A R T I C L EEFFECTS OF AN OUT-OF-SCHOOLPROGRAM ON URBAN.docx

A R T I C L E
EFFECTS OF AN OUT-OF-SCHOOL
PROGRAM ON URBAN HIGH
SCHOOL YOUTH’S ACADEMIC
PERFORMANCE
Julie O’Donnell and Sandra L. Kirkner
California State University, Long Beach
Research strongly indicates that low-income youth, particularly
those of
color who are overrepresented in poverty, have lower levels of
academic
performance than their higher-income peers. It has been
suggested that
community-based out-of-school programs can play an important
role in
reducing these academic differences. This study examined the
effect of the
YMCA High School Youth Institute on the grades, test scores,
and school
attendance of urban high school youth using a randomly
selected matched
comparison group. Those involved in the program had
significantly higher
English-language art and math standardized test scores and
somewhat
fewer absences than the comparison group. Active program
participants
had significantly higher academic grade-point averages (GPAs)
and math
test scores as well as somewhat higher total GPA. The findings

suggest that
high-quality out-of-school programs can positively influence
the academic
performance of low-income youth. Implications for practice are
discussed.
C© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
In recent years, there has been substantial interest around
increasing high school grad-
uation rates, yet youth from low-income families and
communities seem to be espe-
cially vulnerable to experiencing academic challenges and
dropping out of high school
(Balfanz & Legters, 2004; Hammond, Linton, Smink, & Drew,
2007; Reardon, 2011;
The funding for this study was provided by the Beneventures
Foundation.
We thank Robert Cabeza, Les Peters and the Office of Research,
Planning and Evaluation for Long Beach
Unified School District for their contributions to this research.
Please address correspondence to: Sandra Kirkner, Child
Welfare Training Centre, School of Social Work,
California State University, Long Beach. 6300 E. State
University Drive, Suite 180, Long Beach, California,
90815. E-mail: [email protected]
JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 42, No. 2,
176–190 (2014)
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jcop).
C© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/jcop.21603
High School Youth Program and Academic Outcomes � 177

Tyler & Lofstrom, 2009). The achievement gap between
children from low- and high-
income families has been growing for many years, and students
who live in poverty remain
well behind their more affluent peers (Center on Education
Policy, 2011; Reardon, 2011;
Tavernise, 2012) in grades, standardized test scores, and high
school completion rates
(Balfanz & Legters, 2004; Education Weekly, 2011; Guskey,
2011; Hopson & Lee, 2011;
Newcomb et al., 2002; Reardon, 2011; Stuart & Hahnel, 2011).
It has been found that a
$1,000 increase in annual income can raise reading and math
scores by 6% of a standard
deviation (Dahl & Lochner, 2012). Youth from low-income
families are also five times
more likely than youth from high-income families to drop out of
high school (Chapman,
Laird, Ifll, & KewalRamani, 2011).
It has been suggested that to increase and sustain higher levels
of academic achieve-
ment among low-income students, social supports must be put in
place (Greene & Anyon,
2010). Unfortunately, youth from lower income families usually
have fewer opportunities
for out-of-school programs, although quality programs have the
potential to increase high
school success and encourage postsecondary education
(Deschenes et al., 2010; Ferguson,
Bovaird, & Mueller, 2007). This study investigates the effects
of an out-of-school program
on low-income, culturally diverse high school students’
academic achievement and school
attendance.

Academic Performance and Socioeconomic Status
Socioeconomic status is one of strongest and most consistent
predictors of academic
achievement. Multiple studies and reviews have indicated that
youth from low-income
families, schools, and communities have significantly lower
grades and test scores than
their peers with higher socioeconomic levels (Hammond et al.,
2007; Lacour & Tissington,
2011; Center on Education Policy, 2011; Okpala, Smith, Jones
& Ellis, 2000; Malecki &
Demaray, 2006; Caldas & Bankston, 1997). In a study of the
effects of family poverty on
education and behavior, Hopson and Lee (2011) found that
middle and high school
students from poor families self-reported significantly lower
grades than their higher
income peers. Another study reported that high school students
eligible for the school
free and reduced lunch program had significantly lower grades
at both the first and the
last reporting periods. In addition, free and reduced lunch status
was related to larger
declines in high school students’ grades over time, while the
grades of students from
higher socioeconomic status levels remained more consistent.
This research indicated
poverty was an important and consistent factor in predicting
grades (Guskey, 2011).
A study of standardized test scores in Indiana found that family
socioeconomic status
was positively predictive of proficiency in language arts and
math at both the district

and the school levels (Paulson & Marchant, 2009). Similarly,
Okpala, Okpala, and Smith
(2001) reported that involvement in the free and reduced school
lunch program was
significantly related to lower proficiency levels on math tests
among fourth-grade students.
Elementary and middle school youth in high-poverty schools
have also been found to
have significantly lower math and reading achievement test
scores (Southworth, 2010;
Okpala et al., 2000). Low-income high school students also
score significantly lower on
standardized reading, writing, and math than their higher
income peers (Hoyle, O’Dwyer,
& Chang, 2011) and science tests (Miller-Whitehead, 2001).
Edward and Malcolm (2002) concluded that youth whose
parents were unemployed
or in low-skill or low-status jobs were more likely to be truant
from school. Likewise,
children from low-income families are significantly more likely
to be absent from school in
kindergarten and first grade than their higher income
counterparts (Ready, 2010; Chang
Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop
178 � Journal of Community Psychology, M arch 2014
& Romero, 2008). Studies on school attendance in England
found that child poverty was
predictive or related to lower school attendance in elementary,
middle, and high school
(Zhang, 2003; Attwood & Croll, 2006). Given the link between

school attendance and
academic performance (Shoenfelt & Huddleston, 2006; Roby,
2004; Claes, Hooghe, &
Reeskens, 2009), it is important to implement strategies to
increase the attendance of
youth from low-income families and communities.
Regardless of ethnicity, children who are low-income have been
shown to have below
average test scores (Bergeson, 2006) and academic performance
(Caldas & Bankston,
1997). However, youth of color, especially Latinos and African
Americans, are overrep-
resented in low-income communities (Balfanz & Legters, 2006;
Greene & Anyon, 2010;
Stuart & Hahnel, 2011) and have been shown to have lower
academic achievement and
higher high school dropout rates than White students (Behnke,
Gonzalez, & Cox, 2010;
Hemphill & Vanneman, 2011). Indeed, Latinos, particularly
those who are foreign-born,
and African American youth have more difficulty than other
adolescents completing
school at each stage of the educational system (Fuligni &
Hardway, 2004; Fry, 2003).
Nationwide, approximately 42% of Latino, 43% of African
American, and 46% of Native
American students will not graduate on time with a regular
diploma, compared to 17%
of Asian American and 22% of White students (Alliance for
Excellent Education, 2011).
In California, approximately 22% of Latino and 29% of African
American students do
not graduate from high school, compared to 11% of Whites and
7% of Asian Americans
(California Department of Education, 2010). Truancy tends to

be more predominant
among African Americans and Latinos as well (Weden & Zabin,
2005; Woo & Sakamoto,
2010). Students living in poverty and those who are members of
an ethnic minority are
often concentrated in the lowest achieving schools, further
contributing to their poor aca-
demic outcomes (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2011;
Balfanz, 2007; Education Trust,
2010). Given these academic concerns, it is important to
develop programs to support
the academic achievement of low-income youth of color.
Out-of-School Programs
Although the research on out-of-school programs has been
described as emerging (Scott-
Little, Hamann, & Jurs, 2002), quality programs can have a
positive effect on the academic
achievement, social skills, and behavioral outcomes of youth
(Barr, Birmingham, Fornal,
Klein, & Piha, 2006; National Dropout Prevention Center, 2012;
Hall, Yohalem, Tolman, &
Wilson, 2003). According to Hall et al., (2003), the challenge
for these programs is to find
ways to counteract the negative effects of poverty by creating
engaging, motivating, and
inspiring learning environments for youth. Out-of-school
programs that are grounded in
positive youth development principles can assist vulnerable
youth to overcome barriers
to learning and enhance academic achievement and social skills
(Hall et al., 2003) while
reducing involvement in adolescent problem behaviors
(Roffman, Pagano, & Hirsch,
2001; Meltzer, Fitzgibbon, Leahy, & Petsko, 2006; Catalano,

Berglund, Ryan, Lonczak, &
Hawkins, 2004).
A positive youth development framework requires out-of-school
programs to provide
safety, supportive relationships, meaningful youth involvement,
skill building, and com-
munity involvement to effectively move youth toward positive
long-term outcomes (Com-
munity Network for Youth Development, 2001). Peterson and
Fox (2004) suggested that
some of the key ingredients in successful out-of-school
programs are as follows: academic
offerings (homework assistance, tutoring, hands-on learning);
enrichment and acceler-
ated learning (field trips, character education, critical thinking
skills, and technology);
recreation (sports and sports education); and service
opportunities to connect students
to their community. Other research indicates the importance of
offering diverse program
opportunities and allowing high school youth to choose how to
be involved (Birmingham
& White, 2005; Durlak & Weissberg, 2007).
In a review of the formal evaluations done on a variety of out-
of-school programs, the
Afterschool Alliance (2008) concluded that participation in
quality programs can result

in improved school attendance, engagement in learning, test
scores, and grades. Further,
the students at the greatest risk are likely to evidence the
greatest gains. It also appears
that more frequent and longer participation increases academic
benefits (Afterschool
Alliance, 2008). In a longitudinal study looking at the
relationship between high-quality
after-school programs and academic and behavioral outcomes
for low-income students,
Vandell, Reisner, and Pierce (2007) found that students who
attended high-quality after-
school programs across 2 years showed significant gains in
work habits and standardized
math test scores, compared to their peers who did not attend. A
meta-analysis of 73 after-
school programs by Durlak and Weissberg (2007) concluded
that after-school program
participation significantly improved youth’s grades and
achievement test scores, but only
20 of the programs collected data on grades and only 5% of the
studies included focused
on high school youth. In contrast, a meta-analysis by Zief,
Lauver, and Maynard (2006)
on the out-of-school programs found no significant differences
between participants
and nonparticipants on test scores or grade-point average (GPA)
on the five studies
used.
In a summary report of statewide and local evaluations of the
After School Learning
and Safe Neighborhoods Partnership Program, the California
Department of Education
(2002) noted many positive effects of quality after-school
programs on the academic

performance of elementary and middle schools students. The
findings included large
improvements in achievement among the most at-risk students,
including those in the
lowest quartile on standardized tests and English language
learner students, improved
both SAT-9 reading and math test scores and school attendance
(California Department
of Education, 2002). Despite all of these potential benefits,
quality high school out-of-
school programs are in extremely short supply (Barr et al.,
2006). Little research on the
effects of such participation on academic achievement has been
published on the high
school population and this age group is rarely included in meta-
analyses (Zeif et al., 2006;
Durlak & Weissberg, 2007).
Although an evaluation of After School Matters reported no
differences in grades
or school attendance between intervention and control high
school students (Hirsch,
Hedges, Stawicki, & Mekinda, 2011), an evaluation of the Exito
after-school program
found its’ predominantly low-income Latino participants were
less likely than comparison
students to have failed English and been retained (Hartman,
Good, & Edmunds, 2011).
In a study of The Afterschool Corporation, Birmingham and
White (2005) also reported
better school attendance and a higher rate of test passing among
program participants
in comparison with nonparticipants. Given the academic
challenges facing low-income
youth combined with the lack of research in this area, it is
important to explore the effect

of specific out-of-school program models on the academic
performance of low-income
high school students.
The YMCA Youth Institute
The YMCA of Greater Long Beach Youth Institute, established
in 2001, is an intensive,
year-round, community-based program that uses technology as
mechanism for promoting
positive youth development and enhancing the academic success
and career readiness
of low-income, culturally diverse high school students
(O’Donnell & Coe-Regan, 2006;
Coe-Regan & O’Donnell, 2006). The goals of the Youth
Institute (YI) are as follows:
(a) improve the technology, career, leadership, and decision-
making skills of youth to
promote readiness for higher education or career entry after
graduation; (b) improve
academic achievement and stimulate interest in higher education
among low-income,
culturally diverse, urban high school youth; and (c) promote
bonding to prosocial
adults and community attachment among urban youth to ensure
that they remain
engaged in their schools and communities. Youth interested in
participating in this
program must submit an application. The selection process is

structured to ensure, to the
greatest degree possible, gender and ethnic diversity among
each incoming class. The
neighborhoods in which almost all YI youth live are densely
populated, ethnically diverse,
and have the highest poverty rates in the city. Youth are
prioritized for program selection
based on a question about adversity they have experienced in
their lives so that vulnerable
youth are served. New cohorts are selected in the spring and
enter the program each
summer.
The program has two components: the intensive summer
technology program and
the year-round academic support program. Incoming youth
participate in a 35-hour per
week 8-week summer program. The first week is spent at a
wilderness retreat at a national
park and focuses on team building, cultural diversity training,
decision making, and
life sciences. Participants are assigned to project teams
comprising mixed gender and
ethnicity that work together the entire summer. Initiative games
and a low-ropes course
are designed to promote group cohesion and leadership skills
while improving problem-
solving and communication skills. Activities to increase cultural
awareness and tolerance
are integrated into the week, which is critical because it helps
the youth develop the group
and problem-solving skills they will need to successfully
accomplish their summer tasks
(O’Donnell & Coe-Regan, 2006; Coe-Regan, & O’Donnell,
2006).

During the rest of the summer, the program uses project-based
learning to teach
information technology skills. Projects include (a) digital story
telling/movie making,
(b) graphic design, (c) web site creation, (d) presentation and
office software, (e) 3D
animation, and (f) use of peripheral hardware (scanner, DV
cameras, etc.). A wide
range of the latest software is used including Cinema 4D, Adobe
Illustrator, Adobe
Photoshop, iMovie, Final Cut Pro, PowerPoint, Keynote, Adobe
PageMaker, Adobe Flash,
Adobe InDesign, Extensis, GarageBand, and Macromedia
Dreamweaver. Participants
also learn how to connect, troubleshoot, and use computer
networks. All classes have
a curriculum that includes the pedagogical approach, the skill
sets to be learned, and
the content. Products include animated logos, 5- to 10-minute
movies, a magazine
focused on teen issues, and a website. All projects are designed
to help participants gain
literacy, math, and higher level thinking skills, are linked to
school content standards,
and completed in teams (O’Donnell & Coe-Regan, 2006; Coe-
Regan & O’Donnell,
2006). Youth are paid a $500 stipend for successfully
completing the summer program,
which culminates in a graduation and film festival celebration
for family and community
members.
Upon graduation from the summer program, participants become
“Youth Institute
Alumni,” who are then able to voluntarily participate in a wide
range of year-round

programs throughout their high school and college years.
Involvement opportunities
include, but are not limited to, daily digital art labs and
homework assistance, academic
and personal advising, community service, equipment check-
out, field trips, weekend
leisure activities, community leadership positions, and social
work support (O’Donnell
& Coe-Regan, 2006; Coe-Regan & O’Donnell, 2006). Alumni
can also apply to receive a
stipend for returning as mentors for future summer program
participants or work as a paid
intern with Change Agent Productions, a multimedia social
enterprise associated with the
program (O’Donnell, Tan, & Kirkner, 2012). The YI also has a
College Readiness program
that takes youth on college field trips and assists them in
selecting the courses needed to
transition to higher educational institutions, and in completing
college and financial aid
and scholarship forms. An earlier evaluation of the program
suggested that key elements
related to the program’s success in attracting and involving high
school youth were the
positive youth development framework, the use of technology,
service learning, project-
based learning, and the development of positive relationships
(Coe-Regan & O’Donnell,
2006). The current study investigates the effects of participation

in the Youth Institute on
grades, test scores, and school attendance.
METHODS
Data Collection
Both the youth and their parent signed an informed consent
allowing researchers to
collect grades, school attendance, and test scores from the Long
Beach Unified School
District (LBUSD). The research was approved by both the
university and the school district
institutional review boards. Research staff from the school
district then randomly selected
a comparison sample of high school students who were matched
to the YI sample based
on gender, ethnicity, and year in school. Approximately five
comparison students were
matched for each YI youth. The district provided academic
GPA, total GPA, absences, and
truancies from the last semesters of both 2010 and 2011.
Academic GPA comprised the
mean of grades from English, math, science, social science, and
foreign language courses,
and total GPA incorporated electives and other course. English
language arts (ELA) and
math content standard test scores were provided from the end of
2010 and 2011 for those
students who took the tests.
Sample Description
One hundred eighteen (81%) of the YI participants who finished
the program in the
summers between 2007 and 2010 had both parent and child

informed consents, and
some useable data for the 2010–2011 academic year. However,
the district was unable to
provide matched comparison youth for the ninth graders, so nine
YI youth were removed
from the analyses. Table 1 displays the demographic
characteristics of the YI sample (109)
and the matched comparison sample (N = 545). There were no
significant demographic
differences between the two groups.
ANALYSIS
Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was used to
compare outcome differences
between high school YI and comparison students on GPA,
standardized test score, and
school attendance while controlling for baseline scores. Because
of the exploratory nature
of this study and the hypothesized positive program effect,
results are reported out at the
.10 level.
Table 1. Demographics of YMCA YI Participants and
Comparison Students for the 2010–2011 Academic
Year
HSYI participants Comparison students
(N = 109) (N = 545)

% N % N
Gender
Male 55% 60 55% 300
Female 45% 49 45% 245
Ethnicity
Latino 50% 55 50% 275
African American 25% 27 21% 115
Asian American/Pacific Islander 19% 21 23% 125
European American 6% 6 6% 30
Grade
10th grade 28% 30 28% 150
11th grade 41% 45 41% 225
12th grade 31% 34 31% 170
Note. YI = Youth Institute; HSYI = high school Youth Institute.
Table 2. Academic Comparisons Between YI Participants and
Comparison Students for the 2010–2011
Academic Year
HSYI participants Comparison students
Measure Adjusted mean N Adjusted mean N F-value
Academic GPA 2.45 101 2.33 545 2.60
Total GPA 2.55 106 2.47 545 1.49
Absences 7.19 108 8.69 545 2.98*
Truancies 2.81 108 3.05 545 .18
Content standards
English language arts† 338.51 67 326.78 356 6.16**
Math† 309.65 57 295.35 319 5.41**

Note. YI = Youth Institute; HSYI = high school Youth Institute;
GPA = grade-point average.
**Significant at the .05 level.
*Approaching significance at the .10 level.
†10th and 11th graders only.
Academic Comparisons Between All YI Participants and
Comparison Students
As shown in Table 2, YI participants had significantly higher
ELA, F (1, 422) = 6.16, p <
.05, and math, F (1, 375) = 6.91, p < .05, content standard
scores, and somewhat lower
absences, F (1, 652) = 2.98, p < .10, than comparison students.
Academic Comparisons between Active YI Participants and
Comparison Students
Given that prior studies have shown that program attendance is
an important factor in
outcomes of after-school programs, a second analysis was
completed comparing “active”
(53) YI youth and their matched comparison students. To be
classified as active, YI par-
ticipants had to have participated in the year-round program for
at least 30 days over the
past 2 years. On average, these youth attended the YI 119 times
over a 2-year period with

Table 3. Comparisons of Grades, Absences, Truancies, ELA,
and Math Content Standard Test Scores Between
Active YI Participants and Comparison Students for the 2010–
2011 Academic Year
Active YI participants Comparison students
Measure Adjusted mean N Adjusted mean N F-value
Academic GPA 2.52 50 2.26 265 5.59**
Total GPA 2.61 52 2.41 265 3.44*
Absences 6.88 52 8.80 265 2.36
Truancies 2.69 52 3.27 265 .54
Content standards
ELA† 342.90 35 335.14 178 1.24
Math† 318.79 28 300.35 155 3.99**
Note. YI = Youth Institute; GPA = grade-point average; ELA =
English language arts.
**Significant at the .05 level.
*Approaching significance at the .10 level.
†10th and 11th graders only.
a standard deviation of 92. As shown in Table 3, active YI
participants had significantly
higher academic GPA, F (1, 314) = 5.59, p < .05, and math
content standard scores, F (1,
182) = 3.99, p < .05, than comparison students. Active YI
participants also had somewhat
higher total GPAs than comparison students, F (1, 316) = 3.44,
p < .10.
DISCUSSION

