Pregnancy Rates and Educational Attainment

Pregnancy Rates and Educational Attainment among Middle-School and High-School girls

Purpose of the Action Research Project

Scope of the Action Research Project

Importance of the Action Research Project

Option Selection

Description of the Intervention

Description of Intervention

The Evaluation Plan

Evaluation Design

Limitations of the Evaluation Plan

Individual Impact

Long-term Educational Goals

Views on Marriage

Relationship between Current School Year and Graduation

Impact of Tutoring

Policy Recommendations

Recommendations for Further Research

Teen Mentor Training Sheet

Action Plan

First Week Status Report

Mentor's Assessment

Reflections on Action Research Project

Abstract

Teenage pregnancy is one of the most pressing social problems in the United States, and many southern counties are disproportionately affected by this social issue. One of the reasons that the issue of teen pregnancy has become such a major social issue is that it is an area rife with moral judgments, and society simply has not decided what type of interventions are appropriate to prevent teen pregnancy, even if some interventions have been proven to be successful. For example, some interventionists advocate sex education that focuses on birth control and pregnancy prevention. Other interventionists disagree, and believe that any sex education should focus only on abstinence. Surprisingly enough, both approaches, if done in an appropriate manner, have had their successes. In fact, the two approaches seem to have similar impacts on teen pregnancy rates, which means that, regardless of the pre-pregnancy interventions employed, practitioners can expect that some percentage of teenagers will continue to experience unplanned pregnancies. However, it also means that, if done appropriately, interventions can have a positive impact on the number of teenage pregnancies.

Furthermore, one must understand why teenage pregnancy is considered a social problem. In many societies around the world, it is neither undesirable nor unusual for a teenager to become pregnant. In fact, teenage pregnancy was the norm, rather than an aberration, for much of American history. However, teenage pregnancy today differs substantially from teenage pregnancy in the past, because the vast majority of pregnant teens are single mothers who do not marry their child's father. Single parenting leads to a variety of issues, because the mother is called upon to do all of the parenting and provide all of the financial support for her child. As a result, the teenage mother's education often becomes less of a priority.

Therefore, one must look beyond the absolute rate of teen pregnancy to understand the breadth and width of the social issues connected to teen pregnancy. For example, although teen pregnancy has experienced a general decline since the 1990s, there have been some troubling trends in teen pregnancy. For example, more and more teen pregnancies are occurring to single mothers, which is highly correlated with future issues. In addition, while the overall teen pregnancy rate is declining, there is a trend for more teenagers to become mothers at extremely young ages. Both issues have an impact on education, and teenage pregnancy is highly correlated with dropping out of secondary school.

Unfortunately, dropping out of school oftentimes leads to a variety of negative consequences for both the teenage mother and child. Teenage mothers who lack education are often trapped in low-pay, low-skill jobs. These jobs rarely provide medical benefits, paid time-off, or any of the other benefits associated with career-type work. In addition, the children suffer because they are trapped in a cycle of poverty. Lacking financial resources at home, the children of teenage parents are more likely to drop out of school before graduating in order to obtain money from low-paying jobs. Furthermore, these children may not receive adequate educational support from their parents because of a lack of academic ability.

Several social interventions have been aimed at decreasing the drop-out rate among pregnant teenagers and teenage parents. Some of these interventions have been moderately successful, while others have had no appreciable impact on the drop-out rate. However, even the successful interventions have had only partial success, because approximately half of all teenage parents eventually drop-out of secondary education prior to obtaining a degree. Some interventions are aimed at practical issues, such as the provision of childcare for mothers attending school. Other interventions are more esoteric, such as scholarship programs for teenage parents who excel in the high school environment. However, very few programs seem to acknowledge the reality that parents will miss more school than non-parents, and that interventions need to be in place to mitigate the effects of those increased absences.

Peer interventions have proven successful in other areas of at-risk behavior for teenagers. Therefore, this study examines whether peer interventions could be successful in helping teenage mothers stay in school. This peer intervention matched new mothers with a same-grade, academically advanced peer. The peer's role was to ensure that the teenage mother did not fall behind in her schoolwork. The peer was to act as a mentor, but also as a tutor, helping mothers tackle any educational difficulties as they occurred.

The study examined several different issues. The first issue that the study looked at was whether peer intervention had an impact on the pregnant mothers' attitudes towards education. The next variable that the study looked at was whether the mothers attended classes, and, if not, their reasons for missing classes. The third variable that the study looked at was the mother's early grades. Because attitude, absenteeism, and educational success are all predictive of whether or not a student will drop out of school, those three variables should help predict whether or not the mothers will drop out of school.

Although the study was limited in scope and duration, the initial results are promising. After only one week of peer intervention, more than half of the teenage mothers reported greater confidence that they would complete their educations. More significantly, with peer intervention, only one of the teenage mothers missed any portion of the first week of school, and that absence did not lead to any missed schoolwork or homework. None of the mothers engaged in the type of behavior that one typically associates with a high risk of dropping out of school. Although the sample size and study design meant that the results could not be characterized as statistically significant, they were promising enough to suggest that a future action research project investigate the impact of mentors on the three dimensions over the course of an entire semester or school year.

