Education (Release): School Bonding, Grades and Orientation - Subject Release

This measure appears in the following time-points: Baseline.

Related Construct

Academic Achievement and Commitment

Description of Measure

There are several themes to the information obtained from subjects about their school experience in the institution: school attachment, descriptive information about the school experience (grades, homework, attendance, and achievement), satisfaction with school ("I liked my teachers") and engagement ("I tried hard at school"). The school attachment items included are taken from the work of Cernkovich and Giordano (1992). The items are used to evaluate the adolescent's educational experience along two dimensions: Bonding to Teachers (e.g., "Most of my teachers treat me fairly") and School Orientation (e.g., "Schoolwork is very important to me"). Respondents rate ten statements, using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from "Strongly disagree" to "Strongly agree", with higher scores indicating a greater degree of academic commitment. The mean is taken for the items associated with each subscale. Additional questions developed by the working group assess school attendance, achievement, and grades.

A two-factor CFA model was applied to the Bonding to Teacher and School Orientation dimensions in the baseline dataset, producing an acceptable fit. The values from this analysis are available in the subject baseline codebook section.

Four scores are computed:

Bonding to teacher [r0schtch]; mean of three items
School orientation [r0schatc]; mean of seven items, three of which are reverse-coded. Five items must contain valid data in order to receive a score.
School satisfaction [r0schsat]; mean of two items
School engagement [r0scheng]; mean of four items, two of which are reverse-coded.

The following individual items are also available:

Have a GED or high school diploma prior to coming to the facility [R0V16aa]
Take classes of any kind while at the facility [R0V16ab2]

Take high school diploma classes [R0V16acHS]
Take GED classes [R0V16acGed]
Take college classes [R0V16acCol]
Take vocational classes [R0V16acVoc]
Take any other classes [R0V16acOth]
If more than one class is endorsed, which type did you spend the most time in [R0V16ad]

Were classes held in the community or at the facility [R0V16ae]
Hours a day spent in class [R0Sch01]
Average grades [R0Sch06]
Hours per week spent on homework [R0Sch07]
Will you have your GED by the time you leave [R0Sch09]

Data Issues

In version 01.15, variable r0v16ab2 (take classes of any kind while at X) was expanded to include options for not being enrolled in school which allowed the subject to skip out of the school questions. For cases completed prior to this version (N=498) however, "not enrolled in school" was not an option, and the school questions were asked for every subject. We are assuming that, in some situations (described below), the school questions were asked only because the interview programming did not permit them to be skipped, thus, interviewers were forced to provide a response in order to proceed through the interview. In these situation, we believe the responses entered into the interview are invalid. To err on the side of caution, we have removed responses in two situations that were likely to fit this scenario:

We have removed data for 51 cases in these earlier versions, based on an interviewer note indicating the subject was not enrolled in school.
For an additional 33 cases, the release interview was conducted on an adult jail or prison and the subject was age 19 or older at the time of the interview. In these situations, we believe that it is unlikely (albeit not impossible) that the subject was not actually enrolled since adult facilities are not required to provide education for individuals over age 18. Indeed, by taking this approach, we may have removed a subset of valid responses (e.g., individuals in a college program in an adult facility) but, as noted above, we chose to proceed cautiously.

There have been various programming changes in this section throughout several versions of the interview. These will be outlined below.

The following items were added to the interview in version 01.16:

Have a GED or high school diploma prior to coming to the facility [R0V16aa]
Take high school diploma classes [R0V16acHS]
Take GED classes [R0V16acGed]
Take college classes [R0V16acCol]
Take vocational classes [R0V16acVoc]
Take any other classes [R0V16acOth]
If more than one class is endorsed, which type did you spend the most time in [R0V16ad]
Were classes held in the community or at the facility [R0V16ae]

Item r0v16aa (have a GED/HSD/certificate prior to coming to the facility): option 3 (yes - certificate) was added to the interview in version 01.20.
Item r0v16ab2 (Did you take classes of any kind): options 3 (community and facility), 4 (no - for admin reasons), 5 (no - already had GED/HSD), and 6 (no - other reasons) were added to the interview in version 01.15.
Item r0v16ad (Type of class attended the most): Options 14 (vocational), 15 (correspondence classes) and 96 (other) were added to the interview in version 01.20.
Item r0v16ae (were classes held in the community or at the facility): This is only asked if either r0v16acHS, r0v16acGED or r0v16acCol are endorsed.
Item r0sch01 (Hours a day spent in class): Up to version 01.14, this was always asked. In version 01.15 only, this was only asked if the subject was enrolled in school (r0v16ab2 = 1 - community school or 2 - facility school). From version 01.16 and later, this was only asked if the subject was enrolled in high school, GED, college or vocational courses (r0v16acHS, r0v16acGED, r0v16acCol, or r0v16acVoc = yes).
Items r0sch06 (grades), r0sch07 (hours a week spent on homework), and all school attachment questions: Up to version 01.14, these were always asked. In version 01.15 only, these were only asked if the subject was enrolled in school (r0v16ab2 = 1 - community school or 2 - facility school). From version 01.16 and later, these were only asked if the subject was enrolled in high school, GED or college courses (r0v16acHS, r0v16acGED or r0v16acCol = yes).
Item r0sch09 (will you have your GED by the time you leave): up to version 01.15, this was only asked if the subject was enrolled in school within the facility (r0v16ab = 2, facility school). From version 01.16 and later, this was only asked if the subject was enrolled in high school, GED, college or vocational courses (r0v16acHS, r0v16acGED, r0v16acCol, or r0v16acVoc = yes).

References

Cernkovich, S. and Giordano, P. (1992). School bonding, race and delinquency. Criminology, 30(2), 261-291.