Research indicates that high-quality out-of-school programs can
result in better academic
achievement and school attendance (Durlack & Weissberg,
2007; Vandell et al., 2007).
However, fewer studies have been completed on the effects of
these programs on high
school students and those results have been mixed (Hirsch et
al., 2011; Hartman et al.,
2011). This study investigated the effects of participation in the
YMCA Youth Institute
on the grades, test scores, and school attendance of low-income,
culturally diverse, high
school youth using a randomly selected matched comparison
group. It is particularly
important to understand the effectiveness of out-of-school
programs with this population
given that poverty is related to lower academic achievement,
poorer school attendance,
and school dropout (Hammond et al., 2007; Lacour &
Tissington, 2011; Center on Edu-
cation Policy, 2011).
YI youth scored significantly higher on both ELA and math
content standard
measures and had somewhat fewer absences than comparison
students. Similar findings
have been found in other studies of out-of-school programs
(Durlack & Weissberg, 2007;
Hartman et al., 2011). Because more frequent participation in
after-school analyses have
been linked to better outcomes (Roth, Malone, & Brooks-Gunn,
2010), a second analysis
was completed with actively involved YI participants. Active YI
youth had significantly
higher academic GPA and math content standard scores, and

somewhat higher total GPA
than comparison students. The findings related to GPA are
particularly encouraging
given that in the prior year, their academic and total GPAs were
significantly lower than
those of the comparison group. In more practical terms, 31% of
Active YI youth improved
their academic GPA to a higher grade level, while only 20% of
comparison youth did
the same. It is possible that these higher grades will make them
more competitive when
applying for colleges in the future given that GPA is often
considered in admission
decisions.
In addition, their higher test scores in both ELA (17% of active
youth moved from
“basic” to “proficient” or from “proficient” to “advanced,”
while only 6% of comparison
youth did the same) and math (4% of active youth versus 2% of
comparison youth)
will make them eligible for some of the more competitive
academic high school prepa-
ration programs, which may prove beneficial for both college
and career preparation.
These findings provide preliminary support to the notion that
high-quality out-of-school
programs grounded in youth development practices and focused
on technology can pos-

itively influence academic performance among low-income
youth and, possibly, school
attendance.
Implications for Practice
The YI provides year-round out-so-school programming for
low-income urban high school
youth, a population that is sometimes difficult to attract and
retain given the many compet-
ing activities youth this age may choose to be involved in (The
After-School Corporation,
2007). The ability to accomplish these tasks are critical for
effective after-school pro-
grams because consistent and ongoing participation over an
extended period of time has
been linked to positive academic and behavioral outcomes in
multiple studies (Strobel,
Kirshner, O’Donoghue, & McLaughlin, 2008; Roth & Brooks-
Gunn, 2000). There are sev-
eral likely aspects of the YI that contributed to the outcomes
found here and inclusion of
these components in other programs for this population may
prove valuable. First, the YI
also has a fully developed conceptual framework with clearly
articulated program compo-
nents and hypothesized outcomes. Having such a framework has
been shown to improve
the quality of youth development programs (Catalano et al.,
2002). The YI is a compre-
hensive program that allows youth to have a voice in the
activities that are offered and
in which they participate. All of these things have been found to
increase the likelihood
of high school youth after-school program participation (The
After-School Corporation,

2007; Strobel et al., 2008).
The use of a youth development framework, providing safety,
supportive relationships,
meaningful youth involvement, skill-building, and community
involvement to effectively
move youth toward positive long-term outcomes (Community
Network for Youth Develop-
ment, 2001), is essential to the development of programs for
this population. In particular,
developing positive relationships with adults and peers that
support success, safety, and
meaningful learning opportunities (Strobel et al., 2008) should
encourage youth to stay
involved. Given that bonding to prosocial others including
positive adult role models can
contribute to better test scores and grades (Fleming et al., 2008;
Wright, John, & Sheel,
2006), having staff who can establish positive relationships with
and among youth may be
particularly important (Barr et al., 2006). It is possible that
when youth are bonded to
others who highly value academic performance, they will be
more likely to attend school
and try harder. Participation in after-school activities has been
found to result in having
more academic and prosocial peers (Fredricks & Eccles, 2008).
To encourage and support high school youth performing better
academically, the YI
utilized a number of strategies. It provided daily homework
assistance, a college readiness
program that helped youth to better understand how their high
school performance
was associated with long-term success, allowed youth to use
state-of-the-art digital media

technology to complete school projects or make class
presentations, and made participa-
tion in internship opportunities contingent upon maintaining an
acceptable GPA. This
approach is important given the use of a multipronged approach
to supporting academics
has been found to be more helpful than the use of homework
assistance alone (Barr et al.,
2006). In addition, the YI linked its technology curriculum to
state content standards
and utilized project-based learning to complete all tasks during
its summer program
as project-based learning has been shown to increase decision-
making and social skills
and academic achievement (Strobel & van Barneveld, 2009).
Noam (2003) suggested
that the use of projects in out-of-school programs was beneficial
because it creatively
engages youth in ways that are more participatory, hands-on,
and community-focused
than the learning that typically happens during the school day.
Programs that link these
creative learning opportunities with school learning
expectations may be more effective
in developing the skills needed to improve grades and test
scores.
Finally, the YI taught youth state-of-the art technology and
software and software skills.

This is crucial since technology affects every facet of life and
enormous opportunities exist
for youth who possess technology knowledge and skills
(Wilhelm, Carmen, & Reynolds,
2002). Technology use and competence is related to positive
educational and career
outcomes (Huffman & Huffman, 2012; Jackson et al., 2006).
Unfortunately, a large gap
still exists between the haves and the have-nots regarding
access and knowledge about
technology (Davis, Fuller, Jackson, Pittman, & Sweet, 2007;
Warschauer, Knobel, & Stone,
2004; Warschauer & Matuchniak, 2010).
In addition, even when low-income youth have access to
technology at home and
school, they are more likely to use it to focus on developing
basic skills, whereas higher
income users are more likely to use it to develop higher level
thinking and problem-
solving skills (Warschauer et al., 2004; Warschauer &
Matuchniak, 2010; Morse, 2004).
However, there is evidence that community-based technology
learning programs that
promote the critical use of media and technology may help
youth develop 21st century
learning skills and contribute to their later success (Warschauer
& Matuchniak, 2010).
Thus, out-of-school programs for low-income youth should help
them to develop technol-
ogy skills to promote their access to information and the
development of critical think-
ing and problem-solving skills. All of these things should
contribute to better academic
achievement.

Limitations
There are several limitations to this study. First, this study used
a quasi-experimental
design with a matched, comparison group. However, it has been
argued that although
quasi-experimental designs do control for many threats to
validity, it is possible that the
groups may not actually be comparable (Scott-Little et al.,
2002). Second, because the
data were collected directly from the school district, there is no
way of knowing whether
comparison youth were themselves involved in out-of-school
programs, which may have
influenced the results found here. Finally, although YI youth
were all low-income, there
was no measure of socioeconomic status provided on the
comparison youth, so it is
unclear whether they were all low income as well. In the future,
it might be useful to
explore whether these youth are performing as well as, or
closing the gap with, their
higher income peers. Although this research indicates high
school out-of-school pro-
grams can positively influence some aspects of academic
performance, future research,
particularly experimental research, will need to be conducted to
more definitively iden-
tify the effect of out-of-school programs on the academic
achievement of low-income
youth.

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Security Training Platforms Pt. 1
By Li-Wey Lu
Agenda
Homework
Quiz
Assignment Drop
Security Training Platforms
Next Week
Homework
Homework – Due Next Week
Create a Python script that solves
http://10.15.1.10:8080/injection/lab_3/index.php
Pip install requests
Use the uploaded template to help get you started
OR

Find three more vulnerabilities in CandyPal
(http://10.15.1.10:9090)
Provide the following per vulnerability:
Name
Image
Description
Quiz
Quiz – Answers
Q1. Which of the following is not a type of Cross-Site
Scripting?
A1. Mirrored
Q2. What does SOP stand for?
A2. Same Origin Policy
Q3. What does CORS stand for?
A3. Cross-Origin Resource Sharing
Q4. Cross-Site Scripting attacks can only be performed against
HTTP GET requests
A4. False
Q5. SOP looks at the protocol, host, and port
A5. True
Assignment Drop
Assignment Drop – Overview
Lowest homework score will be dropped
Lowest quiz score will be dropped

Security Training Platforms
Security Training Platforms – DVWA
NAME: Damn Vulnerable Web Application (DVWA)
DETAILS: Link
URL: http://10.15.1.10:8082/
USERNAME: admin
PASSWORD: password
Security Training Platforms – WebGoat
NAME: OWASP WebGoat
DETAILS: Link
URL: http://10.15.1.10:8083/WebGoat
USERNAME: Register New User
PASSWORD: Register New User
Next Week
Next Week
Topic:
Assignments:
Week 5 Homework
Week 5 Quiz

OWASP Top 10 Pt. 2
By Li-Wey Lu
Agenda
Homework
Quiz
OWASP Top 10
Next Week
Homework
Homework – Due Next Week
Find three vulnerabilities in CandyPal (http://10.15.1.10:9090)
Vulnerabilities must fall under the risks discussed during
lecture
Provide the following per vulnerability:
Name
Image
Description
Quiz
Quiz – Answers
Q1. What does OWASP stand for?
A1. Open Web Application Security Project
Q2. Which of the OWASP Top 10 was removed from 2017’s
list?
A2. Cross-Site Request Forgery

Q3. What is Session Fixation an example of?
A3. Broken Authentication
Q4. DTD stands for Document Type Description.
A4. False
Q5. There is more than one type of injection attack.
A5. True
OWASP Top 10
OWASP Top 10 – Risks
Injection
Broken Authentication
Sensitive Data Exposure
XML External Entities
Broken Access Control
Security Misconfiguration
Cross-Site Scripting
Cross-Site Request Forgery
Insecure Deserialization
Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities
Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards
Insufficient Logging & Monitoring
OWASP Top 10 – Cross-Site Scripting (Overview)
When an attacker gets their JavaScript to execute on a victim’s
browser
OWASP Top 10 – Cross-Site Scripting (Examples)
Reflected XSS – Payload in HTTP request comes back in HTTP
response body

Stored XSS – Payload is stored in the application’s database
and returned in an HTTP response body
DOM-Based XSS – Normal JavaScript comes from the HTTP
response body and retrieves the payload from the URL to place
on the page
OWASP Top 10 – Cross-Site Scripting (Labs)
URL: http://10.15.1.10:8081
Lab 1 – Reflected XSS
Lab 2 – Stored XSS
Lab 3 – DOM-Based XSS (Try Different Browsers)
Lab 4 – XSS in Tag Attributes
Lab 5 – POST XSS
Discussion – Remediation
OWASP Top 10 – Cross-Site Request Forgery (Overview)
When an attacker gets a victim’s browser to perform an action
with their session
OWASP Top 10 – Cross-Site Request Forgery (Examples)
Victim is logged into an application
Attacker sends an email containing a link to victim
Link leads to the application’s logout endpoint
Victim clicks on the link and gets logged out
OWASP Top 10 – Cross-Site Request Forgery (Labs)
URL: http://10.15.1.10:8081
Lab 1 – CSRF to XSS Chained Attack
Discussion – SOP & CORS

Lab 2 – Steal Comments
OWASP Top 10 – Insecure Deserialization (Overview)
Serialization is the process of converting an object into a format
that can be stored or transferred
Deserialization is the process of converting serialized data back
into an object
Insecure Deserialization occurs when untrusted input gets
deserialized
OWASP Top 10 – Insecure Deserialization (Examples)
Application A serializes objects and sends them to Application
B
Application B does not authenticate Application A
An attacker makes direct requests to Application B with
serialized data
Attacker’s serialized data gets deserialized and the object’s
functions are executed
OWASP Top 10 – Insecure Deserialization (Labs)
URL: http://10.15.1.10:8081
Lab 1 – PHP Object Injection
OWASP Top 10 – Using Components with Known
Vulnerabilities (Overview)
Self explanatory
Just because an application is using a component with known
vulnerabilities does not mean it is exploitable

OWASP Top 10 – Using Components with Known
Vulnerabilities (Examples)
https://nvd.nist.gov/
https://jeremylong.github.io/DependencyCheck/
https://dependencytrack.org/
OWASP Top 10 – Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards
(Overview)
Redirect is when someone sends you elsewhere for an answer
Forward is when someone answers you after asking elsewhere
Rest is self explanatory
OWASP Top 10 – Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards
(Examples)
An attacker borrows the reputation of a trusted domain to then
send a victim somewhere malicious
An attacker gets an application to retrieve resources from a
malicious server to achieve XSS
An attacker gets an application to communicate with a
malicious server to steal credentials
OWASP Top 10 – Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards (Labs)
URL: http://10.15.1.10:8081
Lab 1 – Unvalidated Redirect
Lab 2 – Server Side Request Forgery (Credentials)
Lab 3 – Server Side Request Forgery (XSS)
OWASP Top 10 – Insufficient Logging & Monitoring
(Overview)

Self explanatory
OWASP Top 10 – Insufficient Logging & Monitoring
(Examples)
Users authenticating
Impersonation functionality
Payment functionality
Password reset functionality
Brute force attempts
Malicious traffic
Etc.
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Works Cited
Barwegen, Laura Mezzano, et al. “Academic Achievement of
Homeschool and Public School Students and Student Perception
of Parent Involvement.” School Community Journal, vol. 14, no.
1, Jan. 2004, pp. 39–58. EBSCOhost,
search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.uncfsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=tru
e&db=eric&AN=EJ794828&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Author: Stair, Esther E
Title: Academic Achievement of Homeschool and Public School
Students and Student Perception of Parent Involvement
Source: Sch Community J; Spring 2004; 14, 1; pg. 39-58
ISSN: 1059-308X
Publisher: Academic Development Institute
© 2004 Copyright Academic Development Institute . Provided
by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This paper presents the results of a survey of 127 seniors in a
diverse suburban high school to determine the impact of the
subjects' perceptions of parent involvement on their levels of
achievement as measured by the standardized national ACT test.
Independent-samples t tests were then used to assess whether
there were any differences in achievement as reported in
national test scores among students with a perception of a high
level of parent involvement, students with a perception of a low
level of parent involvement, and homeschool students. The

findings of the study were that the perception of a high level of
parent involvement does have a significant impact upon
achievement. Students who perceived a high level of parent
involvement performed significantly better on the national ACT
exam than students who perceived a low level of parent
involvement. There was no difference in academic achievement
between public school students who perceived a high level of
parent involvement and homeschool students.
Key Words: parent involvement, academic achievement,
homeschool students, high school students, student perceptions
Introduction
According to data from the 1999 Parent Survey of the National
Household Education Surveys Program, a study by the U.S.
Department of Education, the number of homeschool students
has risen from 360,000 in 1994 to 850,000 by 1999 (National
Center for Education Statistics, 2001), with many experts
placing that figure closer to 2 million (Bielick, Chandler, &
Broughman, 2001; Ray, 1997). In addition, the author of a
recent study has reported that the academic achievement of
these homeschool students on the national ACT is higher than
that of public school students (Rudner, 1999). A recent article
in a professional education journal, Educational Leadership,
stated that the number of homeschool students was up
dramatically, with the National Home Education Research
Institute estimating between 1.7 million and 2.1 million last
school year, up from 1.2 million in 1996. Their ACT college
admission scores are also consistently above the national
average (22.5 vs. 20.8 in 2003), and an education institute study
of 5,400 homeschooled students found scores on standardized
exams consistently above national averages in 1995 and 1996
(Ray, 2002). One of the limitations to this kind of comparison is
the nature of the reporting of achievement. Homeschool student
achievement results are voluntary and do not include all
students, while the public school achievement results include all
test takers. A second limitation involves the demographics of
the homes in which the students live. One study reported that

many of the variables that are common among homeschool
families may influence academic achievement, such as higher
income, religious faith, and a higher incidence of stay-at-home
mothers (Rudner, 1999). Rudner himself cites this as a
limitation to the comparisons with the achievement of public
school students (1999).
Each of these variables-socioeconomic status, religious faith,
stay-athome mothers, and parent involvement in education-can
have an effect upon the academic achievement of students.
Therefore, we sought to isolate one variable, parent
involvement, to determine its impact upon the academic
achievement of high school students. Although the schools
cannot influence a family's income level, commitment to faith,
or incidence of mothers staying at home full-time, they may be
able to influence the involvement of parents in their child's
education. This higher level of parent involvement is by
definition evidenced in homeschool students' lives (Lines,
2002). Because of this, our research focused on the perception
of parent involvement of public high school students.
Review of the Literature
The review of the literature did not reveal any studies
comparing academic achievement for homeschool students and
public school students dependent upon perceived levels of
parent involvement. For this reason, the review focuses mainly
on two different kinds of studies: those that relate to
homeschool students in particular, and those that relate to
parent involvement in general.
Homeschool Students
Although growing, the literature about homeschooling is
extremely limited. One descriptive article defined
homeschooling as "educating children under the supervision of
parents instead of school teachers" (Lines, 2002, p. 1). Lines
raised questions of whether the same children would perform
better or worse academically in a classroom than at home, but
stated that with the information available, it is difficult to draw
any conclusions. One reason for this is that there is a lack of

reliable data due to the voluntary nature of achievement testing
for homeschool students. The largest study to date (Rudner,
1999) utilized the results of tests taken by homeschool students
across the nation with a sample size of 20,760 students in
grades K-12. He reported that homeschool students scored
higher than their public school peers did on standardized tests.
However, the results of this survey were based upon voluntary
participation and may not reflect the true situation. In the study,
Rudner stated that homeschool parents are, by definition,
heavily involved in their children's education but the same,
unfortunately, is not true of all public or private school parents.
This statement influenced our study, in that it led us to question
whether public school students have levels of achievement
comparable to that of homeschool students when a perception of
high levels of parent involvement exists.
Our study was prompted by reports about the higher levels of
achievement of homeschool students in popular magazines and
newspapers, such as Time (Cloud & Morse, 2001), Chicago
Sun-Times (Grossman, 2003), Christianity Today (Scheller,
2002), ABCNEWS.com (Schabner, 2001; abcnews.com, 2001),
and educational journals such as Educational Leadership
(Grossman, 2003; Ray, 1997). In his key study of the academic
achievement of homeschool students, Lawrence Rudner (1999)
commented about the dangers of outright comparisons between
homeschool students and public school students because of the
vast number of variables that have an impact on these
environments. In an interview with Michael Farris, chair of the
Home School Legal Defense Association, Rudner said, "We
can't, and really shouldn't, compare homeschooling to public
schools. The environment is different. We [homeschoolers]
don't have discipline problems, or at least not as many
discipline problems. Homeschooling is one-on-one. There's the
utmost level of parent involvement. No matter what you factor
out, you cannot control the vast array of differences" (Farris,
1999). However, as is shown throughout these popular
magazines and professional journals, comparisons are being

made regularly. In addition, the homeschool groups are also
making these comparisons in their publications. On its website,
the Home School Legal Defense Association provides a link to a
report from Dr. Brian Ray of the National Home Education
Research Institute. In this document, Ray stated that "home
educated students excelled on nationally-normed standardized
achievement exams. On average, homeschoolers outperformed
their public school peers 30 to 37 percentile points across all
subjects" (Ray & Rudner, 2001).
A letter-to-the-editor in Christianity Today piqued our interest
in relation to all of these various reports. The writer commented
on the most recent report which cited homeschool student
academic achievement as higher than public school student
achievement. She stated, "Find me statistics that compare
homeschooled children with those learning in a classroom who
have involved parents. I am confident that virtually no
difference will be found" (Neufeld, 2002, p. 12-13). We
wondered the same thing. Our purpose was to consider these
comparisons and examine whether public school students'
perception of parent involvement would influence their
academic achievement.
Parental Involvement and Academic Achievement
In order to ask questions regarding "parent involvement," it was
necessary to define what is meant by that term. Various studies
have defined parent involvement differently, and these
variations in definition have led to different findings. One
study, which found no significant correlation between parent
involvement and student achievement, defined parent
involvement as the number of hours the parent spent
volunteering at the school (Okpala, Okpala, & Smith, 2001).
Another study (Griffith, 1996) expanded on this definition,
focusing on the interaction of parent involvement and parent
empowerment as they related to student achievement. Parent
involvement in this study was defined as the frequency with
which parents volunteered at the school, attended parent/teacher
conferences, and attended back-to-school nights. Parent

empowerment was defined as the extent to which parents
perceived that the school accommodated parent participation in
decision-making and activities through information sharing and
convenient arrangements. Although Griffith found consistent
correlation between parent involvement and student test
performance, the definition of parent involvement was still
limited and did not include academic activities outside of the
school environment.
A different definition of parent involvement was provided by
Sealover (1995) who defined it as parents' direct involvement
with students' academic assignments. This involvement was
measured quantitatively by the number of hours per month spent
helping students with assignments. Although Sealover found no
significant parallel between this type of parent involvement and
student academic achievement, this study was useful in
supplementing more qualitative information about parent
involvement and attitudes.
Another way of defining parent involvement is more
encompassing through a system of categorization of activities.
In one study, parent involvement was separated into four
categories: helping, controlling, supporting, and participating
(Mau, 1997). Although Mau did not specifically study the
effects of parent involvement on achievement, the research
method was helpful to our study because it presented a much
more comprehensive definition of involvement than those that
were used by any of the aforementioned researchers.
Another comprehensive way of defining parent involvement
used Epstein's six categories: basic obligations/positive
environment, parent/school communications, parent
participation in school activities, parent/school communications
about homework, parent involvement in school decisions, and
collaborating with the community (Epstein, 1988; 1995).
Epstein suggested ways that parents could improve their level of
involvement. Using these same criteria, Catsambis (1998) found
that for 8th graders, high parent expectations were the strongest
indicators of academic achievement. For 12th graders, parent