Chapter One: Description of the Problem

Purpose of the Action Research Project

The purpose of the action research project is to design and implement an intervention strategy targeted at reducing the secondary education drop-out rate among teenage mothers in two counties: Halifax County, North Carolina, and Brunswick County, Virginia. Because dropping out of secondary education, both high school and middle school, is linked to high rates of absenteeism, poor academic performance, and individual attitude towards education, the peer intervention program was aimed at changing those three variables in recently post-partum teenage mothers. The peer intervention program sought to change those variables by giving each teenage mother a peer mentor with whom they had constant contact, and whom they knew could contact school counselors or the researchers on behalf of the teenage mother. The hope was that the constant interaction between the teenage mother and the mentor would reduce the teenage mothers' incidence of dropping-out related risk factors, by providing accountability for absences, tutoring to boost academic performance, and help improve the mothers' attitude towards education.

Setting of the Problem

Although there has been a general nationwide decline in the absolute rates of teenage pregnancy in the United States, this decline has not been universal. In addition, researchers do not know why the overall pregnancy rate has declined, and fear that the decline is temporary and will not be replicated. Therefore, teenage pregnancy is still considered a serious social problem, and it is being viewed as a problem in areas that previously did not have substantial issues due to teenage pregnancy. In both Halifax County, North Carolina, and Brunswick County, Virginia, teenage pregnancy is viewed as an emerging social problem. For example, "Halifax County is ranked fifth in the number of teen pregnancies for ages fifteen to nineteen. North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services reported a rate of 98.1 for Halifax County compared to the North Carolina average of 64.1." (Smith et al., 2006). Unlike Halifax County, Brunswick County does not have an abnormally high teen-pregnancy rate; in fact, its overall teenage pregnancy rate is no higher than the average teenage pregnancy rate in Virginia. However, Brunswick County does have an alarmingly high rate of very early teenage pregnancies:.4% of its girls between 10 and 14 years of age were mothers, compared to a state-wide rate of.11% of girls in that same age category. (Virginia Department of Health, 2006). Unlike their older counterparts, very young teenage mothers lack the legal ability to support themselves or their child, and may be unduly subject to family pressure regarding childbearing and child raising decisions. On a related note, there may be a high correlation between very early pregnancies and child sexual abuse or other forms of incest.

These number from Halifax and Brunswick counties are alarming not only because of the high correlation between teen pregnancy and dropping out of school, but also because the interrelationship between educational proficiency and teenage pregnancy. For example, only "forty-one percent of teenagers who begin families before age 18 ever complete high school." (the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2006). Furthermore, "parenthood is a leading cause of high school drop out among teen girls." (the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2006). Finally, "only about 2% of teen mothers have a college degree by age 30." (the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2006). What seems clear is that teenage mothers are unlikely to finish their secondary educations and dramatically less likely to pursue post-secondary education than their non-parenting counterparts. Clearly, these teenage mothers are likely to remain financially disadvantaged, because there is a clearly established relationship between education and financial security.

However, the relationship between teen pregnancy and dropping out of school is not directly causal, and it would be patently incorrect to say that teen pregnancy causes girls to drop out of school. On the contrary, a "recent study found that approximately fifty percent of first-time teen mothers under 18 had dropped out did so before they were pregnant; the other half dropped out after becoming pregnant." (the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2006). Furthermore, "educational failure is a key predictor of teen pregnancy." (the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2006). Therefore, it becomes clear that while teen pregnancy is very highly correlated to dropping out of secondary education, it is not as clear whether one of them contributes to the other, or whether additional variables contribute to a greater likelihood of teen pregnancy and a greater likelihood of dropping out.

History and Background of the Problem

Teenage pregnancy is one of the most difficult social problems to assess and control. Unlike other social problems, like drug abuse, teenage pregnancy does not involve something that is inherently bad. On the contrary, pregnancy and motherhood can be extremely positive experiences. Moreover, even for pregnant teenagers, there are some aspects of pregnancy and motherhood that can be very rewarding. Despite the fact that parenting has its own rewards, the fact remains that a teenage pregnancy is highly correlated with a lack of success in adult life. Pregnant teenagers are less likely to complete their secondary education and go on to college than their non-pregnant peers. Furthermore, pregnant teenagers are more likely to live in poverty during adulthood than their non-pregnant peers. These factors are not necessarily related to maternal age, and might more properly be labeled a function of unwed maternity. However, re-labeling the problem will not decrease the correlation between teen pregnancy and a wide variety of negative life consequences. Obviously, these consequences can turn an otherwise positive event into a grave social problem, and teenage mothers and their children can feel the impact of a teenage pregnancy for generations after the pregnancy.

The reality of pregnancy and parenting, regardless of the age of the parents, is that parenting is extremely difficult and time-consuming work. This fact is especially true when parenting an infant, and mothers are biologically and socially conditioned to provide the majority of the constant attention demanded by an infant. Therefore, the realities of teen parenthood have a disproportionate impact on teenage mothers, even when the father is actively involved in the pregnancy and with raising the child. Furthermore, the lack of support for teenage mothers in the educational community often places these young women in the position of choosing between best parenting practices, such as breastfeeding and attachment parenting, or pursuing their diplomas, because they are unable to do both at the same time. Socio-cultural influences and biology may combine to make it more likely that young women will choose motherhood over education, when and if they perceive that they are being asked to make such a choice. Given that many school districts have absence policies that prevent matriculation after a certain number of absences, mothers who choose to stay home with sick children or who miss school because of gaps in childcare may feel as if they are pressured into making such a decision, even if they are never formally asked to do so.

