Integrating Highly Mobile Students: Peer Programs & Academic Outcomes

Introduction: The Problem of School Mobility

When students change schools frequently — and particularly when they enter and exit schools at times other than the actual start and end dates of the academic year — they can experience academic, psychological, and social setbacks. When a student body is in a relatively constant state of flux, the impact is felt by all students in the classroom, not just by those referred to as frequent movers. While the size of the stable core of students varies widely, the mobility of frequent movers generates a chaos factor — a term used to identify the inevitable disruption that occurs from having to constantly adapt to unexpected change.

The literature shows a negative correlation between school switching and academic achievement, a pattern evident in schools that have experienced multiple years of non-compliance with federal academic achievement regulations due to high numbers of frequent movers. There is general recognition that high rates of mobile students result in upheaval and change that contributes to student stress and demoralized staff. Yet schools appear not to have risen to the task of establishing practices geared toward easing transitions to new school ecosystems. Teachers are left to pick up the pieces as best they can, striving to assist new students with social and academic integration.

As new students enter a classroom ecosystem, teachers must adjust their focus and the time they spend with students at different levels whose needs do not fit the current instruction or curriculum. Routines are disrupted to accommodate the learning needs of students who are new to the classroom. As teachers work to bring incoming students to the same level as the rest of the class — or to figure out how to meet the needs of new students who are more advanced — they are unavailable to instruct the rest of the class.

As evidence accumulates that school switching is a problem for highly mobile students, for the stable core of students, and for faculty alike, education policymakers are turning their attention to feasible solutions that do not rest on the unrealistic goal of lowering mobility rates. The economic challenges of the last decade underscore the futility of such a policy approach. Educational systems must instead look for ways to reduce the impact of school switching within their own sphere of influence.

The fields of education, counseling, and social work are filled with guidelines and coalitions aimed at improving the transition experiences of students from military families, who routinely experience frequent moves and school changes. A majority of this information is geared toward changing the policies and practices of educational systems and influencing the behaviors of school professionals. Only a small number of programs are designed to provide social catalysts for more expedient and easier integration into the social networks of secondary schools. Moreover, where these programs do exist, there is little research on the relationship between peer-to-peer programs and academic achievement. Accordingly, the following research questions guide this proposed study:

Research Questions

1. Do secondary students who participate in peer2peer programs achieve at higher academic levels than secondary students who are not involved with peer2peer programs?

Research Philosophy and Methodology

2. Do peer2peer programs assist transitioning adolescent students in integrating into the social milieu of the secondary school?

The research purpose is to examine the impact of high rates of student mobility on academic learning. A mixed-methods approach will be used to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data about student academic learning, social adjustment, and peer network integration. In keeping with the tradition of qualitative research, data will be triangulated.

Qualitative data will be gathered through in-depth interviews conducted with students and surveys administered to teachers, counselors, and parents of highly mobile students. Because participants in this study are adolescents, there is particular interest in post-transition social integration. To map and measure the relationships and connections of frequent mover students, research assistants will employ social network analysis (SNA). This ethnographic technique generates graphic representations of social networks, with nodes representing people and groups and the links between nodes illustrating the relationships or flow between them. In this way, SNA fosters both a mathematical and a visual analysis of social relationships. The location of participants within the social network will change over time; measuring these changes according to the centrality of each node provides insight into the roles participants play and the trajectory of their transition to a new school.

Quantitative data will be collected from existing measures of academic performance used in the secondary school, including standard grade reports, state-level academic achievement tests, and federal measures of student learning such as those aligned with the Common Core State Standards.