encouragement to attend college had the strongest effect on
In addition to the literature that offered definitions of parent
involvement, there was no lack of literature that, although it
lacked specific definitions, explored parents' involvement and
its effect upon academic achievement in various circumstances.
One research study reported the attempt to discover whether the
link between parent involvement and student achievement was
affected by race or income (DiSimone, 1999). DiSimone
concluded that a relationship did exist between race and parent
involvement. Other studies included comparisons between
parent expectations and academic achievement (Reynolds,
1992), comparisons between students' and parents' perceptions
of parent involvement (Freeman & Karr-Kidwell, 1988),
socioeconomic status and parent involvement strategies and
their impact upon academic achievement (Baker & Stevenson,
1986; Hickman, Greenwood, & Miller, 1995), discussions about
school experiences and future plans among African-Americans
and academic achievement (Yan, 1999), and parenting styles
and academic achievement (Zellman & Waterman, 1998). A
comprehensive study (Henderson & Berla, 1994) reviewed 64
studies on parent involvement and came to the conclusion that,
taken as a whole, the studies strongly suggest that children do
better in school when parents are involved in their children's
education at home.
The review of the literature supported the claim that in general,
studies which attempted to use comprehensive measures of
parent involvement tended to find a relationship between parent
involvement and academic achievement, while those using only
one or two factors generally failed to do so. In addition, it
seemed that activities taking place in the home, such as
discussions, assistance, and parents giving advice, had a greater
positive effect on student achievement than school-based
activities, such as conferences, parent-teacher communication,
and volunteering at school functions.
With these findings in mind, we designed a survey that included

many questions about parent involvement and attitudes at home,
along with questions about school involvement. We attempted
to create a survey which encompassed definitions of parent
involvement including students' perceptions of levels of
encouragement, parents' expectations, parents' involvement and
volunteerism in the school itself, time spent on
assignments/homework outside of school, communications
between teachers and parents, and parents' influence in
decision-making.
In addition to constructs which identified the students'
perceptions of parent involvement, we also included one
construct with six items which examined the students'
perceptions of their teachers' roles in seeking out a relationship
with the home. This construct was included because of current
research indicating that the teacher is the most important factor
in influencing student achievement (National Commission on
Teaching & America's Future, 1996).
Purpose
The primary purpose of this study was to determine if the score
of homeschool students on the national ACT exam remained
higher than the score for public school students when the
perception of parent involvement throughout their school career
was factored.
In addition to this primary purpose, two other goals were
incorporated into this study: (1) to determine if there was a
statistically significant difference in the academic achievement
of students who perceived a higher level of parent involvement
and students who perceived a lower level of parent involvement,
and (2) to ascertain the difference in academic achievement of
public school students, depending upon perception of parent
involvement, as compared to national norms of all students and
national norms of homeschool students.
Study Limitations
One limitation of this study is that although it focused upon
parent involvement, it did not use a strict experimental design
in which researchers observed the parents involved in their

children's education. Instead, we depended upon the perception
of the students themselves to report their attitudes of how
involved their parents were. This perception may or may not
reflect the reality of their parents' involvement. Even though
this is listed as a limitation of the study, we believe that the
child's perception of parent involvement is as important as, if
not more important than, the parents' actual involvement. Extant
research studies have documented the impact that a perception
of achievement has upon actual achievement, providing
evidence of the importance of perception in effecting actual
performance (Bandura, 1989; Weiner, 1974). Observing the
reality of the parents' involvement, however, would assist in
informing other parents specifically to what extent and in what
manner one needs to be involved in his/her child's education to
have an impact upon their achievement levels, as well as to
make comparisons between the parents' actual involvement and
the child's perception of it.
A second limitation to this study is the sample size. This study
was conducted in one suburban high school which was
demographically representative of the state and the nation. The
recent No Child Left Behind Act requires each school district to
have a plan for how it will allow research to be conducted with
students, and many of the high schools approached to
participate in this study did not yet have an approved plan in
place. The survey was distributed in the American government
classes, which are required for all seniors. The response rate
from those surveyed was 85%; however, the respondents
comprised just 21% of the population of the senior class. These
were the classes that were provided to the researchers for the
purposes of this study.
Methodology
This quantitative study was conducted through the distribution
of surveys. The surveys were a compilation of 35 questions
designed to determine the level of perceived parent
involvement, with six of the questions designed to determine
the teachers' role in reaching out to involve parents. Questions

were asked concerning parent expectations, relationship to the
school, involvement in the child's school, relationship with the
teachers, teachers' relationships with parents, and perception of
overall involvement. In addition, demographic questions were
asked about the student's ethnicity, gender, GPA, and ACT
score. The participating school was a large, suburban high
school located in a diverse community. The school was chosen
using two criteria: willingness to participate and the school's
similar demographics to that of the wider state population in the
areas of ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Table 1 provides
information about the racial composition of the school and of
the population taking the survey.
One week prior to the distribution of the surveys, students under
the age of 18 were given permission slips to take home and have
their parents sign granting permission to complete the survey.
The surveys were distributed through the general American
government classes, which is required of all graduating seniors,
and completed by 127 out of a total 604 graduating seniors who
signed the permission slips, a response rate of 21%. Surveys
were completed by 68 (53.5%) males and 59 (46.5%) females.
Seniors were chosen because they had already taken and
received scores back from the ACT exam; this was the
independent variable chosen to compare achievement levels to
that of homeschool students.
In addition to surveying the students, a similar survey was sent
home to the parents via the student. There were two additional
questions on the parents' surveys that were not included in the
student surveys. The parent/guardian was asked to define their
household regarding family situation and also regarding the
family's annual gross income. Of the 127 parent surveys that
were distributed, 23 (18.9%) were completed and returned.
For each survey item, students and parents were asked to
respond using a Likert scale, with 4 indicating the highest level
of perceived parent involvement and 1 indicating the lowest
level of perceived parent involvement. Each construct differed
in its response, with some asking level of agreement with the

item, some asking level of regularity for the item, and others
asking about the likeliness of parent expectations for each item.
In categorizing the level of parent involvement, responses of
"1" or "2" were defined as low level of parent involvement and
responses of "3" or "4" were defined as high level of parent
involvement.
After the collection of the completed surveys, independent
samples t tests were used to determine significant differences
for each survey item, if any, in student achievement levels
between those students who perceived a high level of parent
involvement and those who did not, and paired samples t tests
were used to determine significant differences, if any, between
student perceptions of parent involvement and their parent's
perceptions. Single sample t tests were used to compare student
perceptions of parent involvement to the national scores on the
ACT exam of both the overall average and of homeschool
students. In addition, Pearson correlations were conducted to
determine if correlations existed between the overall mean
perception of parent involvement and academic achievement, as
well as a perception of the teachers' role in reaching out to
parents and academic achievement.
Results
Relationship Between Parent Involvement and Student
Achievement
Overall, the results of this study concur with other research in
the field: there is a relationship between the perception of
parent involvement and academic achievement. Students who
perceived a high level of parent involvement had a higher ACT
score (m = 23.15, sd = 4.48) than students who perceived a low
level of parent involvement (m = 20.64, sd = 4.89) (t=-
2.509(110), p < .05). In addition to the summary results, each
survey item was analyzed to determine the relationship between
students' perceptions of parent involvement with their academic
achievement. Independent samples t tests were conducted to
determine if there was a significant difference in achievement
between students who believed their parents were involved as

compared to students who did not believe this. When each
survey item was analyzed, there were some items in the
perception of parent involvement which made a significant
difference in student achievement. Table 2 represents the survey
items that were found to have a significant impact upon
The survey items where parent involvement was not found to
have an impact upon academic achievement were: helping with
school work, listening to students about school work,
encouraging students regarding school work, attending teacher
conferences, attending school functions, reviewing student
report cards, teachers contacting parents about school, teachers
sending information home, teachers notifying parents about
school occurrences, and teachers effectively communicating
with parents. All survey items showed either higher academic
achievement by students perceiving higher levels of parent
involvement or no difference at all.
Student Perceptions Compared to Their Parents' Perceptions
Surveys were returned from 23 out of a total of 127 surveys
distributed to parents. There was no significant difference in the
academic achievement of students whose parents returned the
survey compared to students whose parents did not return the
survey (t= -.881(110), p >.05). The results of a paired samples
t-test comparing the students' perceptions of their parents'
involvement and the parents' perceptions of their own
involvement indicated a significant difference in many items
from the survey. Table 3 lists each of the survey items where a
significant difference in perceptions was found.
Out of a total of 31 survey items, there was a significant
difference in the perceptions between the students and their
parents on 13 items of those surveys returned, or 42%, with the
parents perceiving their involvement to be higher than their
child's perceptions of their involvement. Of these items where a
difference in perceptions was found, three of them, or 23%,
were found to have an impact upon overall academic
achievement: regularly asking about school work, regularly

supporting students with school work, and regularly
volunteering at school.
Perceptions of the Role of the Teacher and Academic
Achievement
A Pearson correlation was calculated examining the relationship
between the students' ACT scores and the students' perceptions
of teacher behaviors. The teacher behaviors which appeared on
the survey were: contacting parents about school issues, sending
information home about the activities at school, notifying
parents about occurrences at school, effectively communicating
with parents, being flexible to parents' schedules when
arranging conferences or meetings, and desiring a partnership
with parents for the purpose of improving student achievement.
A weak correlation that was not significant was found in each of
the items analyzed (p > .05). The students' perception of these
teacher behaviors were not related to students' ACT score
performance.
Comparisons of Public School Students and Homeschool
Students
Our initial research question when beginning this study was
whether students who perceived a higher level of parent
involvement performed worse than, equal to, or better than
homeschool students on the national ACT test, the gauge by
which the success of homeschooling has been measured in
recent reports. An overall mean was determined for each student
by averaging the total responses to each of the survey items.
The scores ranged from 1.48 to 3.79. We determined an overall
definition of parent involvement by assigning those means that
were 2.5 or below the category perception of low parent
involvement, and those means that were 2.51 or above the
designation of perception of high parent involvement. The
national ACT scores used for comparative measures in this
study are those reported by the ACT Enrollment Information
Service for 2002 (C. Parmaly, personal communication, July 7,
2003). The mean ACT score of all students in our sample group
was 22.5, which is the same as the 2002 reported national ACT

score for homeschool students. A single sample t test compared
the mean ACT score of the sample population to the national
average ACT score for all students of 20.8. A significant
difference was found (t(111) = 3.891, p < .01). The same mean
of 22.53 (sd = 4.70) was significantly higher than the national
average ACT score.
For students in our sample group who perceived high levels of
parent involvement (72% of respondents), the mean ACT score
was 23.15; for students in our sample group who perceived low
levels of parent involvement (28% of respondents), the mean
ACT score was 20.64. The national mean score of all students
taking the 2002 ACT exam was 20.8 and the national mean
score reported for homeschool students taking the 2002 ACT
exam was 22.5. A single sample t test compared the ACT scores
of students from the sample population with the national
comparison groups.
Our research found: (1) for students in this sample reporting a
perception of high levels of parent involvement, there was no
significant difference between them and homeschool students
(t(83) = 1.338, p > .05), but a significant difference was found
between their academic achievement and that of the overall
population as measured by the ACT exam (t(83) = 4.813, p <
.01); and (2) for students in this sample reporting a perception
of low levels of parent involvement, there was not a significant
difference between them and homeschool students (t(27) = -
2.008, p = .055), and no difference was found between them and
the overall population as measured by the ACT exam (t(27) = -
.170, p > .05). Table 4 lists the outcomes of these tests.
Discussion
Relationship Between Parent Involvement and Student
Achievement
The results of this study support others which indicate that
parent involvement has a significant impact upon the academic
achievement of students (Bempechat, 1992; Epstein, 1995;
Henderson, 1981; Hickman, Greenwood, & Miller, 1995; Juang
& Silbereisen, 2002; Stevenson & Baker, 1986; Thorkildsen &

Stein, 1998; Zellman & Waterman, 1998). Much of the research
identified the need for high levels of parent involvement during
the elementary, formative years of a child's life (Reynolds,
1992). This study furthers these findings by suggesting that
even through the high school years, not only is this involvement
important, it is imperative that high school students believe that
their parents have been involved throughout their school
careers.
The categories of items which had a significant impact upon
student achievement were varied. Some of the items are
categorized as support for students outside of the school (asking
about school work, supporting school work, reviewing
information sent home, and assisting in making decisions about
the future); some of the items are directly related to
involvement with the school (volunteering at various school
functions, serving on school committees, and flexibility to
teachers' schedules); and others are the expectations parents
have for their children (maintain a 3.0 GPA and involvement in
extra curricular activities). These categories align with the work
of both Mau (1997) and Epstein (1988; 1995).
Student Perceptions Compared to Their Parents' Perceptions
Along with Freeman & Karr-Kidwell (1988), the authors of this
study found a difference between the ways that students
perceived their parents' involvement and the way that parents
perceived it. A conclusion that can be drawn from this is that
parents need to communicate to their children ways that they
are involved in their child's school, education, and life, making
explicit those areas of involvement. Many times, parents may
wait until the child is not around to make contacts with teachers
or to review information sent home from the school, and they
may never talk with their children about ways in which they are
volunteering at the school or serving on school committees. The
greater the awareness the child has about his/her parents'
involvement in the school, the greater impact this involvement
may have upon the child's academic performance.
Only 23 parent surveys were returned (18%), compared to the

127 that were distributed. Parent surveys were given to students
to bring home to their parents on the same day that the students
completed the surveys in class. There could be many
explanations for this paucity of responses, including the surveys
not getting to the parents, parents' lack of time to complete
them, loss of surveys by parents, etc. However, since there was
such a low response rate, it is difficult to make any
generalizations, except to note that of those responses received,
there was a difference of perception on 42% of the survey
items. This may be an indication that there is a significant
difference of perception between parents and their children in
what constitutes high levels of parent involvement. Because the
results of this study found a significant difference in academic
achievement between students who perceive high levels of
parent involvement and those students who perceive low levels
of parent involvement, parents may want to examine how their
children perceive their (parents') level of involvement in their
academic lives. Needless to say, additional studies may need to
be conducted to further the understanding of the differences
between student and parent perceptions of parent involvement.
Perceptions of the Role of the Teacher and Academic
Achievement
Although the main focus of this study was in comparing the
academic achievement of students dependent upon their
perception of parent involvement, one construct with six items
was devoted to teacher behaviors. Each of the identified teacher
behaviors examined their connection to the parents and/ or the
home. The items examined included the extent to which teachers
were perceived as having: contacted parents about school, sent
information home, notified parents about school occurrences,
effectively communicated with parents, been flexible to parents'
schedules, and desired a partnership with parents. There has
been much research about the impact that teachers have upon
student achievement, most notably the National Commission
Report entitled What Matters Most: Teachers for Our Nation's
Schools (Darling-Hammond, 1995). However, the results of this

study did not indicate that the behaviors of the teacher in
his/her interactions with the home had an effect upon student
achievement, whereas this study did find that some of the
parents' behaviors did have an effect. This does not mean that
the behaviors or activities of the teacher in maintaining
relationships with the parents are not important, just that their
perception by students was not found in this particular study to
have a significant impact upon student academic performance
on the ACT.
Comparisons of Public School Students and Homeschool
Students
In this particular sample, the mean ACT score of the sample
population (m = 22.53, sd = 4.70) was equal to that of the
national homeschool population (m = 22.50), and significantly
higher than the overall average population (m = 20.8). Because
of this, the sample group may not be a true representative
sample of the national population as a whole. Given this, when
public school students perceived higher levels of parent
involvement, they performed as well as those students who were
homeschooled. The one known similarity between these groups
is that they had high levels of parent involvement. Both groups
performed better than the overall national averages of public
school students. However, in this particular sample, when a
comparison is drawn between the ACT scores of homeschool
students and those public school students with a perception of
higher levels of parent involvement, there is no significant
difference.
Conclusions and Recommendations
In our current political milieu of accountability for student
achievement, as well as the changing societal mores of two-
income families, questions of parent involvement and academic
achievement are raised, including specifics about the types of
parent involvement (Weiss et al., 2003). A recently published
book, No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning
(Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2003) examines the large IQ and
academic achievement gap between black and white children,

stating that this cognitive skill gap precedes entry to school and
can be documented as early as age three. The authors point out
that family and parenting characteristics (including
socioeconomic factors) are major causes of this learning gap.
David Armor provides the following review of this book:
The problem with both NCLB and the school reforms proposed
in No Excuses is that they assume schools can close this gap
without any changes in families. This is problematic because
the family factors that cause the gap and that continue to
influence children throughout their school career are generally
unaffected by changes in school policies. It is puzzling that the
Thernstroms cite numerous findings from my book, Maximizing
Intelligence (Armor, 2003), about the strong influence of family
risk factors on children's IQ and achievement and yet ignore the
substantial evidence about how hard it is to change achievement
scores relying only on school resources and programs during the
school years? By ignoring the causes of lower achievement, and
by continuing to put most of our resources into school remedies
that are likely to fail because they ignore the family, I believe
we put unrealistic and unfair burdens on school systems (Armor,
2004).
Our solutions to improving the academic achievement of all
students in our public schools begins with addressing the
necessary involvement of the parents and identifying which
activities are most beneficial to their students. This is evidenced
in this study where no difference in achievement is found
between homeschool students, who have natural parent
involvement built into the model, and public school students
who perceived high parent involvement. This is one step in the
right direction.
The following recommendations are made based upon this
study's results:
1. Parents should communicate their school involvement clearly
to their children so that the students are aware of the ways in
which their parents are involved. Results of this study showed
that in 42% of the cases, the students perceived their parents'

involvement to be lower than the parents did. In some instances,
it is natural that the students wouldn't be as knowledgeable
about their parents' involvement, such as in contacting teachers,
notifying teachers of occurrences at home, and desiring a
partnership with teachers. There may be reasons why parents
don't alert their children to these items. In other cases, parents
may not think to tell their children of their involvement, such as
in attending school functions and teacher conferences and
volunteering at school. In other cases, however, the students
should have been aware of their parents' involvement or lack
thereof. Of these cases, three have been found to be related to
increased student achievement: regularly asking about school
work, regularly supporting students in their school work, and
assisting students in choosing courses over their school careers.
Because the perception of the student is significantly lower than
that of their parents' in these areas, by increasing their
involvement in these areas and/or their children's awareness of
their involvement, parents may increase the level of
achievement of their children. It is important to note that it is
impossible to generalize over an entire population on the basis
of only 23 parent responses.
2. Parents should be aware of what actions, when perceived by
students, demonstrate an impact upon academic achievement.
Table 5 lists the survey items which indicated a significant
difference in ACT scores between students who perceived a
higher level of parent involvement in this item and students who
perceived a lower level of parent involvement. Time is a limited
commodity in our society and by knowing what actions and
behaviors are effective in influencing student achievement,
parents can be sure that time is spent in these significant areas.
3. When parents and public schools partner together for the
purposes of improving student achievement, and when students
perceive this involvement, academic performance increases.
This is demonstrated by the increase in performance of both
homeschool and public school students when the variable of
parent involvement is considered. Public school students

perform as well as their homeschool student counterparts when
the variable of the perception of parent involvement is
examined. Rather than abandon public schools in favor of home-
schooling, parents concerned about their children's achievement
could increase their level of involvement in the public schools.
Increased involvement not only will assist their own children,
but will in turn affect other children as well. More volunteers in
schools, increased participation on school committees,
increased support for individual students in school work, and
increased expectations for students regard GPA and extra-
curricular activities will create a change in the school culture
and climate; more and more parents may be influenced to
become involved, and eventually all students enjoy the benefits.
This is what is intended by the term "school community." All
stakeholders become involved in the life of the school for the
purpose of improved success for all students.
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Author Affiliation
Laura Mezzano Barwegen is an assistant professor in the
Department of Education at Wheaton College. Nancy K.
Falciani, S. Junlah Putnam, and Esther E. Stair are
undergraduate education majors at Wheaton College. Megan B.
Reamer is a graduate student in Educational Policy Studies at
the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. Correspondence
concerning this article should be addressed to Laura Mezzano
Barwegen, Wheaton College, 501 E. College Avenue, Wheaton,
IL, 60187. Her email address is [email protected] wheaton.edu.
The authors are grateful to Wheaton College for support of this
research and give special thanks for funding provided through
an Aldeen Faculty Development Grant and a Wheaton Alumni
Association Grant.
Source: School Community Journal, 20040101, Vol. 14 Issue 1,
p39, 20p