Historically, young women have not always had to choose between future success and young motherhood. On the contrary, teen pregnancy and young motherhood have been constants in all societies, including American society. What has undergone a dramatic change is not the incidence rate of teen pregnancies, but the sociological and cultural atmosphere surrounding those pregnancies. The most dramatic social change to impact the landscape of teenage pregnancy was the increase of the average age of marriage. While large numbers of teenagers have historically been mothers, they have done so within the bounds of marriage. The institution of marriage has a practical and dramatic impact on the costs of parenthood: when parents are married, a father is more likely to participate, both financially and emotionally, in the lives of his children. The recent teen pregnancy problem is characterized as a problem because it reflects a "rise in childbearing outside of marriage." (Farber, 2003). This unwed motherhood has dramatic social consequences; unmarried teenage pregnancies are believed to cost approximately $7 billion per year in America. (Farber, 2003). Therefore, it is important to realize that teenage pregnancy's negative social impact is largely financially based, because the majority of teenage pregnancies result in families being supported by only one parent.

However, another significant social change has also helped determine the impact of teenage pregnancy on the social landscape, and on the teenage mother; society has continued to raise its definition of adulthood. Even as the culture shoves adult sexuality down the throats of prepubescent and early adolescent girls, it has also created a culture of youth. While eighteen has been the official age of adulthood in America for many years, that number is not the only one to indicate when a child is considered an adult. The age of consent, driving ages, the age at which one can legally obtain employment, the age of graduation, and the age for legal drinking all send signals about when a child is considered an adult in American society. That age has slowly crept upwards. For example, fewer teenage mothers may complete their educations in modern times than in historical times due to the fact that "by the mid-1800s both boys and girls usually had completed their education at age 15 or 16, so pregnancy did not endanger an adolescent's educational attainment as it does today." Therefore, modern teenage mothers confront a social environment with multiple personalities; modern teenagers face greater pressure to engage in sexualized behavior than prior generations of teenagers, but are, at the same time, less prepared to deal with the realities of adult life than any recent prior generation of American teenagers.

Scope of the Action Research Project

The scope of the action research project is not aimed at reducing the incidence of teen pregnancy, but to examine the impact of peer intervention on the dropout rate of teenage mothers during the early post-partum period. The project aimed to determine whether pre-delivery matching of pregnant teenagers would have an immediate impact on their dropout rates. The research participants include a subset of pregnant teenagers from the high schools and middle schools in Halifax County, North Carolina, and the high schools and middle schools in Brunswick County, Virginia. It also includes a matched, non-pregnant peer mentor from the same class as each pregnant teen.

Importance of the Action Research Project

The action research project is important because it seeks to discover whether peer-led intervention can prevent teenage mothers from dropping out of secondary education. Peer-led interventions are less expensive than many other methods of intervention, because they do not require paid adult mentors. On the contrary, in these peer-led interventions, the peer interveners only need to complete basic crises counseling training, which is relatively inexpensive to provide. If they require additional assistance, the peers can go to the school counselors who are already assigned to assist the pregnant teenagers. In addition, the use of peer interveners should solve resource issues, because there is a far larger pool of possible peer interveners than there are pregnant teenagers. If peer-led interventions are proven to be successful in lowering the drop-out rate, they could be quickly and affordably implemented throughout schools in Halifax and Brunswick Counties.

Definition of Terms

Dropout: The term dropout has several different meanings, which are sometimes used interchangeably throughout the literature. It can refer to the longitudinal dropout rate, annual dropout rates, attrition rates, and any other indicator that a teenager is leaving the educational environment without attaining a high school diploma. However, for the purposes of this study, a teenage mother is considered a drop-out if she fails to attend the first week of class of the 2007-2008 school year. Mothers were not considered a drop-out if the failure to attend class was for a provable, medically compelled reason, and the mother made efforts to obtain work assignments from teachers.

Teenage: For the purposes of this paper, teenage refers to any child who was in the secondary school system at the time of the conception of her child. Therefore, the term is simultaneously more and less inclusive than its general usage. Mothers under the age of thirteen, although not technically teenagers, are included in this group. Furthermore, mothers who graduate from high school are not considered in the group, no matter how young they are at the time of conception.

Teenage pregnancy: This paper focuses on teenage mothers who carry their babies to term and do not place those babies for adoption. Though pregnancy has an impact on teenagers who miscarry, abort, or place their children for adoption, those teenagers do not face the same short-term challenges as mothering teenagers. Therefore, unless otherwise noted, the term teenage pregnancy refers to a pregnancy carried to term by a teenage mother, and parented by that same mother.

Chapter Two: Literature Review

Currently, there are a number of interventions aimed at reducing the teenage pregnancy rate. However, these interventions are sometimes considered controversial, because the advocacy of birth control is sometimes seen as an advocacy of teenage sexuality. However, regardless of individual opinion regarding the propriety of these various programs, the research results reveal that they are not always effective. What appears clear is that the overall teenage pregnancy rate has experienced a recent decline. Moreover, a combination of less teenage sex, and a greater use of contraception when having sex, seems to be responsible for this decline in the teenage pregnancy rate.

While the majority of non-marital births are to adult women, there are still substantial reasons to focus on pregnant teens:

First, although a large proportion of non-marital births are to adult women, half of first non-marital births are to teens. Thus, the pattern tends to start in the teenage years, and, once teens have had a first child outside marriage, many go on to have additional children out of wedlock at an older age. A number of programs aimed at preventing subsequent births to teen mothers have been launched but few have had much success. So, if we want to prevent out-of-wedlock childbearing and the growth of single-parent families, the teenage years are a good place to start. (Sawhill, 2001).

