Perceived Attitudes of the Self-Concept of Dropouts Who Returned to an Alternative Education School and Coordinated Vocational Academic Education Students

The problem of this study was to determine if there were differences in perceived attitudes of self-concept between young people who returned to alternative education after dropping out of public education and educationally disadvantaged at-risk youth in Coordinated Vocational Academic Education (CVAE) classes as measured by the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale. The hypotheses formulated for the study predicted no significant difference in mean attitude self-concept scores of returned dropouts to alternative schools and CVAE students enrolled in junior high school preemployment laboratories and high school students enrolled in Cooperative Education classes as measured by the Piers-Harris scale; and no significant change in mean attitude self-concept scores of former dropouts enrolled in alternative education centers and CVAE students as measured by the Piers-Harris scale over a two-month period utilizing an extended Solomon Four-Group Design, with and without the treatment. The scale was administered to 351 students from junior high and high school CVAE classes in Ector County (Odessa), Fort Stockton, and Midland Independent School Districts and alternative schools in Denton, Fort Stockton, Midland and Odessa, Texas. The self-concept scores were treated for significance by an analysis of variance. Findings were that all groups tested scored within the age range, junior high school CVAE students scored lowest, but not significantly lower (p > .05); and junior high school CVAE students, alternative school students, and high school CVAE students all had a slight increase in self-confidence scores over the two-month period. All null hypotheses were retained. It was concluded that, overall, junior high school CVAE students, former dropouts who returned to an alternative school, and high school CVAE students possessed positive self-concepts that were above the national mean for the scale; and that CVAE classes enhance the self-concept of academically disadvantaged students in Cooperative Education classes