Item: EJ794828
| SUMMER 2010 JOURNAL OF COLLEGE ADMISSION18 W
W W. N A C A C N E T. O R G
by Michael F. Cogan
exploring
Academic
outcomes of
Homeschooled
students
S U M M E R 2010 JOURNAL OF COLLEGE ADMISSION |
19W W W. N A C A C N E T. O R G
Introduction
Homeschooling is a type of education which typically occurs in
the home with the child’s parent or guardian serving as the pri-
mary educator. Prior to the advent of compulsory education in
the
1700s, homeschooling was the primary form of education of the

masses as the concept of hiring a teacher or tutor was available
only to the elite (DiStefano, Rudestam and Silverman 2004). In
the United States, compulsory education laws were adapted by
nearly every state by the early 1900s. In essence, these compul-
sory laws decreased the number of homeschooled students dra-
matically as many states determined homeschooling was a con-
troversial form of education and in many cases illegal
(Knowles,
Muchmore and Spalding 1994).
In the 1970s, it was estimated there were 13,000 K-12 students
receiving their education through a homeschooling format in the
United States (Lines 1991). Currently, homeschooling is legal
in
all 50 states and is considered to be one of the fastest growing
segments of K-12 education in the United States (Ray 2009).
The
National Center for Education Statistics (Bielick 2008) recently
released an estimate indicating the number of homeschooled
stu-
dents between the ages of 5 and 17 has increased from 800,000

in 1999 to 1,508,000 in 2007. This represents an 88 percent
increase in the number of homeschooled students in the US dur-
ing this period. Based on these estimates, homeschooled
students
represent approximately 3 percent of children attending K-12 in
the US. As a group, the population of homeschooled students in
the US is nearly as much as the population of students in New
York City and Los Angeles combined (US Department of
Educa-
tion 2008) One of the few estimates related to the college
school
attendance patterns of homeschooled students comes from the
Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) Cooperative
Institu-
tional Research Program (CIRP) survey. This instrument
includes
a question asking the respondent to indicate the type of high
school they graduated from. This question has been included in
the CIRP instrument eight of the past 18 years (2008, 2007,
2005, 2004, 2001, 1998, 1993, and 1991). HERI estimated
there were approximately 11,500 freshman students who gradu-

ated from a homeschool (0.08 percent) and subsequently
enrolled
in one of the 1,693 institutions participating in the CIRP in
2008
(Pryor, et al. 2008).
There is a paucity of current research related to the outcomes
of homeschooled students in higher education. In part, this
lack of understanding is due to the relatively small number of
homeschooled students known to have attended college. Addi-
tionally, higher education may not have felt a need to address
the issue as the dramatic increase of homeschoolers is at the
K-12 level and many of these students have yet to enter post-
secondary education. In 2004, The Journal of College
Admission
dedicated a full issue to the topic of homeschooled students
entering higher education. One article focused on the percep-
tions of admission officers tasked with admitting homeschooled
students (Jones and Gleckner 2004). The authors collected
survey information from 55 admission officers primarily located

in the western United States. The authors found that the ma-
jority of admission officers believed homeschooled students
would perform (GPA, credits earned, retention) at or above the
level of traditionally homeschooled students; however, nearly
35 percent indicated homeschooled students would have a
more difficult time socially when compared to their traditional
peers. In the same issue, Ray (2004) found homeschooled
students achieved higher standardized test scores (e.g., ACT)
compared to traditional-school students. In addition, the results
indicated gender, family income and parent education level
had little effect on these test scores. The author continued by
describing what he believed to be misconceptions related to
the socialization skills of students attending a homeschool.
Abstract
This exploratory study examines the academic outcomes of
homeschooled students who enter a
medium size doctoral institution located in the Midwest.
Descriptive analysis reveals homeschool
students possess higher ACT scores, grade point averages
(GPAs) and graduation rates when

compared to traditionally-educated students. In addition,
multiple regression analysis results reveal
that students who are homeschooled earn higher first-year and
fourth-year GPAs when controlling
for demographic, pre-college, engagement, and first-term
academic factors. Further, binary logistic
regression results indicate there is no significant difference
between homeschooled student’s fall-to-
fall retention and four-year graduation rates when compared to
traditionally-educated students while
controlling for these same factors.
The author highlighted this point with the following
statement:
Experience and anecdotes have led many people
to believe that homeschool parents were either
move-to-the-country anarchist goat herders, or
right-wing Bible thumpers, and their children
were either mathematically-limited, due to Ma-

ma’s fear of math, or child prodigies in rocket-
science who were unthinkably socially hindered.
In response, Ray (2004) conducted a study in
which 7,306 adults who had been homeschooled
completed a survey in order to determine their
community and civic engagement patterns. The au-
thor concluded that students who had been home-
schooled for seven or more years (N=5,254) were
more likely to have earned college credit, partici-
pated in community service, and voted in the past
five years when compared to the general population
in the United States (Ray 2004).
Sheffer (1995) addresses the issue of socialization
related to homeschool students in her work focusing
on women’s psychology and child development.
She states:
They have talked about trusting themselves, pur-
suing their own goals, maintaining friendships

even when their friends differ from them or dis-
agree with them. Finally, those home-educated
girls maintain their self-confidence as they pass
into womanhood.
The National Education Association asserts that
homeschooling “cannot provide the student with a
comprehensive education experience” (2007–08
NEW Resolutions document). This perception has
led to the creation of several organizations dedicated
to the education of homeschooled students. One
such organization is Patrick Henry College (VA).
This institution was established in 2000, in part,
to serve Christian homeschooled students. Senior
administrators estimate that approximately 85
percent of the student body was homeschooled prior
to enrolling at the college. Little is known of this group
concerning academic outcomes as the institution is not
required to participate in the Integrated Postsecondary

Education Data System (IPEDS) reporting since
they do not receive federal funding. The college has
received much attention from the media since its
inception due to a conservative approach, religious
nature and lack of diversity. (JBHE 2001; Kirkpatrick
2007; Buncombe 2004). An article in the New Yorker
is one example in which homeschool students are
characterized by the media concerning socialization:
Homeschoolers are not the most obvious raw ma-
terial for a college whose main mission, since its
founding, five years ago, has been to train a new
generation of Christian politicians. Politics, after
all, is the most social of professions, and many
students arrive at Patrick Henry having never
shared a classroom with anyone other than their
siblings. In conservative circles, however, home-
schoolers are considered something of an élite,
rough around the edges but pure in their focus,

capacity for work, and ideological clarity a view
that helps explain why the Republican establish-
ment has placed its support behind Patrick Henry,
and why so many conservative politicians are hir-
ing its graduates (Rosin 2005).
Recently, an institutional study attempting to de-
scribe the academic outcomes of homeschooled
students was conducted at Wheaton College (IL)
(Saunders 2009). The author reported that 10
percent of the student body is homeschooled. The
researcher developed a statistical model in order to
predict whether a student intended to return to the
institution for their sophomore year or not. One of
the independent variables in the model was school
type. This variable was designed to identify whether
school type contributes to a retention model de-
signed to predict academic outcomes. The author
concluded that the type of school attended was not

a statistically significant predictor; however, the
author relied on the students’ expressed intent to
return to the institution rather than the actual at-
tendance patterns of the respondent.
Every
homeschooler
has huge dreams
because of
the freedom
to imagine
without the
discouragement
of official
red tape and
negative peer
pressure, yet
those dreams are
often shattered
when these
same individuals
apply to college
and hit financial

brick walls.
As stated earlier, the literature surrounding homeschooled
student’s
academic outcomes in college is incomplete. Currently, very
little is
known concerning the short-and long-term outcomes of this
group
from an empirical perspective. Sufficient evidence does exist
that
homeschooled students do achieve higher standardized test
scores
than traditionally schooled students (Ray 2004; Rudner 1999;
Wartes 1991). The evidence is decidedly absent concerning
home-
school student grade attainment, persistence and completion
rates
once they enter the postsecondary environment.
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to explore the academic
outcomes

of students attending homeschool prior to their enrollment at the
focus institution. More specifically, homeschooled students will
be compared to their non-homeschooled peers in order to deter-
mine similarities and differences between the groups. In
addition,
students who were homeschooled prior to enrollment will be en-
tered into four existing regression models as a categorical
variable
(yes/no). The addition of this categorical variable will provide
the
researcher with evidence to support or refute anecdotal evidence
related to homeschool students attending the focus institution.
Population
The institution participating in the study is a medium-sized
private
university with a Carnegie Classification of doctoral. The
institution
is located in a metropolitan area in the upper Midwest. The
overall
student population is nearly 11,000 with approximately 57
percent

classified as undergraduates. Each fall, the institution enrolls a
fresh-
man class of approximately 1,320 students. The institution
maintains
a comprehensive data warehouse with a census file created on
the
10th day of the semester. The majority of data used in this study
was
extracted from this census file. In order to answer the
aforementioned
questions, three datasets were developed. The first dataset
consists
of all incoming freshman students entering the institution
during the
fall semester between 2004 and 2009 (N=7,776). This dataset
con-
tains 76 students (approximately 1.0 percent) who reported
attending
homeschool prior to enrollment. This dataset will be used to
describe
student characteristics by high school type. The second dataset
in-
cludes the same group of students entering the institution
between

2004 and 2008 (N=6,424). The 2009 class was excluded from
this
dataset as students had yet to complete a full year at the
institution
at the time of the study. As such, this group will not have the
req-
uisite dependent variables (first-year GPA and fall-to-fall
retention).
Due to missing data, 5,505 (86 percent) of the observations
were
used to address first-year GPA and fall-to-fall retention
outcomes.
This dataset contains 70 students (approximately 1.3 percent)
who
reported attending homeschool prior to enrollment. The third
dataset
included all incoming freshman students entering the institution
dur-
ing the fall semester in 2004 and 2005 (N=2,488). These groups
were selected as they possess the two dependent variables
necessary
for the analysis (four-year cumulative GPA and four-year
graduation
rate). Due to missing data, 2,070 (83 percent) of the

observations
were used to address fourth-year GPA and four-year graduation
out-
comes. This dataset contains 27 students (approximately 1.3
percent) who reported attending homeschool prior to
enrollment.
Limitations
As mentioned in the previous section, the homeschooled stu-
dent population used in this study attended a single institution.
Additionally, the number of homeschool students is relatively
small.
As such, the results of this analysis should not be considered in-
ferential to the general population of undergraduate students in
the US. Rather, the results of this research should be considered
a
starting point in order to better understand academic outcomes
of
homeschool students entering postsecondary education.
Variable Selection
Dependent Variables
The focus institution maintains a clear goal of graduating

students
who enroll at the institution as freshmen. As such, senior
adminis-
trators pay close attention to four academic outcome measures
to
include first-year GPA, fourth-year GPA, fall-to-fall retention,
and
four-year graduation.
The first outcomes of interest are first-year and fourth-year
GPA.
When considering grades, Pascarella and Terenzini (2005)
state, “Even given their limitations, however, college grades
may be the single best predictors of student persistence, degree
completion, and graduate school enrollment. Grades are one of
the most consistent predictors of these outcomes in both large,
nationally representative studies and in far more numerous
single institution studies.” This has been supported at the focus
institution as students who persist tend to maintain higher
GPAs when compared to those who do not persist. For example,
freshman students returning for their second year maintained

a first-year GPA of 3.12 compared to a 2.51 for those who did
not return. In addition, students graduating in four years tend
to maintain higher GPAs (3.39) than those who graduate in five
or more years (2.84). Therefore, it is essential to isolate factors
that may influence these quantitative variables.
The second outcomes of interest are the persistence and degree
attainment measures. Bean (2005) has developed a significant
body of knowledge indicating that institutional fit or institu-
tional commitment are critical components when considering
a student’s decision to continue at the institution or leave.
Pascarella and Terenzini dedicate a section to the plethora of
research emphasizing the positive relationship between social
interaction and the student’s decision to persist at the institu-
tion. The authors conclude their review by stating, “It seems
clear that various forms of academic and social engagement are
central elements in the persistence decision-making process

(2005).” As such, understanding the influence pre-college and
first-term factors have on persistence and completion is critical
to understanding and improving academic success. The per-
sistence and completion definitions provided by the National
Center for Education Statistics are useful for understanding the
persistence and completion patterns of the study population.
In this case, the variable is dichotomous in nature with success
and failure serving as the two values of interest. As such, stu-
dents who are retained from their first fall to the following fall
(88 percent) and those students graduating in four-years (58
percent) are considered successful (1). Those who do not return
the following fall or do not graduate in four years are
considered
to be ‘not successful (0).’
Independent Variables
Demographics
The first group of factors selected for the model control for de-
mographic characteristics possessed by the incoming students

included whether a student received a Pell Grant during their
first
term at the institution. This served as a proxy for socioeconomic
status. This dichotomous variable is coded one (1) for receiving
a Pell Grant and zero (0) for not receiving a Pell Grant.
Underrep-
resented minority is another characteristic used in the model
and
the students were given the opportunit to self identify their race
as African American, Asian, Hispanic, Native American, white,
or refuse to respond. In order to create a dichotomous vari-
able, African-American, Asian, Hispanic, and Native-American
students were assigned a one (1) while white students were as-
signed a zero (0). Students who refused to provide this infor-
mation were excluded from the model. Male is a dichotomous
variable in which men were assigned a one (1) and women were
assigned a zero (0).
Engagement
The Catholic variable addresses the religious nature of the
focus institution. Students who self-reported their religious af-

filiation as Roman Catholic were assigned a one (1) while all
other students were assigned a zero (0). The focus institution
pays attention to this measure as the mission of the institu-
tion is to be inclusive and accepting of all religious views held
by faculty, staff and students. The On-Campus Residence is a
dichotomous variable in which students living on campus dur-
ing their freshman year are assigned a one (1) and those who
did not were assigned a (0). Percent PT Faculty is a measure
designed to capture the percentage of adjunct-taught credits
a freshman student is exposed to during their first semester at
the institution. Each student was assigned a value expressing
the percentage of courses taught by adjuncts. For example, a
student enrolled in four courses with two of the courses taught
by adjuncts would be assigned a value of 50 percent (2/4).
J-Term is a variable that indicates whether a student enrolled
in a time intensive course at the institution between their first
fall semester and the following spring. Students enrolling in a
J-Term course were assigned a one (1) and those who did not

enroll were assigned a zero (0).
Pre-Enrollment Academics
Three factors associated with previous academic behaviors
were
included. Students have the opportunity to provide the type of
high school they attended prior to enrolling at the focus
institution
(public, Catholic, private non-Catholic, and homeschool).
Public,
Catholic, and private non-Catholic were aggregated in order to
de-
velop a dichotomous variable (homeschool) in which
homeschool
students were assigned a one (1) and all others assigned a zero
(0). The ACT Composite variable for each student is the highest
score submitted by the student on the ACT exam, the most com-
mon exam submitted by students during the admission process.
Transfer Credit is a variable which includes all college level
credit
earned and transferred to the focus institution prior to
enrollment.

This variable consists of credit earned through postsecondary
in-
stitutions, military, Advanced Placement, etc.
First Term Academics
Completed Schedule is a dichotomous variable in which
students
complete their entire schedule during the fall semester (1). Stu-
dents who fail or withdraw from at least one credit during the
fall
semester are considered to have not completed their schedule
(0). Part-Time Status is a dichotomous variable in which
students
enrolled in 13 or more credits were assigned a one
(1) while students enrolled in 12 or fewer were as-
signed a zero (0). The value for full-time students
was set at 13 for two reasons. First, 11 freshman
students entering the institution between 2004 and
2008 enrolled in fewer than 12 credits. Second,

prior research at the institution has revealed that
students enrolled in 12 or fewer credits maintain
significantly lower GPAs and experience lower re-
tention rates than those who enroll in 13 or more.
As such, the part-time status variable was restruc-
tured for this research project and does not reflect
the course load policies of the focus institution.
Analysis
Two separate approaches were used to identify
the relationship between high school type and
academic outcomes. First, a series of bivariate
tests (ANOVA and Chi-Square) were employed to
identify one-to-one relationships. Next, a series
of multivariate analysis techniques were used to
consider multiple explanatory variables (GPAs,
retention and graduation rates). Due to the pres-
ence of two dependent variable types (quanti-
tative and categorical), two different statistical

tests were employed. These tests were multiple
regression analysis (GPAs) and binary logistic re-
gression analysis (fall-to-fall retention and four-
year graduation rates). In both cases, the sta-
tistical tests enable the researcher to estimate
the values of a dependent variable from known
outcomes of a group of independent variables.
Further, each test provides the researcher with
a coefficient and standard error for each of the
independent variables. Positive coefficients indi-
cate the factor exerts a positive influence on the
dependent variables while negative coefficients
exert a negative influence.
Results
As mentioned earlier, a series of bivariate analyses
were conducted to better understand the relationships
between high school type and selected measures. Ta-
ble 1 provides a breakdown of the different groups

with p-values set at .01 (***), .05 (**), and .10 (*).
Table 1. Selected Factors by High School Type1
Public Catholic Private Home p x
Demographics
Male 48.3% 55.8% 56.4% 71.1% *** 50.3%
Received Pell 14.8% 9.8% 8.8% 34.2% *** 13.8%
Underrepresented Minority 12.2% 10.4% 10.8% 6.8% * 11.8%
Engagement
Catholic 47.0% 86.9% 48.9% 68.4% *** 54.9%
Live on Campus 92.9% 94.2% 86.6% 72.4% *** 92.7%
Percent PT Faculty 47.8% 46.7% 47.5% 46.7% 47.5%
Enrolled in J-term 17.3% 18.4% 20.6% 14.3% 17.6%
Pre-College Academics
ACT Composite 25.0 25.1 25.6 26.5 *** 25.0
Transfer Credits 6.6 3.6 2.9 14.7 *** 6.0
HS GPA 3.56 3.49 3.43 3.74 *** 3.54
Transfer GPA 3.43 3.46 3.42 3.65 *** 3.44
First Fall Academics

Completed Schedule 87.7% 88.9% 85.6% 91.4% 87.9%
Part-Time Status (<13) 7.8% 6.9% 10.7% 9.2% 7.8%
Fall GPA 3.07 3.09 3.11 3.37 *** 3.08
Persistence
Fall-to-Spring Retention 96.3% 95.8% 96.5% 94.3% 96.2%
Fall-to-Fall Retention 87.5% 87.6% 89.5% 88.6% 87.6%
One-Year Cumulative GPA 3.12 3.12 3.13 3.41 *** 3.12
Four-Year Cumulative GPA 3.16 3.13 3.18 3.46 * 3.16
Four-Year Graduation 58.6% 54.2% 51.5% 66.7% 57.5%
1 p-values: .01 (***), .05 (**), and .10 (*)
Summary of Bivariate Analysis
Demographics
Homeschooled students (71.1 percent) were more likely to be
male when
compared to the overall population of undergraduate students
(50.3 percent).
Additionally, homeschooled students (34.2 percent) were 2.5
times more likely
to receive a Pell Grant when compared to the entire group (13.8
percent).

Homeschooled students (6.8 percent) were less likely to self-
identify as a
person of color compared to the overall population (11.8
percent).
Engagement
When considering engagement factors, students reporting a high
school type of
homeschool were more likely to self-identify as Roman Catholic
(68.4 percent)
compared to the overall population (54.9 percent). Further,
homeschooled stu-
dents (72.4 percent) were less likely to live on campus when
compared to the
entire freshman cohort (92.7 percent).
Homeschooled students (26.5) reported a significantly higher
ACT-Composite score when compared to the overall cohort
(25.0).
In addition, homeschooled students (14.7) earned more college

credit prior to their freshman year when compared to the overall
population (6.0). Homeschooled students reported significantly
higher high school GPAs (3.74) and transfer GPAs (3.65) when
compared to the overall group (3.54 and 3.44 respectively).
Homeschooled students (3.37) earned a significantly higher fall
semester GPA when compared to the overall cohort (3.08).
Persistence Measures
Homeschooled students (3.41) earned a higher first-year GPA
when
compared to the overall group (3.12). Additionally,
homeschooled
students (3.46) earned a significantly higher fourth-year GPA
when
compared to the freshman cohort (3.16).
Multivariate Analysis
First and Fourth Year GPAs
As stated earlier, an additional approach to understanding
academic outcomes of homeschooled students is to conduct

multivariate analysis in order to control for additional factors.
More
specifically, students were identified based on their enrollment
in a
homeschool. The dichotomous variable (yes/no) was then
entered
into two regression models with the variables listed in Table 2.
When considering GPAs, the homeschool variable had a
positive
impact on first-year GPA when considering all of the factors.
This
positive impact continued to the fourth year (Table 2).
Fall-to-Fall Retention and Four-Year Graduation Rates
The homeschool variable did not significantly contribute to the
fall-to-fall retention or four-year graduation models (Table 3).
In
other words, the homeschool variable had neither a positive nor
a
negative impact on these academic outcomes. However, home-
school students did achieve a higher retention rate (88.6
percent)
compared to the overall population (87.6 percent). Further,
home-

school students achieved a higher graduation rate (66.7 percent)
when compared to the overall population (57.5 percent).
Conclusion
The growth in homeschooling has been phenomenal with the
popu-
lation of this group nearly doubling in the past eight years.
Despite
this, little is known about this group once they enter the higher
education arena. This exploratory study examines the academic
MiCHAEL CoGAN serves as the director
of institutional research and analysis
at the University of St. Thomas in Saint
Paul, MN. Cogan has been involved in
higher education for 15 years with a
special interest in measuring academic
outcomes of students entering college from
nontraditional backgrounds.
outcomes of homeschooled students who enter a medium-size
doctoral institution located in the Midwest. Descriptive analysis
reveals homeschool students possess higher ACT scores, GPAs
and graduation rates when compared to traditionally-educated
students. In addition, multiple regression analysis results reveal

that students, at this particular institution, who are
homeschooled,
earn higher first-year and fourth-year GPAs when controlling
for
demographic, pre-college, engagement, and first-term academic
factors. Further, binary logistic regression results indicate there
is no significant difference between homeschooled student’s
fall-
to-fall retention and four-year graduation rates when compared
to
traditionally-educated students while controlling for these same
factors. Still, the results should be carefully considered in
regards
to this particular institution as the study took place at one
institu-
tion with a small sample size (N=76). Nonetheless, this study
shows that this group of students outperforms their
traditionally-
educated peers when considering the GPA measures. Perhaps
more importantly, this group of students performed at the same
level as their peers when considering fall-to-fall retention and
four-year graduation rates. As this group continues to grow, it is

imperative that institutional researchers lead the way in
develop-
ing a strong understanding of academic outcomes of homeschool
students. As such, further research should be conducted on a
wider scale to better understand the academic outcomes of this
group. For example, state offices of higher education located
in Minnesota and Florida require in-state institutions to provide
student level data on an annual basis. These datasets would pro-
vide an ideal opportunity to further explore the GPAs, retention
rates and graduation rates of homeschooled students. Although
the population observed in this study should not be considered
generalizable to all undergraduates at all schools, the results
do provide college admission counselors with further evidence
that homeschooled students are prepared for college and may
even be considered as high achievers when compared to non-
homeschooled students.