Furthermore, teen childbearing is very expensive, costing more than $3,200 a year per teenage birth. (Sawhill, 2001). Most significantly, teen mothers face greater disadvantages than other single mothers, even controlling for disadvantaged childhoods. Teenage mothers are "more likely to have dropped out of school and are less likely to be able to support themselves. Only one out of every five teen mothers receives any support from their child's father, and about 80% end up on welfare." (Sawhill, 2001). Finally, the "children of teen mothers are more likely than the children of older mothers to be born prematurely at low birth weight and to suffer a variety of health problems as a consequence. They are more likely to do poorly in school, to suffer higher rates of abuse and neglect, and to end up in foster care with all its attendant costs." (Sawhill, 2001).

The fact that teenage mothers are less likely than other unwed mothers to receive child support of other forms of financial aid from their children's fathers makes the high dropout rate among teens even more alarming. These teenage mothers, who need financial assistance raising their children more than any other segment of unmarried parents, are also the group least likely to be able to find adequate employment to support their families. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that some current social interventions are aimed at decreasing the drop-out rate in order to decrease the dependence of teenage mothers on public resources. For example, a welfare law enacted in 1996 linked the receipt of welfare funds to the completion of high school for teen mothers. (Sawhill, 2001). However, this aspect of the law has not been shown to have an impact on the number of teenage pregnancies.

However, some teen pregnancy intervention programs have been proven to be very successful. In fact, the majority of community programs aimed at reducing the rate of teenage pregnancy have had some success, though the result rates vary tremendously depending on the intervention, how it is done, and the degree of community support for the intervention. Two of the intervention programs that do reduce teen pregnancy rates have had some incredible results, reducing those rates by approximately fifty percent. (Sawhill, 2001). One of those programs hopes to make teens more active in their communities, and it does so by involving teens in community service with adult supervision and counseling. The other program is more comprehensive, and aims to impact almost all of the areas that have been identified as placing teenagers at risk for teenage pregnancy. That program includes a range of services such as tutoring and career counseling along with sex education and reproductive health services. Both have been replicated in diverse communities and evaluated by randomly assigning teens to a program and control group." (Sawhill, 2001).

Furthermore, it is important to keep in mind that pregnant teenagers and teenage mothers are not necessarily different from their non-pregnant peers. In fact, pregnant teenagers and teenage mothers drop out of school for many of the same reasons as other students. While parenting certainly has an impact on the decision to drop out, that impact may be due to the fact that parenting exacerbates existing problems, more than to the fact that parenting creates its own difficulties in the educational arena. In fact, these teenage mothers are frequently considered to be at-risk of dropping out prior to conception. Therefore, it is important to understand why students drop out of school and what interventions have been effective in reducing the overall drop-out rate. Not surprisingly, dropping out of school is linked to poor performance in the educational environment. This poor performance often begins long before high school, and long before the teenager becomes pregnant or even sexually active. Furthermore:

We know that low expectations and academic and career-preparation programs that are not challenging will not keep students in school. We know that students who have fallen behind in reading, mathematics and writing are those who are most likely to drop out of school when they get to high school. We know that children who are not ready to begin first grade are more likely than their peers to drop out of school later. We know that the dropout problem cannot be solved by schools alone. Preventing teens from dropping out of school requires services from and cooperation among schools, community agencies and local businesses. (Creech, 2000).

Furthermore, preventing pregnant teens from dropping out of school involves looking at the specific reasons that pregnant and parenting teens might drop out of school combined with the traditional reasons that teenagers drop out of school.

In addition, while this research has made it clear that there are several specific reasons that teens drop out of school, it is imperative that one keep in mind that it is rarely one thing that drives a student's choice. On the contrary:

Surveys of students who drop out of high school show that they typically do so for a combination of reasons. The most frequently cited reasons related to school are: dislike of school and teachers, poor grades and inability to get along with classmates; a perception that what is being learned in school is not relevant to real life; inability to keep up with peers because of low achievement in reading, writing, mathematics and other basic skills; and behavioral problems and attendance problems that result in expulsion. The most frequently cited reasons not directly related to school are: child care, marriage and pregnancy; the opportunity to have jobs (almost always low-skills jobs) and earn money; and peer groups outside of school. (Creech, 2000).

It should be clear that the non-school related reasons that teens most frequently drop out of school are all applicable to teenage mothers. Teenage mothers have to deal with issues of childcare, relationship or pregnancy issues, and they frequently need jobs to earn money more than non-pregnant and non-parenting teenagers. Moreover, non-school peers have a large impact on whether or not a teenager drops out of school, and many teenage mothers are romantically involved with older males, who are not in high school, and who are outside of the girls' traditional peer groups.

Knowing why students drop out is very helpful, because it helps identify the areas where intervention is needed the most and also indicates area where intervention may not be helpful. Knowing where intervention is needed and is not needed has helped in the development of intervention strategies that work. Some of those strategies include:

Identify early the students who are at risk and provide these students with both academic and social interventions to help them overcome problems that begin in preschool and continue through elementary, middle and high school. Do whatever is necessary to prepare students for the transitions from elementary to middle to high school and to help students connect with at least one teacher or counselor. In some schools each teacher is assigned to advise a group of students and work with them each year until they complete high school. These programs show that one person can make a difference in whether students complete high school. Involve parents in school activities and in planning their children's programs of study. Coordinate the efforts of state and community agencies and organizations. Commitment from state leaders and leaders in schools and communities to solve the dropout problem. (Creech, 2000).

