundamental barrier to school success: “mismatch” between what schools deliver and the needs of disadvantaged youth who have fallen behind in their academic or non-academic development. This paper reports on a randomized controlled trial of a two-pronged intervention that provides disadvantaged youth with non-academic supports that try to teach youth social-cognitive skills based on the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and intensive individualized academic remediation. The study sample consists of 106 male 9th and 10th graders in a public high school on the south side of Chicago, of whom 95% are black and 99% are free or reduced price lunch eligible. Participation increased math test scores by 0.65 of a control group standard deviation (SD) and 0.48 SD in the national distribution, increased math grades by 0.67 SD, and seems to have increased expected graduation rates by 14 percentage points (46%). While some questions remain about the intervention, given these effects and a cost per participant of around $4,400 (with a range of $3,000 to $6,000), this intervention seems to yield larger gains in adolescent outcomes per dollar spent than many other intervention strategies.
What form of qualitative research (e.g., observation, focus groups, unstructured interviews, semi-structured interviews) might you want to do to explore why the program is so much more effective than the usual form of schooling? Briefly describe how you would set up such research and why.
Explanation / Answer
Answer:
For the given scenario, we need to use the focus groups form of qualitative research for comparing the significant difference between two methods. Here, we have to compare two methods such as usual form of schooling and vocationally oriented instructions. For comparing the effect of these two methods, we will use the randomized control trials by selecting the random sample from targeted population. The targeted population would focus on the teens from the schools. Also, we will check the effect of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) on the groups of subjects. We would divide the random sample for checking effects due to CBT and without CBT. Also, we will find out if there is any significant interaction due to some related variables involved in the study.