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Table 2. Multiple Regression Coefficients for First-Year and
Fourth Year Cumulative GPA2
First-Year GPA Four-Year GPA
B Std Error p B Std Error p
Demographics
Male -.161 .015 *** -.204 .026 *
Received Pell -.028 .023 -.038 .038
Underrepresented
Minority
-.061 .025 ** -.085 .040 **
Engagement
Catholic .042 .015 *** .029 .026

Live on Campus .090 .031 *** .027 .004
Percent PT Faculty .001 .000 *** .000 .001
Enrolled in J-term .069 .020 *** .036 .032
ACT Composite .053 .003 *** .056 .004 ***
Transfer Credits .005 .001 *** .005 .002 ***
Home School .188 .081 ** .218 .133 *
Completed Schedule .899 .023 *** .922 .036 ***
Part-Time Status (<13) .211 .031 *** .220 .048 ***
Constant .605 .077 *** .611 .122 ***
2 p-values: .01 (***), .05 (**), and .10 (*)
Table 3. Logistic Regression Coefficients for Fall-to-Fall
Retention and Four-Year Graduation3
First-Year GPA Four-Year GPA
B Std Error p B Std Error p
Demographics
Male .294 .087 *** -.272 .151 *

Received Pell -.096 .130 -.069 .209
Underrepresented
Minority
-.341 .143 *** -.024 .221
Engagement
Catholic .162 .086 * .237 .149
Live on Campus .521 .145 *** .563 .231 **
Percent PT Faculty -.004 .002 ** -.006 .004
Enrolled in J-term .948 .147 *** 1.038 .261 ***
ACT Composite -.005 .015 -.015 .025
Transfer Credits .022 .006 *** -.028 .011 **
Home School .137 .498 .164 .695
Fall Academics
Completed Schedule 1.501 .099 *** 1.719 .157 ***
Part-Time Status (<13) .494 .151 *** .512 .245 **
Constant 3.259 .662 *** 3.466 1.019 ***
3 p-values: .01 (***), .05 (**), and .10 (*)

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Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice
Winter 2016, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 31–39
Predicting College Performance of Homeschooled Versus
Traditional Students
Martin C. Yu, Paul R. Sackett, and Nathan R. Kuncel,
University of Minnesota, Twin
Cities
The prevalence of homeschooling in the United States is
increasing. Yet little is known about how
commonly used predictors of postsecondary academic
performance (SAT, high school grade point
average [HSGPA]) perform for homeschooled students.
Postsecondary performance at 140 colleges
and universities was analyzed comparing a sample of traditional
students matched to a sample of
732 homeschooled students on four demographic variables,
HSGPA, and SAT scores. The matched

sample was drawn from 824,940 traditional students attending
the same institutions as the
homeschooled students, which permitted a very precise level of
matching. This comparison did not
show a difference in first-year college GPA (FGPA) or retention
between homeschooled and
traditional students. SAT scores predicted FGPA and retention
equally well for both groups, but
HSGPA was a weaker predictor for the homeschooled group.
These results suggest that, among
college students, those who were homeschooled perform
similarly to traditionally educated
students matched on demographics and academic preparedness,
but there are practical
implications for college admissions in the use of HSGPA versus
standardized test scores for
Keywords: admissions, college, homeschool, predictive bias
T he prevalence of homeschooled students in the UnitedStates
has been steadily increasing, and as of the 2011–
2012 school year, this amounts to 3.4% of the K-12 student pop-
ulation in the United States (Noel, Stark, & Redford, 2013).
Prominent reasons for why parents choose to homeschool
their children include a concern about the environment of
other schools, a dissatisfaction with academic instruction at
other schools, a desire to provide moral or religious instruc-
tion, or a desire to provide a nontraditional approach to their
child’s education (Noel et al., 2013). Taken together, these
reasons suggest that many parents who choose to homeschool
their children intend for it to replace and to potentially pro-
vide a better education than traditional schooling systems in
the United States.
At the same time, because homeschooling in the United

States is regulated differently from traditional education, and
because homeschooling regulations vary among states (Ruger
& Sorens, 2013), we are concerned with whether homeschool-
ing would yield particularly meaningful grades and whether
it would produce students who would be as effective in col-
lege as traditional students. To address this, we examine
whether high school grades and standardized test scores for
homeschooled students are predictive of college grades and
Martin C. Yu, Doctoral Student, Department of Psychology,
Uni-
versity of Minnesota, 75 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN
55455;
[email protected] Paul R. Sackett, Beverly and Richard Fink
Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Liberal Arts,
Univer-
sity of Minnesota; [email protected] Nathan R. Kuncel, Marvin
D. Dunnette Distinguished Professor of Psychology, University
of
Minnesota; [email protected]
retention, and we do so by comparing these relationships
with those observed for a large matched sample of traditional
students to determine: (1) if traditional college admissions
information is equally predictive for the two groups and (2)
if homeschooling is associated with better college grades or
retention when controlling for standardized test scores, high
school grades, and socioeconomic status (SES).
Descriptively, homeschooled students appear to differ from
the national average in high school performance and other
characteristics. Survey studies conducted by Rudner (1999)
and Ray (2000, 2010) found that on standardized achieve-
ment tests for various K-12 subjects (e.g., reading, math, sci-
ences) the mean national percentile for homeschooled stu-
dents ranged approximately from the 70th to 90th percentile,
compared to the 50th percentile for the overall national aver-

age. They also tend to come from families with higher levels
of education and income (Ray, 2000, 2010; Rudner, 1999).
This suggests that, on average, homeschooled students may
be showing better academic performance due to factors other
than homeschooling. Therefore, homeschooled students may
be a unique group with characteristics not proportionately
represented in the general student population, so it is pos-
sible that the higher performance of homeschooled students
may be explained by other factors, meaning that direct com-
parisons between homeschooled students and traditional stu-
dents in general may not be appropriate.
For postsecondary academic outcomes, the existing re-
search is limited by small sample sizes of homeschooled stu-
dents from a small number of postsecondary institutions, but
the research does provide some support that homeschooled
students perform similarly to other students. Jones and
C© 2016 by the National Council on Measurement in Education
31
Gloeckner (2004a) compared 55 homeschooled first-year stu-
dents from public colleges or universities in Colorado with a
sample of 53 traditional students who attended the same insti-
tutions. They found no significant differences in ACT scores,
first-year grade point average (GPA), first-year retention (fall
to spring semester), and first-year credit hours earned. Cogan
(2010) examined academic data from 7,776 students from a
private university in the upper Midwest, of which 76 students
reported that they were homeschooled. In this study, home-
schooled students were found to have significantly higher
ACT composite scores and higher first-year and fourth-year
GPA, but there was no effect of homeschooling on retention or
graduation rates. Interpretation of these findings is difficult,

as students do not apply to college at random and are not
admitted at random, meaning that the characteristics of col-
lege students who were homeschooled may be different from
those who were traditionally educated. The impact of home-
schooling on students can only be inferred from these studies
if assumptions are made about self-selection effects during
application and the admissions decision. What can be learned
from enrolled students is the extent to which characteristics
of homeschooled students are related to academic achieve-
ment in college and whether these relationships are similar
in magnitude to those observed for students who attended
traditional public and private schools.
A question of practical and scientific interest is whether
the academic performance of homeschooled students dur-
ing high school can effectively predict college performance.
The predictive validity of high school GPA and standardized
tests (e.g., ACT, SAT) for academic performance in college
has been well established in previous research (e.g., Sackett,
Kuncel, Arneson, Cooper, & Waters, 2009). To our knowledge,
however, it is currently unknown whether the predictive va-
lidity of high school GPA and standardized tests for college
performance generalizes to homeschooled students, and if
homeschooling is a moderator of the relationship between
high school performance and college performance. For pur-
poses such as college admissions, knowing if there is any
predictive bias that depends on whether a student is home-
schooled or not will help to better inform admissions deci-
sions. For example, is a B high school grade point average for
home schooled students associated with the same level of per-
formance in college as a B average for traditionally educated
students?
In this study, we aim to expand and to improve on the ex-
isting research on the academic outcomes of homeschooled
students as compared to traditional students, and to address

the lack of knowledge as to what predicts performance dur-
ing college or university for homeschooled students. Using
a nationwide sample of 732 homeschooled students enrolled
in college paired with a closely matched sample drawn from
825,672 first-year students at 195 postsecondary institutions
across the United States, we first conduct a descriptive analy-
sis to provide normative comparisons between homeschooled
and traditional students. Then, we examine any moderating
effects of homeschooling on the predictive validity of high
school GPA, SAT scores, and socioeconomic status for first-
year college GPA and retention after first-year.
Previous studies on this topic have compared samples
of homeschooled students to some overall sample of tradi-
tional students, but we are concerned about whether doing
so would actually provide meaningful results. Because the
characteristics of homeschooled students enrolled in college
may not be proportionally represented among traditional stu-
dents enrolled in college, we believe that, in order to effec-
tively isolate the effects of homeschooling from other student
characteristics on college performance, the most appropri-
ate comparison would be between homeschooled students
and a sample of traditional students matched to as many
characteristics of the homeschooled students as possible. For
example, Jones and Gloeckner (2004a) matched each home-
schooled student in their study with a traditional student
from the same postsecondary institution. However, match-
ing only on postsecondary institution may be insufficient, as
there are many other potential variables, such as gender, eth-
nicity, and SES, that may potentially be disproportionately
represented in samples of college-attending homeschooled
versus traditional students, especially when the sample of
homeschooled students obtained for a study may be limited
in size and not necessarily representative of the population
of homeschooled students. Additionally, since homeschooled

students have been found to perform better in high school
than traditional students (Ray, 2000, 2010; Rudner, 1999),
further matching based on measures of high school achieve-
ment such as high school GPA and scores on standardized
college admissions tests will be necessary to account for prior
differences in college preparedness when examining differ-
ences in academic outcomes during college. The main chal-
lenge with generating a matched sample is that it requires
drawing from a large pool of traditional students to be feasi-
ble, and the size of our sample provides such an opportunity.
Ultimately, analyses using matched samples will provide a
more meaningful analysis of the effects of homeschooling on
academic performance.
Method
Sample
Data for this study were provided by the College Board on
825,672 first-year students from 2009 to 2011 at 195 postsec-
ondary institutions across the United States, of which 732 stu-
dents at 140 of these postsecondary institutions were home-
schooled prior to admission (specifically, at the time they
took the SAT).
Measures
SAT scores. SAT scores consisted of scores on the three
sections of the SAT: Math, Critical Reading, and Writing.
These scores were averaged into a composite SAT score for
each student.
High school GPA. Two forms of high school GPA (HSGPA)
were provided in the data set. One was self-reported by the
student at the time of taking the SAT, and the other was
school-reported by a subset of the postsecondary institutions
based on their own calculations of each of their student’s

high school GPA. Self-reported GPA has been found to be
less accurate than GPA that is not self-reported, particularly
for students with low GPA (Kuncel, Credé, & Thomas, 2005).
Because of that, we conducted analyses using both forms
of HSGPA so that any results idiosyncratic to either self-
or school-reported high school GPA could be identified. Our
conclusions turned out the same no matter which form of GPA
was used in the analysis, so only the results from the analyses
32 C© 2016 by the National Council on Measurement in
Education Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice
using the school-reported HSGPA will be presented for the
sake of simplicity.
Socioeconomic status. At the time they took the SAT, stu-
dents reported their father’s education, mother’s education,
and parental income. The natural logarithm of parental in-
come was used in this study. A composite SES score was
calculated by equally weighting these three SES variables
using a method described by Sackett et al. (2009).
First-year college GPA. First-year college GPA (FGPA) was
provided by each postsecondary institution. To account for
differences in difficulty, grading policies, or grading scales
that may result in similar students obtaining different grades
at different colleges or universities, the first-year college GPA
of each student was adjusted based on the procedure used
by Cullen, Hardison, and Sackett (2004). This procedure ad-
justed the FGPA for each student based on the expected
difference in FGPA for students with similar SAT scores who
attend different postsecondary institutions.
Retention after first year. Each institution reported

whether each of their students was retained from first year to
second year.
Matching Procedure
From the overall sample of 824,940 traditional students, a
subset was matched to the homeschooled students on post-
secondary institution, gender, ethnicity, HSGPA, SAT, and
SES. For the purposes of the matching procedure only, HS-
GPA, SAT, and SES were standardized within institution so
that they would all be on the same scale with a mean of 0
and SD = 1. The matching procedure was carried out se-
quentially for each homeschooled student. First, the whole
sample of traditional students was subset into a smaller sam-
ple matched to the postsecondary institution, gender, and
ethnicity of the homeschooled student. Next, the absolute
differences in standardized HSGPA, SAT, and SES between
the homeschooled student and each traditional student in
this subset were then averaged to create a matching index.
For matching on HSGPA, the school-reported HSGPA was
used if available, and the self-reported HSGPA was used only
if the school-reported HSGPA was missing. Any variable with
data missing for the homeschooled student was excluded from
consideration in the matching process. The traditional stu-
dent with the closest match to the homeschooled student
(i.e., smallest matching index score) was selected into the
matched sample of traditional students. To prevent the same
student from being selected more than once, the selected stu-
dent was then removed from consideration in matching with
subsequent homeschooled students. This process was then
repeated for each homeschooled student.
This matching process was able to closely match each
homeschooled student with a traditional student, produc-
ing nearly identical matches on the six matching variables.
The distribution of matching index scores in the sample of

matched students clustered towards zero (Figure 1) had a
median of .03, a mean of .07, and SD = .13.
The homeschooled sample consisted of 732 students from
140 postsecondary institutions, was 48.2% male, and had an
ethnic composition of 79.0% White, 4.2% Hispanic, 2.9%
Black,
2.7% Asian, 0.3% American Indian, and 2.9% other ethnicity
(percentages for ethnicity do not sum to 100% due to non-
response). The full sample of traditional students consisted
of 824,940 students from 195 postsecondary institutions, was
46.1% male, and had an ethnic composition of 52.0% White,
7.7% Hispanic, 6.7% Black, 8.4% Asian, 0.4% American Indian,
and 2.0% other ethnicity. The matched sample of traditional
students consisted of 732 students from the same 140 postsec-
ondary institutions as the homeschooled students, was 48.2%
male, and had an ethnic composition of 83.7% White, 4.5%
Hispanic, 3.1% Black, 3.1% Asian, 0.3% American Indian, and
3.0% other ethnicity.
Analyses
Missing data for the sample of homeschooled students and the
matched sample of traditional students were imputed by mul-
tiple imputation using predictive mean matching (Schenker
& Taylor, 1996). This was done separately for the sample
of homeschooled students and the matched sample of tradi-
tional students. Missing data were not imputed for the full
sample of traditional students due to the size of this sample
and because our focal analyses involved the homeschooled
and matched sample.
Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations for all
study variables were computed separately for homeschooled
students and the full and matched samples of traditional

students.
Using the matched samples, moderated multiple regression
analysis was carried out to determine whether the predictive
validities of HSGPA and SAT for postsecondary outcomes of
FGPA and retention after first-year (RET) were moderated by
whether a student was homeschooled or not. Linear regres-
sion was used to fit models where FGPA was the criterion,
whereas logistic regression was used to fit models where RET
was the criterion (RET was dummy coded as 1 = retained to
second year, and 0 = not retained to second year). Models
were fit using hierarchical regression analyses, with separate
analyses conducted for each criterion variable (FGPA and
RET) and each predictor variable (HSGPA and SAT). To do
so, FGPA was first regressed onto HSGPA as the focal predic-
tor in the initial step. Homeschooling and its interaction with
HSGPA were then entered in the second step, followed by SAT
entered as a control variable in the third step, and finally SES
was entered as a control variable in the fourth step. A similar
analysis was carried out using SAT as the focal predictor and
HSGPA as a control variable. This was then repeated using
RET as the criterion instead of FGPA.
Results
Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations for all study
variables are shown in Tables 1–3 for homeschooled students
and the full and matched samples of traditional students,
respectively. Compared to the full sample of traditional stu-
dents, homeschooled students on average had higher HSGPA,
SAT, FGPA, and SES, but there was not any difference in re-
tention. On the other hand, when compared to the matched
sample of traditional students, homeschooled students ap-
peared to show no differences in FGPA and RET. There
were also no differences in HSGPA, SAT, and SES in the
matched samples comparison, reflecting the fact that close
matches were obtained on these variables that were used for

matching.
Winter 2016 C© 2016 by the National Council on Measurement
in Education 33
FIGURE 1. Histogram of matching index scores from the
matched sample of traditional students.
Comparing the homeschooled students to both the full and
matched samples of traditional students, the correlations be-
tween HSGPA and the two postsecondary outcomes of FGPA
and RET were substantially higher for traditional students,
whereas there did not appear to be any substantial differ-
ences in the correlations between SAT and FGPA or RET. For
homeschooled students, SAT had a stronger correlation with
FGPA and RET than did HSGPA. SES was more strongly cor-
related with SAT for traditional students in the full sample,
and this may be explained as being due to a restriction in the
range of SES in the sample of homeschooled students and the
matched sample of traditional students.
Table 1. Means and Intercorrelations for the
Sample of Homeschooled Students
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5
1. HSGPA 3.80 .25
2. SAT 603.54 83.52 .47
3. FGPA 1.07 .93 .21 .39
4. RET .88 .32 .04 .13 .24
5. SES .32 .67 .09 .21 .20 .11
Note. n = 732; HSGPA = high school GPA; SAT = SAT
composite

score; FGPA = first-year college GPA; RET = college retention
after
first year; SES = socioeconomic status. SAT is the average of
scores on
the three SAT sections. FGPA and SES are computed from
rescaled
variables, so their values are not directly interpretable. RET is
coded as
retained = 1, not retained = 0.
Regression analyses predicting FGPA are shown in Table 4.
The step 1 models for either HSGPA or SAT as focal predictors
show that both HSGPA and SAT independently predicted
FGPA. In the step 2 models, the interaction of homeschooling
with HSGPA or SAT were both significant, but the results
started to diverge on subsequent steps. After controlling for
SAT, and then for SES, the interaction of homeschooling
with HSGPA was still significant. On the other hand, after
controlling for HSGPA, the interaction of homeschooling with
SAT was no longer significant, and this held after SES was
controlled for as well. Comparing the regression lines between
homeschooled and traditional students, Figure 2 illustrates
Table 3. Means and Intercorrelations for the
Matched Sample of Traditional Students
1. HSGPA 3.77 .31
2. SAT 599.06 81.52 .51
3. FGPA .99 .93 .51 .49
4. RET .89 .31 .20 .19 .32
5. SES .33 .69 .10 .30 .14 .13
Note. n = 732; HSGPA = high school GPA; SAT = SAT
composite

after
first year; SES = socioeconomic status. SAT is the average of
scores on
the three SAT sections. FGPA and SES are computed from
rescaled
variables, so their values are not directly interpretable. RET is
coded as
retained = 1, not retained = 0.
Table 2. Means and Intercorrelations for the Full Sample of
Traditional Students
1. HSGPA 3.46 .48 439,163 354,727 431,887 439,160 338,726
2. SAT 557.81 87.87 .50 643,817 633,948 643,815 609,149
3. FGPA .64 1.04 .49 .43 811,076 811,071 607,265
4. RET .85 .35 .22 .18 .34 824,935 616,622
5. SES .02 .96 .15 .41 .22 .11 616,624
Note. Numbers on the diagonal indicate the sample size for each
variable, and numbers above the diagonal indicate the sample
size for each
correlation. HSGPA = high school GPA; SAT = SAT composite
after first year; SES =
socioeconomic status. SAT is the average of scores on the three
SAT sections. FGPA and SES are computed from rescaled
variables, so their values
are not directly interpretable. RET is coded as retained = 1, not
retained = 0.