Chapter Three: Option Selection

There are three different types of action research projects available. The first type of action research project is the applied design intervention. The applied design intervention involves designing a real-life intervention to alleviate the problem. The intervention is to be designed and implemented within the stated time period, so that the results can be evaluated to determine the efficacy of the project. The difference between the applied design intervention and the other types of action research projects is that the applied design intervention is actually implemented and evaluated to see if it actually helps alleviate the problem. The grant proposal submission is substantially similar to the applied design intervention, because they both involve the complete design of an intervention. However, the grant proposal submission does not involve implementation of the intervention, but, instead, a discussion of its pros and cons in the form of a proposal seeking funding. Therefore, the grant proposal submission project does not provide an opportunity for the actual evaluation of the intervention. An alternative policy design differs from the other two proposals in a significant manner; rather than concentrating on the development of one single intervention; the alternative policy design project focuses on multiple designs and discusses the pros and cons of those designs. The alternative policy design is targeted to a board or other group of supervisors and presents several different approaches to solving one problem. In addition, like the grant proposal submission, the alternative policy design does not provide an opportunity for real-life evaluation of any of the suggested interventions.

This paper focuses on an option one solution: applied design intervention. This option seemed the most logical one to use when dealing with peer group interventions, because of the low-cost to implement such interventions. Because the peer intervention could be supervised by the researcher and did not incur any other substantial costs, this intervention was not a good candidate for an option two grant proposal submission. In addition, the project was not a good candidate for the alternative policy decision, because direct teen intervention as mentors with postpartum teen mothers has not been implemented frequently enough to evaluate its relative strengths and weaknesses without actually implementing the program. Therefore, it appears that the only way to determine whether a teen intervention mentor program would be successful is to implement such a program on a small scale and assess the success or failure of such an intervention. Because determining the real-life utility of the proposed intervention is important to the research, the researcher chose to focus on an applied design intervention type of action research project.

Chapter Four: Description of the Intervention

Statement of the Objective

While it can be very rewarding, parenting is extremely difficult, even for the best-prepared parents. Moreover, one of the universally-recognized most physically and emotionally difficult periods of parenthood is immediately postpartum. Following the birth of a first child, mothers, regardless of age and marital status, struggle with a variety of issues, many of which they may not have been able to anticipate prior to the birth of the child. Fatigue, depression, and a sense of being overwhelmed are all common experiences for new mothers. In addition, new mothers may face physical challenges in parenting, such as dealing with complications from pregnancy and childbirth, or learning how to breastfeed. Finally, new mothers struggle with a shift in their entire perspective; rather than being an individual, the mother of a newborn becomes an extension of that infant for part of the postpartum period.

Because the immediate post-partum period is so full of transitions, it seems likely to lead to increased absenteeism in school and work situations. It should come as no surprise that the increased absenteeism rate has been shown to impact the high-school drop-out rate. This relationship may be due to the fact that some parenting teenagers find it impossible to catch up with their school work after missing a significant portion of school time. In addition, many states legislate how many days of a school year that a student can miss and still matriculate to the next grade level. It seems even more likely that absenteeism at the beginning of the school year would lead to a greater likelihood of dropping out, because those students do not learn the basics of their courses and may miss the opportunity to form essential relationships with peers and teachers, which could be essential to them if they have to recover from extensive periods of absences. Therefore, this intervention is aimed at reaching mothers who gave birth over the summer, matching them with a peer, and determining whether having a peer support person decreases the likelihood of dropping out.

The broad objective of the applied intervention project is to decrease the high-school drop-out rate of postpartum students in the weeks and months immediately following delivery of a first child. The narrower objective is to contact teenagers who gave birth over the summer, assess their willingness to return to school, put them in contact with a teacher and volunteer mentor student at their school, and to assess whether having a same-age mentor has an impact on a teenage mother's willingness to return to school. Furthermore, the selected mentors are all high-potential students, so that they can provide tutoring services to the teenage mothers, in order to determine whether direct academic support has a positive impact on the drop out rate of teenage parents.

Description of the Intervention

This intervention was done on a county-wide basis for both counties, and involved students in both the middle-school and the high-school setting. Fortunately, identification of the teenage parents was simplified; both counties already had programs in place to identify pregnant teenagers. Once identified, teenagers and/or their parents were asked to speak to counselors and the relevant school nurse, so that the schools would be aware of due dates and any potential pregnancy complications. From this existing bank of information, the researcher identified those students who had given birth in the two weeks prior to the end of school or who were scheduled to give birth over the summer break. Contact was made with each of the girls to determine whether they had actually given birth. Those who were still pregnant at the time of the initial contact were eliminated from the project. However, those girls who indicated that they did not intend to return to school for the coming school year were still asked to participate in the project and all of them did so.

Once the pregnant teenagers were identified, the principals at their schools were asked to identify several under-involved, high-potential students from each of the girl's grade levels. The reason that they were asked to identify under-involved students is so that the mentors would have sufficient time to devote to mentoring the teenage mothers, and so that they would not intimidate the teenage mothers because of high investment levels in the high school social scene. These students were then approached and asked if they would participate as volunteers in a mentoring program for teenage mothers. The mentoring program was described as a buddy-system intervention. The student mentors were told that they would be responsible for helping the mothers get class work and homework assignments if they missed school, for tutoring the mothers in courses that the mothers found difficult, and for calling the mothers three times per week to check on them. The students were told that if the mothers had problems outside of the school setting, including financial, emotional, or logistical problems, that the students were to enlist the assistance of the researcher, who would work with school counselors to identify appropriate assistance resources.

