Evaluating the effectiveness of a high school credit recovery intervention program

School districts create intervention programs to reduce the number of students who drop out of high school. This study evaluates the effectiveness of one intervention program used in a school district to help students at-risk of dropping out to recover missing credits through the use of a web-based curriculum. Suh and Suh (2007) found that out of three groups of risk factors for dropping out, lack of academic success has the biggest impact. Faircloth and O'Sullivan (2001) evaluated one intervention program and found that after being in the program 50.3% of students were back on track for graduation and 25% were closer to graduation. The findings from this study compare how far behind students were before and after their time enrolled in the program, which could vary from a week to the entire school year. T-tests determined there was no significant difference in how far students were behind in credits before and after their enrollment in the program ( t(35) = -0.96, p < .05). A moderate correlation exists between the number of credits earned and attendance (r (34) = .52, p <.05). These results signal counselors that while test scores are not indicative of future success, attendance records are. A motivation survey would give more complete information in future studies regarding which students succeed in recovering credits in this program and which do not. Keywords: at-risk, dropout, high school, intervention, web-based curriculum