FIGURE 2. Relationship between high school GPA and first-
year college GPA by homeschooling status (homeschooled = 1,
traditional = 0).
The solid line represents traditional students and the dashed line
represents homeschooled students.
the large slope difference when HSGPA was the predictor,
and Figure 3 illustrates the negligible slope difference when
SAT was the predictor.
Regression analyses predicting RET are shown in Table 5.
Similar to what was found for FGPA, the step 1 models for
either HSGPA or SAT as focal predictors show that both HS-
GPA and SAT independently predicted RET. The step 2 models
show that the interaction of homeschooling with HSGPA was
significant, but its interaction with SAT was not. This result
held for subsequent steps controlling for SAT or HSGPA, and
FIGURE 3. Relationship between SAT composite score and
first-year college GPA by homeschooling status (homeschooled
= 1,
traditional = 0), controlling for high school GPA and SES. The
solid line represents traditional students and the dashed line
represents
in Education 35
Table 4. Hierarchical Regressions With HSGPA
and SAT as Focal Predictors of First-Year

College GPA, Moderated by Homeschooling
Focal
Predictor Model Predictor �
Std.
Error R2
HSGPA 1 HSGPA 1.219** .080 .137
2 HSGPA 1.531** .103 .151
Home 2.991** .616
Home ×
HSGPA
−.778** .162
3 HSGPA .996** .105 .243
Home 3.292** .582
SAT .004** .000
Home ×
HSGPA
−.858** .153
4 HSGPA 1.004** .105 .247
Home 3.283** .581
SAT .003** .000
SES .087** .032
Home ×
HSGPA
−.855** .153
SAT 1 SAT .005** .000 .196
2 SAT .006** .000 .200

Home .782* .321
Home ×
SAT
−.001* .001
3 SAT .004** .000 .229
Home .580 .316
HSGPA .645** .087
Home ×
SAT
−.001 .001
4 SAT .004** .000 .232
Home .532 .316
HSGPA .654** .087
SES .085** .032
Home ×
SAT
−.001 .001
Note. *p < .05, **p < .001. Home = homeschooled; HSGPA =
high
school GPA; SAT = SAT composite score; SES =
socioeconomic status.
Home is coded as homeschooled = 1, traditional = 0.
then controlling for SES. Figure 4 illustrates the large slope
difference when HSGPA was the predictor, and Figure 5 il-
lustrates the negligible slope difference when SAT was the
predictor.
Discussion

Previous large-scale studies have found that, on average,
homeschooled students are superior to traditional students
on academic outcomes, and also differ on other character-
istics such as parental education and income (Ray, 2000,
2010; Rudner, 1999). In our comparison of students enrolled
in college, we also found that when compared to the over-
all sample of traditional students, homeschooled students
came from families with higher SES, had obtained better
test scores, and earned better grades in high school and col-
lege. However, direct comparisons between homeschooled
students and traditional students in general may not be ap-
propriate given that the characteristics of homeschooled stu-
dents may not be proportionately represented in the gen-
eral student population. Indeed, when we compared our
sample of homeschooled students who were enrolled in col-
lege to a more representative group of traditional students
matched on postsecondary institution, gender, race, academic
Table 5. Hierarchical Regressions With HSGPA
and SAT as Focal Predictors of College
Retention After First Year, Moderated
by Homeschooling
Focal
Predictor Model Predictor �
Std.
Error
HSGPA 1 HSGPA 1.143** .249
2 HSGPA 1.161** .323
Home 3.991* 1.977
Home ×
HSGPA

−1.124** .528
3 HSGPA 1.053** .351
Home 4.891* 2.097
SAT .005** .001
Home ×
HSGPA
−1.366* .561
4 HSGPA 1.087** .354
Home 4.859* 2.096
SAT .045** .001
SES .370** .118
Home ×
HSGPA
−1.358** .560
SAT 1 SAT .006** .001
2 SAT .008** .002
Home 1.578 1.189
Home ×
SAT
−.003 .002
3 SAT .007** .002
Home 1.402 1.192
HSGPA .527 .297
Home ×
SAT
−.003 .002

4 SAT .006** .002
Home 1.250 1.200
HSGPA .557** .299
SES .364** .118
Home ×
SAT
−.003 .002
Note. *p < .05, **p < .001. Home = homeschooled; HSGPA =
high
school GPA; SAT = SAT composite score; SES =
socioeconomic status.
HS is coded as homeschooled = 1, traditional = 0.
preparedness, and socioeconomic status, performance differ-
ences between homeschooled and traditional students effec-
tively disappeared. Therefore, while homeschooled students
can be as successful as traditional students in college or uni-
versity, simply having been homeschooled does not appear to
be an advantage or disadvantage among students enrolled in
college.
The lack of a difference in first-year retention (RET) in-
dicates that homeschooled and traditional students advance
from the first to second years of college at the same rate,
which is consistent with the findings of previous studies (Co-
gan, 2010; Jones & Gloeckner, 2004a). Also, regardless of
homeschooling, both SAT and SES were correlated with RET,
a result that has been observed in overall student samples
(Mattern & Patterson, 2009). Advancement from year to year
typically requires passing courses to obtain some minimum
number of credits, and students with higher ability are more
likely to do well in their coursework. If the cost of education
is a factor, students higher in SES would be more likely to
proceed through college.

Interestingly, the correlations between HSGPA and both
FGPA and RET for homeschooled students are weaker than
those for both the full and matched samples of traditional
FIGURE 4. Probability of being retained after first year of
college depending on high school GPA by homeschooling status
(homeschooled = 1, traditional = 0). The solid line represents
traditional students and the dashed line represents
homeschooled stu-
dents.
students. The same issue was not present for SAT predicting
FGPA or RET because the relationships are similar for all
three groups. From Figure 2, it is clear that HSGPA performs
much worse as a predictor of FGPA for homeschooled students
than for traditional students, and from Figure 3 SAT can be
seen to predict FGPA similarly for both homeschooled and
traditional students. As depicted in Figures 4 and 5, a similar
pattern of results can be observed when predicting RET as
well. Therefore, in contrast to the high school grades of tradi-
tionally educated students, the high school grades of college
students who were homeschooled do not appear to be as use-
ful for predicting their college grades or their probability of
being retained from first to second year of college.
As it stands, the only differences observed in this study
between homeschooled and traditional students who were
enrolled in college is the differential prediction of first-year
college GPA and retention by high school GPA. In sum, while
the SAT composite score predicts FGPA and RET equally well

for both groups, HSGPA is a drastically worse predictor of
FGPA and RET for the homeschooled group. Furthermore,
when homeschooling is accounted for, if SAT is used to pre-
dict FGPA, adding HSGPA provides a smaller incremental
prediction (�R2 = .03) when compared to adding SAT to HS-
GPA (�R2 = .09). In other words, the SAT is a substantially
more useful predictor of college success for homeschooled
students than is HSGPA.
At this point, we can only speculate as to why high school
GPA is a worse predictor for homeschooled students. The most
apparent explanation is that the SAT is a standardized test
whereas high school GPA is not, leading to the possibility that
the reliability of high school GPA for homeschooled students
may be lower than that for traditional students. Because states
widely vary in their regulation of homeschooling (Ruger &
Sorens, 2013), whether HSGPA is a useful predictor or not
may depend on how strictly homeschooling is regulated and
how carefully grades are assigned. Unfortunately, we could
not account for between-state differences in our analyses
as there were no indications of where each homeschooled
student was homeschooled in the data set used for this study.
Other possible reasons include different norms for grading
homeschooled students, a difference when teachers have to
grade just one or a few students in a homeschool setting
versus an entire class of students in a traditional setting,
or the postsecondary institution having a different policy for
obtaining or calculating the admission GPA of homeschooled
students. Further research will be needed to pinpoint exactly
how the properties of HSGPA differ between these two types
of students.
Regardless of why HSGPA is an inferior predictor of FGPA
for homeschooled students compared to traditional students,
the predictive bias due to homeschooling was found in the

analyses using the matched samples that attempted to iso-
late as much as possible the effects of homeschooling from
other variables that may explain college performance, so it is
likely to be a real effect with practical implications for college
admissions. Whereas the SAT is an equally effective predic-
tor for both homeschooled and traditional students, HSGPA
appears to do a poorer job of differentiating between which
homeschooled students are more likely to perform well in
their first year of college than it does for traditional students,
so it would follow that the use of HSGPA for college admis-
sions should be considered differently depending on whether
the applicant was homeschooled or not. For example, when
evaluating homeschooled students, more emphasis could be
in Education 37
FIGURE 5. Probability of being retained after first year of
college depending on SAT composite score by homeschooling
status (home-
schooled = 1, traditional = 0). The solid line represents
traditional students and the dashed line represents
placed on SAT scores over HSGPA. Obviously, the reality of
actually doing so would be dependent on the admissions poli-
cies of each institution. Some institutions may be or may have
been using such an admissions policy: in a survey of 55 admis-
sions officers at U.S. colleges, Jones and Gloeckner (2004b)
found that 74.5% of them had an official homeschool admis-
sions policy and a high importance was placed on SAT or
ACT scores for homeschooled students. That said, if policies
are altered to account for differential prediction for home-
schooled students, care should be taken so that they are not

inadvertently put at a disadvantage in the admissions process.
The strength of this study lies in the analyses using a sam-
ple of traditional students matched to the characteristics of
the homeschooled group, and the large pool of traditional
students that allowed close matches to be found for each
homeschooled student. This provided findings that were more
meaningfully interpretable in contrast to the analyses with
the overall group of traditional students. However, due to the
fact that all of the students in our sample have attended a
college or university, the generalizability of our findings may
be limited to the population of students who at least meet the
requirements that deem them acceptable to attend such insti-
tutions. Therefore, despite the conclusion that homeschooled
students who attend college can be as successful as their tra-
ditionally educated counterparts, we currently cannot make
any conclusions about the performance of homeschooled stu-
dents relative to traditional students for those students who
do not meet admissions requirements or who choose not to at-
tend a college or university. Further research will be needed to
address these other areas of comparison, and we suggest that
future research comparing homeschooled students to tradi-
tional students should use a sample of traditional students
matched to as many characteristics of the homeschooled
students as possible. As demonstrated in this study, differ-
ing conclusions can be obtained depending on whether the
homeschooled students are compared to a matched sample
of traditional students or some overall sample of traditional
students. Given that the characteristics of homeschooled stu-
dents are not proportional to those of traditional students, we
believe that more realistic conclusions can be obtained from
matched sample comparisons.
In summary, the results of this study provide positive
support that college students who were homeschooled can

perform as well as those who received a traditional educa-
tion. However, while SAT scores predict college performance
equally well for both homeschooled and traditional students,
the high school GPA of homeschooled students should be
carefully considered because it may not be as predictive of
their performance in college compared to the high school GPA
of traditional students. Ultimately, this suggests that the high
school GPA of homeschooled students should always be con-
sidered in conjunction with standardized measures such as
the SAT, and supports some implementation of different ad-
missions policies for homeschooled and traditional students.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by a grant from the College
Board to Paul R. Sackett and Nathan R. Kuncel. Paul R.
Sackett serves as a consultant to the College Board. This
relationship has been reviewed and managed by the Univer-
sity of Minnesota in accordance with its conflict of inter-
est policies. This research is derived from data provided by
the College Board. Copyright 2009–2011 The College Board.
www.collegeboard.com
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Ray, B. D. (2010). Academic achievement and demographic
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in Education 39
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ISSN 0898-2562
(See Survey, page 6)
Inside This Issue
(See Home schooling, page 4)
Vol. 18, No. 2 February 2002
FREE Client Handout: The Brain’s Response to Steroids
3

8 Commentary:
The prevention
of unintentional
injuries in childhood
Gregory K. Fritz, M.D.
Childhood eating
problems may predict
adult disorders
National Drug Use Statistics
Adverse events
in childhood strongly
linked with suicide
5
Teens surf net
for health info
2
Vegetarians may
be at risk for eating
disorders, suicide
6
‘Overall, drug use among America’s
teenagers has remained level or
declined ... but we must remain
vigilant to the threats that heroin,
ecstasy, marijuana, alcohol and

other dangerous drugs pose to our
youth.’
The home schooling debate: Why
some parents choose it, others oppose it
By Randal Rockney, M.D.
“My grandmother wanted me to have an education
so she kept me out of school.”
— Margaret Mead
I grew up in Los Angeles in the
1960s. I attended Los Angeles public
schools from kindergarten through 12th
grade and eventually attended profes-
sional school at a public university, the
University of California at Irvine
School of Medicine. When my wife
told me she wanted to home school
our children I resisted. Public school
had been, for me, a mostly positive
experience with good teachers in safe
and stimulating environments. I also
developed a lot of lifelong friendships
with my public school classmates.
It never occurred to me not to
enroll my children in public schools.
Why, I would ask my wife, not put our
children in the public schools? Why do
any parents choose home schooling
over public education?
Home schooling is an increasingly
popular way to educate children in

this country. On any given day, be-
tween 1 and 4 percent of school-aged
children are home schooled. Popular
Monitoring the Future survey reveals some positive trends
for youth substance use
The most comprehensive survey
for measuring youth drug use in
America has found that use of most
illicit drugs remains stable, while use
of cigarettes continues to decline.
The annual Monitoring the
Future (MTF) survey was re-
leased recently by the U.S. De-
partment of Health and Human
Services (HHS). The survey
found decreases in cigarette and
heroin use, and most other sub-
stance use remained stable. The
survey also found that the use of
ecstasy (MDMA) was increasing at a
slower rate, while inhalant use has
gradually declined, with a significant
drop among 12th graders.
However, there also were some
troubling findings concerning the per-
ceived risk of smoking marijuana —
down more than 2 percent — and
disapproval ratings of heroin and ste-
roids. Use of steroids increased by
almost 1 percent and at the same time,

disapproval of steroid use decreased
among seniors.
Since 1975, the MTF has annually
studied the extent of drug use among
high school students. The 2001 study
surveyed about 44,000 students in 424
schools across the country in three
grades: 8th, 10th and 12th. The goal is
to collect data on past month, past
year and lifetime drug use among
students in these grade levels. The
survey is conducted by the
University of Michigan’s Insti-
tute for Social Research and is
funded by the National Institute
on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
Highlights of the survey
The reductions in teenage
smoking come on the heels of
increases from the early to mid-1990s
and are excellent news in the nation’s
battle to reduce the toll exacted by this
leading cause of preventable death
and disease.
The Brown University Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter
4

Home schooling
from page 1
approval, too, has increased: from 16
percent in a 1985 Gallup poll to 36
percent in 1998. The average home
schooling family is larger, more reli-
gious and politically conservative than
average. Parents who home school
tend to have more education and
higher incomes than parents who en-
roll their children in the public schools.
Home schooling is legal in all 50 states,
though states vary in terms of the
specific regulations affecting families
that home school.
Comparing performance
Numerous studies have docu-
mented that home schooled children
perform as well or better on standard
measures of academic achievement
than do their peers attending public
school. In Alaska, where for practical
reasons home schooling is supported
by the state, data indicate that the
longer a child is in a home-based
program, the more likely he or she is to
perform better than those in the pro-
gram for a shorter period of time.
Historically, compulsory public
education is the more recent innova-
tion. Through the end of the 19th cen-
tury, a substantial percentage of chil-

dren received their education at home
from parents, tutors or teachers of
specific skills. Compulsory formal
public education in the United States
originated in the early 20th century to
meet the basic educational require-
ments demanded by society, help re-
cent immigrants to acculturate, and
promote certain public values while
discouraging perceived ills, however
defined by the community at the time.
In the 1960s and 1970s, though, some
parents became concerned that com-
pulsory attendance had replaced com-
pulsory education.
Who chooses homeschooling?
The majority of parents who choose
to home school their children do so
because of religious reasons. These
parents want their children to learn
fundamentalist religious doctrine first
and foremost. Their religious doctrine
is often cited in support of a conserva-
tive political and social viewpoint that
emphasizes the family as the center
of society. These parents are often
unhappy with the contemporary so-
cial order and seek to shield their
children from influences they deem
destructive, whether exposure to these
influences comes from teachers, other
students or popular media.

Ironically, these parents are more
likely to structure their children’s learn-
ing in a fashion that closely mimics
traditional schools. In fact, they will
often go so far as to create a class-
room atmosphere in the home. They
purchase curricular materials that mir-
ror their own beliefs and monitor and
assist their children to attain the goals
defined by the suppliers of the cur-
riculum. These parents are less inter-
ested in a divergent process of educa-
tion than they are with teaching their
children specific knowledge and val-
ues, though these parents do tend to
become less reliant on outside cur-
ricula as they gain experience as home
educators.
Other parents choose to home
school their children because of dis-
satisfaction with the way children are
taught in school rather than the con-
tent of the in-school education. These
parents object to the tendency for
schools to ignore the diversity of learn-
ing styles of children. They value spon-
taneity, creativity and adaptability more
than adherence to a fixed timeline for
educational achievement. These par-
ents, too, are concerned that schools too
readily sort and label children according
to limited measures of ability.
Parents who home school for peda-
gogical rather than ideological rea-

sons are more likely to experiment
with alternative techniques or materi-
als when they educate their children.
Rather than instilling a fixed body of
knowledge and attitudes, they are more
concerned with teaching critical think-
ing skills.
Another, albeit much smaller group
of home schooling parents combine
features of both groups though they
most closely resemble the parents who
home school for pedagogical reasons.
These are the pagan or counterculture
parents, who are sometimes given the
label New Age. Christian Fundamen-
talist families choose home schooling
to avoid exposure to ideas and values
they don’t support.
Other families may hesitate to en-
roll their children in public schools in
communities where “Christian Val-
ues” are prominent and with policies,
such as support for the teaching of
Creationism, they find inimical to their
sense of reality. The New Age group
seeks to instill, first and foremost, a
respect for nature and the earth. Like
the parents who home school for peda-
gogical reasons, they are also very
concerned that their children learn to
think independently.
What do the critics say?

There are many critics of home
schooling. Surveys of school superin-
tendents and others associated with
organized schooling indicate a lack of
support for what is often perceived as
a subversive activity. This should come
as no surprise, as withdrawing chil-
dren from school or not enrolling chil-
dren in school is the most dramatic
assertion of discontent with public
education that a parent can make. It
also removes the children from the
educational and behavioral monitoring
that is an important function of public
schooling.
Some social critics view home
schooling, at least in some instances,
as fanaticism that should not be toler-
ated in the interests of a democratic
state.
The argument is well expressed by
one such critic, David Blacker, in an
article from the American Journal of
Education:
“… a democratic society, in order
to remain and reproduce itself as such,
has a compelling interest in securing at
least a minimal set of civic virtues in its
citizens. Foremost among these, par-
ticularly under conditions of pluralism
such as those that obtain in the con-
temporary United States, is a minimal

February 2002
5
Childhood eating problems
may predict adult disorders
A study of more than 800 children
over a 17-year period was conducted
to examine the longitudinal course of
eating problems in childhood, adoles-
cence and adulthood. The investiga-
tors used structured psychiatric inter-
views of children and their mothers
from 1975, 1983, 1985 and 1992 to
answer two questions: 1) “How stable
are eating disorder symptoms and di-
agnoses over a 17-year interval from
childhood to adolescence to adult-
hood?” and 2) “Do early childhood
eating problems or early or late ado-
What’s New in Research
level of tolerance for worldviews and
cultural practices different from one’s
own. Tolerance, in turn, presupposes
an ability to grasp that there may be
(and in fact is) a heterogeneity of
reasonable value commitments held
by one’s fellow citizens …” [Blacker
D: Fanaticism and Schooling in the
Democratic State. American Jour-

nal of Education 1998; 106:241-272]
Public education, that author as-
serts, is an important counter-force to
fanaticism which he defines as a set of
beliefs or an outlook which is compre-
hensive and single-minded to the ex-
tent that it informs or directs every
sphere of activity within a family or a
group. Adults should be free to order
their lives according to such a com-
prehensive and single-minded
worldview as long as it does not harm
others and is in compliance with
society’s laws, but imposition of such
a worldview on children is inimical to
our society’s most basic values.
Pediatricians, too, are not in gen-
eral supportive of home schooling.
The only citation for home schooling in
the medical literature (Klugewicz SL,
Carraccio CL: Home Schooled Chil-
dren: A Pediatric Perspective. Clini-
cal Pediatrics 1999; 38:407-411) pre-
sents a survey of pediatricians in two
states (Wisconsin and Maryland) re-
garding knowledge and attitudes about
home schooling. Only 18 percent sup-
ported home schooling.
Despite evidence in the educa-
tional literature that home schooled
children do at least as well or better on
standardized achievement tests than
children educated in school, pediatri-

cians express concern about the edu-
cational achievement and maturity of
home schooled children.
Also of concern to pediatricians is
the important public health role that
schools perform, including scoliosis
screening, sports physicals, tuberculo-
sis screening, sex education and provi-
sion of information regarding birth
control and prevention of sexually trans-
mitted diseases. Schools also provide an
opportunity for the community to dis-
cover evidence of abuse, neglect and
other issues that pertain to the physical
and mental health of children. The au-
thors of that study wisely alert pediatri-
cians to the necessity to provide these
services to home schooled children.
Making time for socialization
The most common concern I hear
when I mention that my children are
home schooled is that home schooled
children miss opportunities for social-
ization that presence in a conventional
school would provide. This is the rea-
son pediatricians express concern that
home schooled children might be less
mature than their peers. Based on my
family’s experience with home school-
ing, this is one concern I do not share
with the pediatricians surveyed in the
previously mentioned study.