The students who agreed to participate as mentors in the program were then given one-day of training, which basically delineated the expectations of how they were to interact with the pregnant teenager, whether to report certain types of behavior on behalf of the teenage mother, and what assistance the teen mentors could and could not provide. (See Appendix a). The students were told that their role was to provide mentoring in the high-school environment, and that they were prohibited from providing direct assistance to the teenage mothers, through financial aid, childcare, counseling or driving. Instead, the role of the mentor was to provide the young mothers with a constant link to the school environment, keep them up-to-date on schoolwork assignments if the mothers missed school, and to provide assistance if the mothers were having problems completing certain aspects of their homework. Furthermore, the teen mentors were told about post-partum depression and related disorders, and told to discuss any concerns about post-partum depression with the researcher and/or the counselor at their high school or middle-school.

Next, the researcher approached the group of recent mothers to discuss their participation in the program. The mothers were initially contacted via a letter, with follow-up phone calls to all of the mothers who did not respond to the letter. The initial contact determined if the mothers were eligible to participate in the program, by discovering maternal age and whether or not the mother had given birth over the summer. Those mothers who were eligible and who chose to participate were invited to an orientation program, which their children were also welcome to attend. The first part of the orientation program involved having the teenage mothers answer a survey regarding their likelihood of attending school at the beginning of the 2007-2008 semester, their likelihood of graduation or its equivalent, and their future plans for marriage and for post-secondary education. (See Appendix B).

Part two of the orientation program included an overview of the mentoring program. The researcher explained that the orientation program was targeted at keeping new mothers in contact with school and on top of their school assignments, with the hopes of keeping new mothers enrolled in school and current with their homework. Furthermore, the researcher gave the new mothers the same orientation sheet as the teen mentors, and explained what the mentors could and could not do. The researcher also explained that each mentor-mother pair was expected to fill out an action plan, which would provide basic information about who the mother should contact in an emergency. (See Appendix C). In addition to covering the basic information about the mentoring program, each action program also contained information about the teenage mother's specific contacts for various social service programs and encouraged the girl to make a list of back-up day care providers.

Part three of the orientation involved introducing the mentors to the teenage mothers. Given the relatively small size of the study, each introduction was made privately. At the introduction, both the teen and the mentor were given basic background information about each other. Because the mothers had their children present, the mentors were also given the opportunity to meet the children. At the orientation, the mentor, the mother, and the researcher worked together to fill out the action plan, and address any logistical issues. The most significant logistical issue was that one male mentor felt uncomfortable when his assigned mother experienced a "let-down" of milk in front of him, which soaked her blouse. He decided that he would not be able to participate in the program. Fortunately, the principal of her school had identified several prospective mentors, and her mentor was replaced within two days.

The students then complied with their action plan for the first week of school. The action plan required that the students and mentors talk on the phone for three weeks and meet for at least two hours in person. At the end of the first week, the mothers filled out another copy of the first survey; except that the second survey did not ask how likely the students were to return to school in the fall, but whether they planned on staying in school that year. (See Appendix F). These second surveys were administered so that the researcher could determine whether the student mentors seemed to be making an impact on the attitudes of the teen mothers. The teen mothers were also asked to fill out another worksheet, asking about their academic performance, including whether they had completed all homework and school work assignments, and the grades they received on those assignments, if any. (See Appendix D). The teen mothers were also asked to have their teachers initial those worksheets to verify that the information contained in them was accurate and complete.

Furthermore, the teen mentors were asked to fill out their own worksheets. (See Appendix E). These worksheets asked them to report whether the teenage mothers had completed all of their assigned class work and homework. In addition, the mentors were asked to report any absences by the mothers. The main purpose of these surveys was to determine whether the mentors and the teenage mothers had similar views of the mothers' degree of success at the beginning of the school year, and whether their views matched the views of teachers. Any discrepancies between the worksheets filled out by the mentors and by the teenage mothers was resolved by having individual interviews with, first, the teen mentor, and then with the teenage mother.

Chapter Five: The Evaluation Plan

Evaluation Design

There were only seventeen eligible teenage mothers who gave birth in both of the targeted counties during the specified time period. Though some of them indicated that they were not going to return to work, all seventeen of them attended the orientation program. Furthermore, all seventeen of them attended the first day of school. However, the limited number of interventions meant that the sample size was simply too small to determine whether there was a statistical significance to any of the recorded changes. Therefore, the evaluation was designed to determine whether any of the mothers self-reports reflected a change in attitude towards short-term and long-term educational goals. In addition, the evaluation determined whether any of the mothers engaged in early behavior that may have been indicative of a future intent to drop-out of school. Additionally, the evaluation determined whether tutoring had a positive impact, a negative impact, or no impact on the teenagers' attitudes towards education. Finally, the evaluation looked at the relationship between a teenager's plans for marriage and her immediate and long-term educational goals.

Data Collection Procedures

The action research project relied on self-reporting as its main means of data collecting. All of the teenage mothers were asked to evaluate their own academic interest, both when starting the study and after being actively involved in the study. However, the researcher made attempts to counter-act any bias introduced into the process by relying on self-reporting. For example, when the teenage mothers were asked to describe their grades and whether they had missed any school, the researcher required that their teachers sign that paperwork. In addition, the reports by the mentors served as another means of verifying the information supplied by the teenage mothers.

