| This study aims to discover the rates of 12th graders staying at school and dropping out of school, and to explore the individual related factors contributing to the statuses, employing the data from database Education Longitudinal Study of 2002. Two models of indicators are tested for the influences of individual related factors on the students' dropout statuses with only demographic factors or both demographic and family related factors under consideration. In the result of both models, 5 out of 9 individual related factors are tested to have significant effect on 12th graders' decisions about whether to drop out of school: The student's standardized test score, how many times a student has been suspended or put on probation, how far in school student thinks he or she will get, how many times a student is absent from school, and the number of academic risk factors in student's 10th grade. In this study, number of academic risk factors is the strongest predictor of whether students will drop out in their high school senior year. According to the result, school and parents shall reach to students with multiple academic factors, and encourage all students to have better test scores and higher expectation on how far they will go on education. Also, making class interesting is a good way to attract student constantly going to school and reduce school absence. |