My children and most home
schooled children spend a lot of time
with other home schooled children in
shared educational activities like field
trips, group lessons, shared curricula
or special projects. In one study, 90
percent of home schooled children
spent more than 20 hours per month in
organized community activities. One
very attractive aspect of home school-
ing is that children tend to be less
segregated by age when involved in
home schooling activities as compared
to what occurs in conventional schools.
Socialization with other children and
with children of varying ages is a near
certainty within a home schooling com-
munity because the home schooled
families tend to be larger.
Home schooled children often en-
roll part-time in conventional schools
especially in the later grade levels
when subjects, for example chemis-
try, require expertise or equipment
that is difficult to reproduce at home.
Also, especially in adolescence, home
schooled children eagerly take advan-
tage of sports or arts programs of-
fered by the public schools. Home
schooled children generally assimilate
well into conventional school and have
had good success in the most competi-
tive colleges and universities.
Dr. Rockney is an associate professor in the

Department of Pediatrics at Brown Univer-
sity in Rhode Island.
lescent eating disorders predict eating
disorders in adulthood?”
The study found that having bu-
limia nervosa in early adolescence
was correlated with a nine-fold in-
crease in risk for having the disorder in
late adolescence and with a 20-fold
increase for having the disorder as an
adult. Bulimia nervosa in late adoles-
cence was associated with a 35-fold
increase in risk for having the disorder
as an adult.
Additionally, anorexia nervosa in
adolescence was associated with hav-
ing the disorder in adulthood. Gender,
as well as eating symptoms in adoles-
cence, was predictive of eating disor-
der symptoms in young adults for both
bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa.
Eating conflicts, struggles with food
and unpleasant meals in childhood were
all found to be risk factors for the
development of eating disorders. The
authors state, however, that while
eating problems in adolescence were
found to be associated with the devel-
opment of eating disorders in young
adulthood, most adolescents with
symptoms will not have an eating dis-
order as adults.

“The relatively high stability of
eating disorder symptoms from ado-
The Social and Educational Outcomes of Homeschooling
Joseph Murphy
Frank W. Mayborn Chair, Vanderbilt University, Nashville,
Tennessee, USA
In this article, we provide a comprehensive review and analysis
of the outcomes of homeschooling in
America. We ground the work in an examination of the
importance of homeschooling in society in
general and education in particular. We provide an analysis of
the strengths and weaknesses of the
existing research base on homeschooling. With an eye on
methodological weaknesses in the home-
school research, we compile data on what is known about the
outcomes of this social movement
and educational reform. We document the impact of
homeschooling on the social fabric of the nation
(e.g., families) and the institution of schooling (e.g., student
learning outcomes).

In this article, we provide a comprehensive analysis of what is
known about the impact of home-
schooling. We begin with a note to explain why the analysis of
the impact of this social and
educational reform movement merits our attention. The first
part of the article provides a portrait
of the quality of the existing research base. The final sections of
the article distill what is known
about the impact of homeschooling across an array of outcomes:
the social fabric of the nation,
schools, costs, families, and children. On the last topic, we
explore what is known (and how well
it is known) regarding academic achievement, social
development, and success after completing
homeschooling.
On the one hand, homeschooling merits attention for what it
conveys about the social fabric of
the nation. The study of homeschooling provides important
insights on the conservative mosaic
that has been formed in the United States over the last 30 years.
Such analysis reveals a good deal
about the tensions between individualism and community, as
well as new ways to think about

these social constructs. The study of homeschooling allows us
to peer more thoroughly into
the place of religion in the United States at the turn of the
twenty-first century. Even more impor-
tant, an examination of homeschooling provides significant
insights into the nature of American
families. Perhaps most centrally, the possibilities of movements
that attempt to reverse the seg-
mentation of life in America are surfaced. We learn that
homeschooling is both an animating force
for and an exemplar of efforts to provide an integrated frame for
life in the postmodern world
(Collom and Mitchell 2005; Gaither 2008; Stephens 2001).
As with most social movements of significance, analysis of
homeschooling reveals much
about the battle for the moral high ground in the country. As we
attend to the history and devel-
opment of homeschooling itself, we learn as much about the ebb
and flow of waves of influence
and the shifting pendulum in the area of social ideas and tastes
in general (Murphy 2013). In a
Address correspondence to Joseph Murphy, Vanderbilt
University, 210B Payne Hall, Box 414, 230 Appleton Place,
Nashville, TN 37023-5721. E-mail: [email protected]

Sociological Spectrum, 34: 244–272, 2014
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0273-2173 print/1521-0707 online
DOI: 10.1080/02732173.2014.895640
similar vein, homeschooling reveals how history is both a
product of as well as a platform for
powerful figures to push and pull ideas onto society’s central
stage (Gaither 2008). Considerable
insights about the legal workings of the nation are also exposed.
Dynamics about social organiz-
ing become visible, especially in getting society to embrace
ideas that once seemed anathema.
By studying homeschooling, we accumulate a good deal of
knowledge about the evolving role
of government in the affairs of its owners. We track an
evolution from government as the
unquestioned mechanism to produce a better society to
government as a self-forged and confin-
ing manacle that also has the potential to hinder improvement.
In short, a study of homeschool-
ing exposes dynamics that transcend the content of the topic at
hand (Cibulka 1991; Gaither

2008; Van Galen 1991).
At the same time, homeschooling merits examination for what it
reveals about education and
schooling in America (Ray 2000a). Ongoing and dilemma-based
questions about governance
and control play out across its pages in new ways. Much can be
learned here about possible
forms of schooling in the twenty-first century, new conceptions
and models that were unimagin-
able to the previous generation. Issues of funding and costs lurk
in the background of home-
schooling, but nonetheless offer important insights into
financing the nation’s most costly and
critical state and local service—and other services as well (Ray
and Weller 2003). Labor issues
are prevalent in the homeschooling literature but usually cast
obliquely. Even so, it is difficult to
overlook the implications for the traditional and deeply rooted
notions of civil service in the
nation, especially in light of the prevalence of parallel trends in
education (e.g., vouchers, tax
credits, privately managed charter schools) and the larger
society. A careful study of home-
schooling produces considerable wisdom on the role of markets

and profits in the education
sector (Murphy 1996, 1999). Much can also be gleaned about
the linkages between schooling
and social justice by examining homeschooling (Apple 2005;
Lubiensky 2000).
We also need to study homeschooling because it is the most
robust form of educational
reform in the United States today. The growth of homeschooling
in the U.S. has been nothing
short of remarkable, even using the most conservative estimates
available. Only 10,000 to
15,000 children were being homeschooled in the 1970s. By
2010, somewhere in the neighbor-
hood of 2 million students were part of this group. Scholars
confirm that homeschool enrollment
is now about one-fifth the size of private school enrollment
(Belfield 2004b; Isenberg 2007). We
find that almost twice as many youngsters are schooled at home
as are educated in conservative
Christian schools (Glanzer 2008). And more children are taught
at home (2,000,000) than attend
charter schools (1,500,000) and receive vouchers combined
(Apple 2007; Belfield 2004b).
When life cycle numbers are compiled, we discover that 6 to 12

percent of all students will have
been educated at home at some time in their K-12 educational
career (Houston 1999; Isenberg
2007).
THE QUALITY OF THE RESEARCH BASE
One of the most stark conclusions one draws when interrogating
the scholarly literature on the
impacts of homeschooling is just how thin the empirical
knowledge base is on this social phenom-
enon and educational movement. To be sure, the literature
exposes a good deal of ideological
bantering as well as some solid conceptual modeling.
Homeschoolers have provided a trace of
good reports on how to engage the work of educating a child at
home, and fine collections of
OUTCOMES OF HOMESCHOOLING 245
resources to assist in those efforts. But the research cupboard is
not well stocked, especially in the
domain of outcomes. This assessment first surfaced as the
homeschool movement reached early
adolescency. It was revealed that the entire domain was largely
uncharted in a scientific sense (see

Delahooke 1986; Gladin 1987; Groover and Endsley 1988;
Knowles 1989; Mayberry 1989;
Schemmer 1985; Taylor 1986a; Williams et al. 1984; Wartes
1987; Wright 1988). More troub-
ling, this same conclusion was consistently reached by scholars,
analysts, and policy makers
throughout the 1990s as well (see Dalaimo 1996; Duvall et al.
1997; Hertzel 1997; Houston
1999; Kelley 1991; Knowles et al. 1992; Luebke 1999;
Mirochnik and McIntire 1991; Rudner
1999; Van Galen 1991). Even more disheartening, the next
generation of reviewers has uncovered
little evidence that the limited empirical evidence deficiency
was addressed with much sense of
robustness during the first decade of the twenty-first century
(see Cogan 2010; Green and Hoover-
Dempsey 2007; Ice and Hoover-Dempsey 2011; Isenberg 2007;
Kunzman 2005, 2009a; Muntes
2006; Nemer 2002; Taylor-Hough 2010).
An Assessment of Research Evidence
As Medlin (2000:118) informs us, the summative narrative of
research in homeschooling
parallels the chronicle found in many new domains of study:

no guiding theory, inadequate experimental design, poorly
defined research questions, untried and
weak measures, unorthodox treatment and presentation of data,
and conclusions based on subjective
judgments. Even a cursory look at the research reveals that
many studies are qualitative descriptions of
so few participants that the results cannot be generalized. Many
are surveys that rely exclusively on
parental reports but offer no idea of how reliable those reports
may be. Many test only home-schooled
children without comparing them to children attending
conventional schools, making it very difficult
to know what the results might mean. Further, all home school
research is correlational (because
researchers have no way to control the type of schooling
children experience), samples are usually
self-selected (because researchers cannot require home
schooling families to participate), and how-
ever carefully researchers try to match their home-schooled and
traditionally schooled groups, there
are probably still important differences between the two.
Reinforcing many of the points and adding some additional
insights, Belfield (2004a:10)

exposes two major problems that plague research that compares
the impact of homeschooling
against other types of schooling, especially public schooling.
The first is the common concern over the endogeneity of school
choice, that is different types of
families choose the type of school that their children attend, and
little can be inferred about the impacts
of schools for students who do not attend them. The second is
the need to distinguish the absolute
performance of home-schoolers from the treatment effect of
home-schooling. Given the above median
resources of many home-schooling families, academic
performance should be even if home-schooling
itself is not differentially effective. Full controls for family
background are needed, however, to
identify a treatment effect.
Blok (2004) also reminds us that the body of empirical work on
the impacts of homeschooling is
rather thin. Analysts also have pointed out that most of the
research that has been undertaken has
been conducted by investigators with a good deal of interest in
shaping results into positive stor-
ies, i.e., by advocacy groups whose defined mission is to
promote the cause of homeschooling

246 J. MURPHY
(Houston and Toma 2003; Kunzman 2005; Reich 2005). The
conclusion at present is that
research on the impacts of homeschooling leaves a good deal to
be desired. Most troubling is that
we know almost nothing about the causal links in the
homeschool theory of action and their
connections to various outcomes (Ray 2009b).
Much of what we do know about homeschooling is anecdotal in
nature (Houston 1999). Stories
of individual children who have demonstrated remarkable
achievements in academic competitions
of varied sorts or in higher education are especially prevalent.
On the other side of the ledger,
negative stories are sometimes spotlighted to confirm the
dangers of homeschooling. Many of
these stories are proof of the impact of homeschooling;
however, stories and anecdotes, personal
experiences, and folklore lack the authority of scientific
evidence (Stevens 2001; Taylor 1986b).
As we attempt to move beyond anecdotes and stories, we find
that rigorous empirical research

on the effects of homeschooling remains scarce (Houston 1999;
Stevens 2001). We learn that
studies on homeschooling effects suffer from major,
interconnected problems that significantly
limit the degree of certainty we can draw from research reports.
Problems with samples and
controls are particularly troublesome. On the first issue,
analysts have routinely urged caution
in accepting findings at face value because of the
nonrepresentativeness of the samples employed
in almost all homeschool research (Kaseman and Kaseman
1999; Kunzman 2005; Stevens 2001).
Weak sampling frames mean first that samples are almost never
drawn on a representative group
of homeschoolers (Houston 1999; Kaseman and Kaseman 1999).
Studies employ highly selective
samples (Bauman 2002; Winstanley 2009). Self-selection and
sampling bias have been and con-
tinue to be the norm in the study of homeschool effects (Lines
2000a, 2000b; Ray and Wartes
1991). Nonrepresentativeness means, of course, that findings
cannot be generalized to the home-
school population. Even in these studies with nonrepresentative
samples, return rates often fall

below acceptable standards (Dahlquist et al. 2006; Stevens
2001). We rarely see efforts to exam-
ine nonresponders (Wright 1988). (For good treatments of these
problems in context of Rudner’s
[1999] classic study, see Kaseman and Kaseman 1999, and
Welner and Welner 1999.)
Concomitantly, researchers are quick to point out that the
claimed benefits of homeschooling
rest on shaky ground because studies rarely control for other
explanatory variables in the causal
effects equation (Blok 2004; Ray 2000b). Random assignment
or other less powerful methods
that can help eliminate alternative explanations for effects are
rarely used (Collom 2005;
Kunzman 2005). In particular, analysts decry the absence of
controls for socioeconomic variables
such as income, occupation, and education (Dahlquist et al.
2006), previous achievement (Ice et al.
2011), marital status (Burns 1999), and parental support and
commitment (Barwegen et al. 2004;
Hertzel 1997). Because these conditions are linked to student
learning, they need to be accounted
for in homeschool effects research. Without appropriate
controls, it is impossible to establish

whether outcomes are the result of the treatment (i.e.,
homeschooling) or other factors (e.g.,
family income) (Belfield 2005). Or as Lines (1995:3) nicely
penned it, without controls research
does not allow us to ‘‘determine whether the same children
would perform better or worse in a
public classroom or in a home-schooling arrangement’’
(emphasis in original).
The question aptly raised is whether any cause and effect
relationship exists vis-à-vis home school
education. . . . To date, no controlled studies exist that shed
significant light on the important
question. . . . Until some type of study is conducted, using
control and experimental groups, the
question likely will be left for speculative—rather than
concrete—answers. (Wilhelm and Firman
2009:310–311)
Other difficulties are visible in the portfolio of research on
homeschool outcomes. For
example, in studies of effects on homeschool youngsters
comparisons to national norms are
traditional. While not without informative power, this strategy
leaves a good deal to be desired

(Welner and Welner 1999). We also very rarely hear from
children in homeschool families about
their perceptions of homeschool work and their assessments of
outcomes (Mayberry et al. 1995;
Schemmer 1985). Testing conditions in some homes are
problematic (Basham et al. 2007).
Practical problems arise in getting information to establish
effects (Belfield 2005). For example,
almost all of the data available because children are enrolled in
public schools are missing for
homeschool children (Isenberg 2007). There are very few
longitudinal studies.
There are significant practical and methodological difficulties
in counting these children
(Lines 1991; Belfield 2004a). As Reich (2005) reports, in many
places, registration of home-
schooled children (a prerequisite to being counted) is not
required. In other places, homeschool
families simply neglect to register when they are required to do
so (Bates 1991; Kleist-Tesch
1998; Lines 1999). In still other cases, parents are so opposed
to governmental oversight of their
families they refuse to participate in data collection activities,
both census and research efforts

(Bates 1991; Collom 2005; Kunzman 2005). Others fail to
register because they lack trust in
government agencies (Wartes 1988). Still others fall under
provisions that do not require
religious-based homeschoolers to register (Lines 1999). Some
families operate as ‘‘private
schools’’ thus again eliminating the registration requirement
(Aurini and Davies 2005; Lines
1999). Finally, problems stemming from the nature of the
intervention itself—a small population,
definitional issues, geographical dispersion, and
decentralization to hundreds of thousands of
sites (homes)—make counting (and studying) homeschoolers a
difficult task (Belfield 2004a;
Collom and Mitchell 2005). All of these conditions lead to
production of less-than-satisfying
estimates, ones that are biased downward.
Counting problems also arise from the methods used to arrive at
estimates (Mirochnik and
McIntire 1991). For example, researchers often turn to lists of
families who have joined home-
school associations to draw estimates. At other times, they rely
upon lists of those who purchase
materials from homeschool curriculum providers. However,
since some families do not join sup-

port groups and=or purchase from homeschool providers these
sources are likely to undercount
homeschoolers (Lines 1999). It is also important to remember
that there is a lack of uniformity
among states in how and when they collect data on this
population (Lines 1999).
More recently, researchers have employed household surveys to
arrive at the number of
homeschoolers in the United States. While this approach
overcomes many of the problems
inherent in the previously discussed methods, the procedure is
not free of problems (Bielick
et al. 2001). In particular, because they are often such a small
percentage of school-age children,
very few of them are likely to be included in national household
surveys (Wenger and Hodari
2004).
Perhaps the most puzzling finding in the area of homeschooling
effects is that almost every
potential domain of impact that defines the intervention from
parents’ perspectives is ignored
while researchers chase down data on whether homeschool
children can answer two or three
more questions correctly on standardized tests than their public
school peers. At the macro level,

this is the case because the impacts of homeschooling as a broad
social movement are generally
not investigated. A fair amount of conceptual work on the issue
of the impact of homeschooling
on the social fabric of the nation is available, especially by
those who foresee potential negative
consequences (e.g., Apple 2007; Lubienski 2000; Reich 2005).
However, with the exception of
248 J. MURPHY
work from scholars such as Gaither (2008) and Stephens (2001)
there is scant guidance in the
literature about how to think about operationalizing and
measuring societal impacts.
At the mid level absence of attention to core outcomes occurs
because most of the reasons
parents provide for homeschooling, i.e., the essential values of
the movement (e.g., developing
religious values) are simply ignored (Cizek 1993; Klicka 1995).
The goals of building strong
families, preventing the litany of social problems attributed to
public education from infecting
children, and learning values are almost never tested in any
scientific manner (see Parker

1992, and Ray 2004a for exceptions). If one were to draw a
central conclusion from those
who study homeschooling, it would be that the primary goal of
this movement is to ratchet
up academic achievement in mathematics and reading. The fact
that this is patently inaccurate
seems to escape the attention of most researchers plying their
skills in the homeschooling area.
In short, what counts as evidence of success in public schools
has de facto become the measure
of progress in homeschools for researchers.
At the micro level, the neglect of outcomes at the heart of the
homeschooling community occurs
because when scholars focus on academic outcomes, they
confine themselves to the most basic
elements of the achievement algorithm (measures of
performance on basic skills in two or three
areas, e.g., mathematics and reading). Many of the academic
outcomes pursued by homeschooling
families such as learning for understanding, developing habits
of inquiry, and learning across con-
tent areas never appear in research studies on the effects of
homeschooling (Mayberry et al. 1995).
In short, what Ray and Wartes (1991) refer to as the major
agenda of public education has

become the platform for assessing the productivity of
homeschools. Other outcomes that are
more important to the homeschool community and to the larger
society receive very little empiri-
cal attention (Lines 2000b).
HOMESCHOOLING EFFECTS: BROAD MEASURES
Two well-established pathways can be pursued in examining the
impacts of homeschooling.
First, we can turn to the designs developed to assess
privatization initiatives in general. For
example, Murphy (1996, 2002) assesses privatization strategies
such as homeschooling around
five criteria: efficiency, quality, choice, equity, and community.
The second design evaluates
homeschooling on categories of impact (e.g., socialization). We
feature the second design
and weave in essential ideas from the privatization pathway as
appropriate. We divide the
impact of homeschooling into two major categories: effects on
broad measures and effects
on children. The first category includes outcomes in four areas:
society writ large, public school-
ing, costs, and family. The second category contains findings on

three outcomes: academic
achievement; social development; and post-school success,
especially college attendance and
graduation.
Impact on the Social Fabric
A few homeschool analysts, both advocates and those with more
skeptical mindsets, have forged
theories of action about the potential effects of home-based
education on the social fabric of the
country (Collom and Mitchell 2005). These are often expressed
in terms of the common good
and the well being of the democratic state (Apple 2000b;
Kunzman 2009a). There seems to
be consensus on all sides that the homeschooling movement is
likely to have an important impact
beyond what happens in individual homes and with specific
children (Apple 2000a; Bates 1991;
Riegel 2001). Widespread agreement exists that effects on the
public good need to be considered
in assessing the overall impact of homeschooling (Belfield
2005). While we sometimes find

well-developed analyses of the logic of action in the literature,
research on the question of
homeschooling’s impact on society writ large is almost
nonexistent. Operationalization needed
to begin empirical work is also scarce. We are left, therefore,
with an ideologically defined
landscape with little evidence to test claims and counter claims.
It is not our intention in this empirical review to delve into the
theories of logic that power
various perspectives on how homeschooling is linked, positively
and negatively, to what Apple
(2000a) refers to as the health of the public sphere. Suffice it to
say that one side, often anchored
by economists, concludes that community can be built through
individualization, freedom of
choice, and market forces (Belfield 2005; Murphy 1996).
Analysts here also attempt to cast
doubt on claims by opponents of homeschooling that the
common school experience is essential
for the development and maintenance of the public good
(Hardenbaugh 2005). They view exit
from public schooling as an attack on public monopoly, not a
lack of commitment to the com-

mon good (Murphy 1999, 2002).
Opponents and skeptics see things quite differently. Their
theories lead them to the con-
clusion that homeschooling, by failing to grow the social
networks in schools that glue society
together, (Apple 2000b; Lubienski 2000; Reich 2005)
undermines the public good (Apple
2000a; Luke 2003) and reinforces old and grows new
inequalities (Apple 2005). The crux of
the equity argument in terms of homeschooling has been laid
out by Lubienski (2000), Apple
(2000a), and others: Making schooling private may enhance
educational quality for some but
will surely diminish quality for others. The pathway that leads
from homeschooling to inequality
is characterized by reduced concern for and commitment to the
larger democratic society by
homeschool parents. According to Apple (2000a), for example,
homeschooling is defined by
an anti-democratic logic and impoverishes the public good. For
critics, homeschooling repre-
sents a retreat from the public sphere (Riegel 2001). These
analysts hold that social justice is
diminished by homeschooling (Apple 2000a; Lubienski 2000).