Furthermore, the project would not have been possible if the two hosting school districts did not already engage in substantial data collection. Both school districts already had systems in place to identify pregnant teenagers, so that they could provide the teenagers with some intervention services, like referral to appropriate medical services. Without those systems, the researcher would have had to identify the pregnant teenagers before engaging in the intervention process, which would have made the intervention difficult, if not impossible.

The first worksheet was given to the teenage mothers at the time of the intervention. On this survey, the researcher collected information regarding the teenagers' desire to remain in school. One may notice that the researcher did not ask basic questions that one may have come to associate with the issue of teen pregnancy. The teenage mothers were not asked about their socioeconomic status or their race. This was not an accidental oversight, but an intentional decision by the researcher. The correlation between race, socioeconomic status, and teenage pregnancy has been firmly established. However, the research does not substantiate any claims that teenagers get pregnant or have children for different reasons, based on their social class. Nor does there seem to be a significant difference regarding the completion of education by pregnant mothers that depends on race or class. Therefore, in a preliminary analysis of the effectiveness of an intervention, race and socioeconomic class are minor factors. The researcher kept the copies of the first survey, and did not discuss them with the teenage mothers or the teenage mentors.

The surveys were repeated approximately 10 days later. At that time, the teenage mothers and the mentors had worked through the first week of school and any attendant issues. The second survey was identical to the first survey given to the pregnant mothers; except that it did not ask the students how likely they were to return to school in the fall. The researcher was looking for any change, positive or negative, to the results given by the individual mothers. Unlike the first survey, the second survey was given as a take-home assignment. The differences in how the surveys were given may have introduced too much variance into the process. The teenage mothers gave the second survey to their teenage mentors. Therefore, they may have felt pressured or compelled to change their responses in some manner. Furthermore, the teenage mothers filled out the second survey after completing the worksheet assessing their absences and grades, which may have influenced their attitudes about completing school. However, these two issues cannot be labeled flaws in the research design. The whole point of the research was to see that if the involvement of a teenage mentor made teenage mothers feel more accountable for successfully participating in their education. Therefore, any element that highlighted the involvement of the mentors simply reinforced the basic concept of the research project.

The teenage mothers were also given a grade worksheet. In it, they were responsible for stating whether they had completed all of their school work and homework. They were also responsible for listing any grades that they had received. The veracity of this self-reported information was verified by having their teachers sign-off on the results. The grade worksheet had two purposes. The first purpose was to assess how each of the mothers was doing in the beginning of the school year. The second purpose was to determine if the actual performance by the teenage mothers matched how the mentors believed the mothers were performing.

The final piece of analyzed data was a survey given to the teenage mentors. In that survey, the mentors were asked to give their opinions on whether the teenage mothers completed their homework and school work. They were also asked if their assigned mothers missed any school. Furthermore, the mentors were asked about compliance with the mentoring program. They had to tell whether their teenage mothers came to all of their meetings. Finally, the mentors told whether they had provided any tutoring services to the teenage mothers.

Data Analysis Procedures

Given the extremely small sample size, only seventeen teenage mothers were involved in the study, it is impossible to determine whether any of the changes noticed in the survey were statistically significant. Therefore, the data was analyzed to determine whether the mentoring program resulted in any individual changes in educational attitude. The data was also analyzed to determine whether the mentoring program resulted in a positive or negative net overall change in attitudes towards the current school year, towards secondary education, towards post-secondary education, and towards marriage.

School in Fall

Graduate

Marry

Post-secondary

Table 1: First Survey of Entrance Attitudes

School Year

Graduate

Marry

Post-secondary

Table 2: Second Attitude Survey

After looking at the results of both surveys, the differences between the surveys was analyzed. A change was considered positive if the teenage mother indicated that something was more likely in the second survey. For example, if in the first survey, the teenage mother indicated that she was definitely not going to seek post-secondary education with the number 5, but indicated that she was unsure whether she would seek post-secondary education in the second survey with the number 3, the change was marked as a +2. On the other hand, if a student indicated that she was less likely to do something in the second survey, the change is marked as negative.

School Year

Graduate

Marry

Post-secondary

Table 3: Changes in Attitudes* change is considered positive if the student indicated it is more likely

On the grade report worksheet, the student grades were averaged to obtain a single grade. Grades between 90-100 were considered as, grades between 80-89 were considered Bs, grades between 70-79 were considered Cs, grades between 65-69 were considered Ds, and grades below 64 were considered Fs. One of the problems with the grade report worksheet was that the vast majority of students did not have any graded assignments during the first week of school. Interestingly enough, several of the mentors mentioned this to the researcher and were surprised by it. By the end of the first week of school, many of the mentors reported having had several graded assignments. The vast majority of the mothers were in lower level classes, and mentioned that the classes were still engaged in introductory-type material at the end of the first week of school. While none of the results quantify these differences, they may bear future investigation.

In addition to grades, the student progress sheets also looked at truancy and absenteeism. Each student was asked to indicate whether they had missed any days and the reasons for any absences. Furthermore, each student was asked to indicate whether they had asked their mentor for any training. The mentor worksheet was simply asked to verify the students' self-reports. Where there were differences between the student mothers' self-reports and the mentors' report, the researcher discussed the differences with the mothers and the mentors.

Absences

Completed

Avg. Grade

Tutoring

Y

N

Table 4: Student Grade Report

Mentor

Absences

Completed

Participated

Tutoring

Y

N

Y

Table 5: Mentor Report

Limitations of the Evaluation Plan

The main limitation of the evaluation plan was that the sample size was very limited: only seventeen students gave birth during the specified time period. Although the evaluation plan allowed one to see changes in individual attitude, it is impossible to generalize the results outside of the small study sample. Furthermore, the evaluation was based on self-reports, rather than an observation of whether the students actually completed school. There is an obvious difference between the students' self-reported behavior and actual behavior. For example, many of the students indicated low likelihoods of returning to school for the fall semester, but all seventeen of the identified students did return to school. Whether this increased rate of returning to school was due to the intervention itself or reveals a flaw in the evaluation procedures is uncertain.

The second significant limitation of the evaluation plan is that there was no control group of teenage mothers. In order to truly determine the efficacy of an intervention, it is important to compare the post-intervention results with a control group of subjects under the same circumstances, but for the intervention. However, the group of teenage mothers was already small, and splitting it in two would have further compromised the applicability of any results. Furthermore, the researcher's hope was that the mentoring would have a positive impact on whether or not these teenager mothers would continue their educations, and did not want to limit that impact to a select group of girls. However, before generalizing these results or attributing any of the changes to a mentoring process, it would be important to do a larger-scale experiment with a formal control group. If that is not possible, it would be ideal to match those girls with similar groups of teenage mothers who did not have the benefit of peer intervention, to determine whether the peer-based intervention was responsible for some of the positive changes.

Chapter Six: Summary of Results

Individual Impact

When viewed at the individual level, it appears that the intervention had a positive impact on the teenage mothers' attitudes towards education. For example, of the seventeen mothers surveyed, nine of them indicated that they were more likely to complete the school year than had indicated that they were likely to return to school in the fall. Only one student indicated a lower likelihood of completing the school year than of returning to school in the fall. The remaining students noted no change in attitude towards the current school year. In addition, on an individual level, some of the changes were dramatic. For example, when initially contacted by the program, one student indicated that she was definitely not going to attend school in the fall. Although she still indicated uncertainty about completing the school year, she had attended all of her class days, fully participated in the mentoring program, and utilized her mentor's tutoring services. Most dramatically, almost every one of the teenage mothers utilized the tutoring services to get assistance with their class work or homework. Even more significant is that they sought this assistance despite the fact that most of them did not have graded assignments during the first week of school.

Long-term Educational Goals

In addition, the mentoring appeared to have a dramatic impact on long-term educational goals. Although many of the girls initially indicated that they were not certain that they would complete high school, the number of girls who were certain that they would graduate from high school went from eight to eleven after only one week of mentoring. Even more significant is that eight of the mothers indicated that they were more likely to complete their high school educations after a week of mentoring than prior to the mentoring. Only one student indicated a lesser belief that she would complete her education. These numbers were surprising because all of the mothers were new mothers, and the researcher anticipated that the realities of school and motherhood would make them believe that completing school was less likely.

Even more encouraging was the change in attitude towards post-secondary education. Nine of the mothers indicated that they were more likely to obtain some type of post-secondary education after receiving the mentoring. This result is the most fascinating, because none of the mentors officially discussed post-secondary education with the mothers. However, all of the mentors had plans to seek post-secondary education, which may have been a factor. Furthermore, many of the mothers actually began the mentoring process with very positive attitudes towards post-secondary education, even if they did not have realistic approaches to obtaining that education. Although there is no satisfactory or official explanation for these results, they are very encouraging. Even more encouraging is the fact that the mentoring did not have a negative impact on any of the mother's desire to obtain a post-secondary education.

Views on Marriage

The most fascinating aspect of the study was that the mothers varied the most tremendously when asked about their likelihood of marrying the father of the child. Seven of the mothers indicated that they were less likely to marry the child's father after one week of mentoring. However, five of the mothers indicated that they were more likely to marry the child's father after one week of mentoring. These changes may reflect the volatility of teenage romantic relationships more than any impact of tutoring. While viewed by themselves, the marriage numbers are interesting. However, when viewed in conjunction with other numbers, the marriage numbers provide additional insight. For example, of the seven girls who believed that they were less likely to marry their child's father after a week of mentoring, five of them believed that they were more likely to obtain post-secondary education, six of them believed that they were more likely to graduate, and four of them had more positive attitudes about the current school year.

In contrast, of the girls who believed that they were more likely to marry the father of their child, only three indicated that they were more likely to obtain post-secondary education. Furthermore, of the mothers who indicated that they were more likely to marry, only two indicated that they were more likely to graduate. In addition, only two of the mothers who indicated an increased likelihood of marriage indicated an increased likelihood of completing the current school year. However, there was no clear relationship between the belief that one would marry the father of the child and educational success. Mothers who felt that they would not marry the father of their child were as likely as mothers who felt that they would marry the father of their child to have strong educational ambitions. However, there was a link between intensity. Mothers who either believed that they definitely would marry their child's father (1) of that they would definitely not marry their child's father (5), were more likely to report equally strong opinions about their education. This strength of conviction did not change after mentoring, even if the convictions themselves changed. Therefore, it appears that the impact of marriage or a planned marriage on teenage mothers' educational aspirations may be more due to the idea of having a plan, than to the actual marriage.