If we have not been sufficiently clear to this point, we restate
critical insights here. Research
provides little evidence about the impact of homeschooling on
the larger public sphere. More
accurately, remarkably little attention has been devoted to this
important outcome in the home-
school literature. The one study that directs an empirical
spotlight to the issue suggests that the
ground on which critics stand may be a little less firm than they
believe. Operationalizing the
public good in terms of civic involvement, Smith and Sikkink
(1999) conclude that homeschoo-
lers are not isolated, disengaged citizens. Employing regression
analysis with NHES data and
providing a strong set of controls, these researchers found that
homeschooling families are sig-
nificantly more likely than public school families ‘‘to
participate in public life through a broad
range of activities’’ (18). Their assessment is that ‘‘there
appears to be something about home-
schooling that increases families’ participation in mostly non-
school related civic activities in the
public square’’ (18). Indeed, they conclude

that the challenges, responsibilities and practices that home
educators normally entail for their
participants may actually help reinvigorate America’s civic
culture and the participation of her
citizens in the public square. (20)
250 J. MURPHY
Impact on Schools
As Wartes (1990) reminded us in the first years of the
homeschooling movement, one potential
effect of homeschooling could be its shaping influence on
public education, an impact that has
been re-hypothesized for 20 years (Murphy 2013; McKeon
2007; Muntes 2006). The literature
here provides some suggestions and initial clues but little
empirical evidence (Bauman 2002;
Lines 2004; Mayberry 1989). Meighan (1995) and others
suggest that information from the
homeschooling movement offers important insights about both
the overhaul of the public
education system and the reform of individual schools (Cooper
and Sureau 2007; Dahlquist
et al. 2006). Similar arguments have been amassed by scholars

for the larger field of privatiza-
tion generally (Murphy 1996) and for specific strategies such as
vouchers and charter schools
(Murphy, Gilmer, Weise, and Page 1998; Murphy and Shiffman
2002). With homeschooling
in particular, analysts foresee potential impacts in public
schools across an array of areas, includ-
ing staffing, curriculum, organizational structure, resources, and
so forth (Bauman 2002; Cooper
and Sureau 2007).
Scholars have uncovered a number of pathways by which
homeschooling could shape
conventional schooling. Three avenues stand out: withdrawal
impacts, lighthouse effects, and
competitive effects. Critics of homeschooling maintain that
involved parents one often sees in
the homeschooling movement, pull away from public schools
social capital is diminished
(Wilhelm and Firman 2009). Relatedly, a reduced commitment
to public education (Dahlquist
et al. 2006; Riegel 2001) and a reduced willingness to support
taxes for schools (Apple 2005;
Hill 2000) suggests that homeschooling leads to less financial
support for public education

(Apple 2000a; Houston and Toma 2003). In short, critics hold
that withdrawal to the home
is accompanied by a reduction of political capital and material
resources for public schools
(Riegel 2001).
Other analysts who think about lighthouse effects suggest that
the ‘‘good stuff’’ that makes
homeschooling effective will find its way into public education,
thus ratcheting up the quality
of conventional schools (Lines 2000b; Luke 2003; Ray 2010)—
both individual schools and
the system of public education (Mayberry 1993). Here, analysts
suggest that homeschooling will
be an incubator of good practices that can be adopted and
adapted by public school educators
(Hardenbaugh 2005; Holt 1983). Currently, very little empirical
data has been compiled about
the robustness of either the withdrawal or the spillover
pathways. Information from other priva-
tization efforts, however, would lead one to be less than
sanguine about the power of spillover
effects (Murphy and Shiffman 2002).
Some preliminary data on cooperative relationships are
beginning to be woven into a ten-

tative finding. Specifically, some evidence exists that
competition from homeschooling is
encouraging public schools to develop new institutional forms
(Bauman 2002; Jackson
2007; Mayberry et al. 1995). Noteworthy here has been the
creation of new schools to serve
homeschooled children and the development of more flexible
public schools that permit home-
schoolers to complete their education in multiple venues, both
at home and in public school
(Bauman 2002; Hill 2000; Knowles 1989). Meighan (1995)
refers to the latter phenomenon
as flexi-schooling.
Before leaving our discussion of the impact of homeschooling
on conventional schools, it
is important to recall that previously enrolled private school
children are overrepresented
among homeschoolers (Wartes 1987; Lines 2000b). Thus, as
Lines (2004) reminds us, the
competitive effects of homeschooling are likely to fall heavily
on private schools as well as

public schools.
In a similar vein, homeschooling has the potential to influence
institutions of higher education
in America (Gaither 2008; Prue 1997; Ray 2005), especially
around admissions criteria. At a
minimum, preliminary data suggest that homeschooling is
encouraging these institutions to
broaden their admissions procedures (Prue 1997).
Costs
To date, only limited attention has been directed to the costs, or
what Cibulka (1991) describes
as the fiscal appeal of homeschooling. As with most everything
in homeschooling, both pro-
ponents and opponents have a point of view on the cost issue.
Critics see homeschooling as
pulling resources from public school districts, specifically the
per pupil allotment that no
longer flows to the coffers of the district (Apple 2007).
Supporters, on the other hand, argue
that there are considerable cost savings or a reduced tax burden
on taxpayers when children
leave (or decide not to enter) public schools (Belfield 2005;
Lyman 1998; Ray & and

2003). Going even further, Wenders and Clements (2007)
maintain that homeschooling not
only saves taxpayers money but leads to greater spending on
public schools (see also Ray
and Weller 2003).
As with many things in the area of homeschooling, the inside
story on ‘‘costs’’ is a little more
complex than it appears at first blush. The issue of what gets
counted in the calculations is
especially nettlesome and, as Luebke (1999) reminds us, the
true impact depends a good deal
on who you ask and what one considers evidence. However,
more so than with other impacts,
meaningful data to inform the discussion are available. The data
suggest that the idea that home-
schoolers are taking money out of the pockets of schools (Apple
2005) does not hold up well. On
the theory side here, it is important to remember that public
schools enjoy no entitlement to
student enrollment (Wenders and Clements 2007). Indeed,
critics of the entitlement perspective
see it as a return to the architecture of public monopoly that
dominated education throughout the

twentieth century (Murphy 2006).
On the empirical side, researchers have explored two
approaches to the cost impact of home-
schooling. Some reviewers extrapolate tax savings that
materialize by not having students in pub-
lic school classrooms. For example, at the state level figures on
tax savings have been provided by
Wenders and Clements (2007) in Nevada, Sutton and Bogan
(2005) in Florida, Luebke (1999) in
Wisconsin, and Ray and Weller (2003) in Oregon. At the
national level, these tax savings have
been calculated at 3.7 to 6.1 billion dollars in 1996–1997 (Ray
1997b) and 4.4 to 9.9 billion
dollars in 2003 (Lips and Feinberg 2008). Other reviewers
examine real expenses to uncover
the financial impact of homeschooling on school districts. The
two studies that have examined
this issue reveal that in addition to providing tax savings,
homeschooling reduces educational
costs for school districts (Thompson 1994; Wenders and
Clements 2007).
Other costs that could make homeschooling less of a net gain
receive almost no analysis in
the literature, however. Real costs fall on families because of

labor income forgone to allow one
parent to remain at home for schooling purposes (Houston and
Toma 2003; Parker 1992). Relat-
edly, the cost of tax revenue missed because homeschooling
parents elect not to participate in the
paid labor market could be sizeable.
252 J. MURPHY
Impact on Families
Building healthy families is one of the four driving motives for
homeschooling. Unfortunately,
there is almost no direct research on the topic. Some indirect
evidence surfaces in some of the
case studies of homeschooling. Given its place in the pantheon
of motivations for home-based
education, the lack of research is actually a jarring conclusion.
Considerable research is needed
to address the oft-stated logic of action that homeschooling (1)
prevents the generational gap
between children and their parents; (2) builds healthy
relationships among siblings; and (3) estab-
lishes a nurturing family environment, i.e., allows families to
knit together strong bonds, includ-

ing successful marriages (Farris and Woodruff 2000; Mayberry
1993; Webb 1989).
Researchers also have been less than diligent and hardly
systematic in exploring how home-
schooling impacts the ongoing activities of families. Abundant
evidence exists that mothers
assume primary and often near total responsibility for
homeschooling work, both in individual
families and in the larger homeschooling support structure
(Stevens 2001). The fact that many
parents have reconfigured their lifestyles to engage the task of
educating their children is
discussed in the literature but not systematically investigated
(Colfax and Colfax 1988). Based
on empirical evidence, three conclusions about family lifestyle
changes surface, but again, little
surfaces about the core issue of building relationships, which is
not even operationalized in the
literature. First, homeschooling requires a major commitment of
time (Aurini and Davies 2005;
Martin 1997; Stevens 2001) and much hard work (Green and
Hoover-Dempsey 2007; Kunzman
2009b; Williams et al. 1984). For example, Parker (1992)
reported severe time pressures in 11%

of his sample and distinct time pressures in another 62%.
Second, homeschooling often requires
a significant financial sacrifice, primarily the income forgone to
keep the mother at home
(Lyman 2000; Stevens 2001), although there is no information
on how many of these women
would be full-time homemakers in the absence of
homeschooling. Third, homeschooling has
the potential to limit the careers of mothers who do stay at
home (Aurini and Davies 2005;
Lyman 2000). Stevens (2001) refers to this as costs to
homeschooling mothers in terms of career
opportunities. Or as Perry and Perry (2000) assert, it represents
a career change.
Insights about the frustrations and satisfactions that parents
experience from homeschooling
are limited (Divoky 1983; Green and Hoover-Dempsey 2007).
The most important work was
undertaken by Gladin (1987). On the frustration side of the
ledger, Gladin concludes that the
greatest angst arises from the difficult assignment of balancing
homemaking and hometeaching
activities. But again, we do not know how this frustration
compares to that of mothers balancing
careers and homemaking. Williams and colleagues (1984) also

surface the frustration of com-
petence among some homeschooling mothers. On the asset side
of the balance book, Gladin
(1987) uncovered factors that cluster into three domains: seeing
children develop; spending time
with children, including deepening sibling relations; and taking
control and fulfilling God’s
mandate (Klicka 1995; Sheffer 1995). Sheffer (1995) and
Williams and associates (1984) add
a fourth domain satisfaction: using homeschooling as an avenue
of personal learning and devel-
opment, especially the invigoration of full-time motherhood.
HOMESCHOOLING EFFECTS ON CHILDREN
Our exploration of the effects of homeschooling on children
attends to threeoutcomes: academic
achievement, social development, and post-homeschooling
success.
Academic Achievement
A Caveat
To begin with, keystone elements in the debate over the value

of homeschooling need to be
thrown open to scrutiny (Hill 2000; Kaseman and Kaseman
1999). Three concerns emerge.
First, analysts from both sides of the homeschooling community
(the liberal left minority
and the conservative, evangelical right majority) soundly reject
the notion of the primacy of
achievement scores in understanding the impact of
homeschooling (Farrenga 1997; Klicka
1995). It is argued that other more important goals (e.g.,
inculcation of values) should hold
center stage in explorations of whether homeschooling works.
Relatedly, many others main-
tain that the door to homeschooling should not open and close
in response to test scores.
Homeschooling is a right that transcends test results (Kaseman
and Kaseman 1999). The
warrant for homeschooling rests on a higher power, not
government-anchored measures of
outcomes. The final concern is that focusing on achievement
results puts the burden of proof
for the legitimacy of homeschooling on homeschoolers, rather
than those who are opposed to
the practice (Hill 2000). It also pulls homeschools into the orbit

of public education. Given our
earlier discussion of the near absence of evaluation of the
family-preferred outcomes of
homeschooling, the critique over emphasis on academic
achievement merits considerably
more ink.
Lay of the Land
Let us place our concern for the proper place of achievement
scores in evaluating home-
schooling in abeyance for the time being. Instead, let us direct
the analytic spotlight to what
we know about the academic performance of homeschooled
youngsters. One group of scholars
concludes that we know almost nothing about the impact of
homeschooling on academic
performance (Lips and Feinberg 2008; Reich, 2005). Their
conclusion is based on the fact that
the extant research base lacks the scientific foundations to
distill any reliable findings
(Frost and Morris 1988; Reich 2005). Absent comparative data
and controlled studies, these
analysts report that firm conclusions cannot be drawn
(Dahlquist et al. 2006). That is, the

current research base of descriptive analyses and case studies
precludes forming generaliza-
tions about the cognitive growth of homeschooled children.
Even when these children test
well, we are unable to establish that the homeschooling
intervention is responsible for the
results (Reich 2005).
Other analysts argue, while acknowledging the limitations of
the research, that the data are
not available to show that homeschooling is harmful to the
academic achievement of children
(Lines 2000a; Luebke 1999). That is, these analysts find that
academic test results suggest that
homeschooling students are not disadvantaged by home-based
education (Belfield 2005; Blok
2004; Knowles et al. 1992).
Still another cluster of reviewers maintain that the cumulative
body of evidence suggests that
real academic benefits flow to homeschool children (Luebke,
1999; Ray & Wartes, 1991). These
analysts hold that indirect evidence signals a positive link
between homeschooling and academic
performance (Basham et al. 2007; Ray 1997b).

254 J. MURPHY
Comparisons with National Norms
Analysts who link homeschooling and positive academic
achievement almost always com-
pare the performance of homeschooled youngsters to national
norms (Collom 2005; Stevens
2001; Wegner and Hodari 2004). These analysts find that
homeschool students who take stan-
dardized tests usually do quite well when compared to
traditionally-schooled peers as a group
(Calvery et al. 1992; Lines 1991; Ray 2001a; 2001b). For
example, Delahooke (1986) compared
homeschool achievement with test norms of private school
children. She found similar levels of
performance. Wartes (1987, 1988) reported that homeschoolers
scored between the 65th to 68th
percentile on national norms in his studies in Washington.
Rakestraw (1988) in a study in
Alabama found that homeschooled children scored about the
same as public school students.
Frost (1988) and Frost and Morris (1988) discovered that
homeschooled children in Illinois

performed better than public school children in every subject
area other than mathematics.
Ray (2001a, 2001b) reached similar conclusions in his landmark
1990 national study, report-
ing that homeschooled children achieved at or above the 80th
percentile in all subjects on stan-
dardized tests. Ray’s subsequent investigations (1997b, 2010)
reinforced his earlier conclusions.
For example, in his 1997 study (1997b:54)
the students scored, on the average, at the following percentiles
on standardized achievement tests:
(a) total reading, 87th, (b) total language, 80th, (c) total math,
82nd, (d) total listening, 85th, (e)
science, 84th, (f) social studies, 85th, (g) study skills, 81st, (h)
basic battery (typically, reading,
language, and mathematics), 85th, and (i) complete battery (all
subject areas in which student was
tested), 87th.
In his 2010 study, he found homeschool achievement reported in
national percentiles as
follows: (a) total reading, 89th; (b) total language, 84th; (c)
total mathematics, 84th; (d) science,
86th; (e) social studies, 84th; and (f) composite, 86th.

In another hallmark national study, Rudner (1999) documented
achievement test scores for
homeschoolers between the 76th and 91st percentile across all
12 grades. He noted that home-
schoolers in grades 1 through 4 were a full year above their
private and public school peers on
standardized tests and about four years above them in the 8th
grade. Parker (1992) followed a
similar approach using reports of homeschooling parents. He
found that these parents reported
considerable academic success. Schemmer (1985) calculated
growth of homeschool students
from one year to the next. She reported that these students
performed well but in some cases
did not achieve 12 months’ growth. In a small-scale study in
which growth over time (one sem-
ester) was measured, Duvall and associates (1997, 2004, 2005)
found that homeschooled special
needs children demonstrated more growth than public school
peers in reading and written lan-
guage and about equal growth in mathematics. Wenger and
Hodari (2004) compared the scores
of homeschool recruits into the military against students
educated in public and private schools

on the Armed Forces Qualification Test. They found that the
homeschoolers performed about the
same as the public school graduates.
Scholars also have compared college entrance examination
scores of homeschoolers to
national norms for those tests. Rudner (1999) reported that
homeschoolers had a composite
ACT score of 22.8 while the national norm was 21.0, a score
that placed homeschooled children
in the 65th percentile of all ACT test takers. In an earlier study,
Oliviera and team (1994) found
no significant differences on ACT scores. Gray (1998) reported
a similar conclusion for SAT
scores. In a more sophisticated study (Belfield 2005),
investigators found that homeschooled stu-
dents enjoyed a strong advantage over public school peers on
the SAT even after controlling for
21 relevant independent variables, with all of the advantage
coming from the verbal scores
(Belfield, 2004b). Ray (2004b) also reported that the
homeschooled youngsters in his study out-

performed public school colleagues on college entrance
examinations. They scored 568 in verbal
and 532 in mathematics on the SAT, compared to averages of
501 and 510, respectively.
Contextual Issues
Researchers have also invested energy in exploring the
environmental or background factors
(e.g., family income) on the achievement of homeschooled
children. In particular, scholars have
been interested in determining how powerful these contextual
variables are in homeschools
vis-à-vis the homes of public school children. Scholars have
also been engaged in investigating
the impact of these variables on student achievement within
homeschools. To presage the more
detailed analysis that follows, and keeping in mind the state of
research in the areas of home-
schooling, the bulk of the evidence to date suggests that in the
‘‘home-school, public-school
comparisons,’’ most of these contextual factors have weaker
relationships to academic perfor-
mance than is the case in public schools (Basham et al. 2007;
Ray 1997b). The evidence also
suggests that in the ‘‘in homeschool analyses,’’ background

factors, by and large, are not signifi-
cant determinants of academic achievement (Collom and
Mitchell 2005).
In their treatments of household income, analysts have
uncovered two important findings. To
begin with, researchers reveal that low-income children in
homeschools often achieve at or
above national norms while low-income children in public
schools on average score consider-
ably below national norms (Ray 2004b; Ray 2009a). A less
pronounced relationship is noted
between family income and student learning in homeschools
than in public schools (Blok
2004; Ray 1997b; Wartes 1990). At the same time, although
there is some difference of opinion,
it does appear that family income still matters. That is, across
homeschools researchers uncover a
significant difference in the cognitive performance of children
based on family income (Ray
2010; Rudner 1999). Higher income is associated with higher
test scores and the differences
are larger for children in higher grades (Rudner 1999).
Turning to parental education, we arrive at parallel conclusions.
Homeschooling appears to
damp down the negative effects of low levels of parental

education on student performance
(Basham et al. 2007). The children of poorly educated parents
score higher on achievement tests
in homeschools than they do in public schools (Basham et al.
2007; Ray 2000b). Looking at the
topic with another lens, Ray (1997b) found that homeschool
parents with low levels of education
routinely have children who reach national norms on
achievement tests. He provided the follow-
ing data on the issue in his 1997 (1997a:4) study.
For public school students, a parent’s education level does
affect their children’s performance. In
eighth grade math, public school students whose parents are
college graduates score at the 63rd
percentile, whereas students whose parents have less than a high
school diploma score at the 28th
percentile. Remarkably, students taught at home by mothers
who never finished high school score
a full 55 percentile points higher than public school students
from families of comparable
educational backgrounds.
256 J. MURPHY

Rudner (1999:25), in turn, encapsulated his findings as follows:
It is worthy to note that, at every grade level, the mean
performance of home school students whose
parents do not have a college degree is much higher than the
mean performance of students in public
schools. Their percentiles are mostly in the 65th to 69th
percentile range.
Concomitantly, when researchers focus solely on homeschool
families, the bulk of the evi-
dence points to only a weak-to-moderate relationship between
parents’ educational levels and
measures of academic performance (Collom 2005; Ray 2010;
Rudner 1999), although some
researchers and reviewers suggest no relationship (Lines 2000b;
Mayberry et al. 1995; Moore
and Moore 1994). For example, in his comprehensive study
Rudner (1999) found that home-
school children with college-educated parents performed better
in every grade than parents
who had less than a college degree.
Turning to other contextual variables, researchers provide some
evidence on the ‘‘public-
homeschool comparison’’ front, but very limited information on
the ‘‘across homeschools’’

front. On the first topic, as was the case for income, preliminary
evidence suggests that home-
schooling depresses the negative effects of race visible in the
public schools (Collom 2005). For
example, and remembering the research limitations examined
above, Ray (1997a) in his 1997
report found only minimal difference between African American
and white students in reading
and mathematics in homeschools, but large differences in scores
in those two subjects by race in
public schools. Investigators also have shown that widely seen
gender differences in public
school achievement scores may be muted by homeschooling.
Wartes (1990) was the first scholar
to document this compression in achievement variability by
gender. Later studies by Rudner
(1999) and Ray (2010) confirm Wartes’ initial results.
Religion is a critical theme in the homeschool literature, but we
know almost nothing about its
place in the student achievement equation. Motivations in
general are also a critical piece of the
homeschooling story, but here too almost no information is
available when we explore the chap-
ters on achievement in the book on homeschools. Collom (2005)
reported that reading and lan-
guage scores were higher for children in homes that were

motivated to homeschool because of
their criticism of public education, while lower scores were
recorded for children of parents who
homeschooled for family reasons, although Collom reminds us
that the latter finding could be
explained by the high number of special needs children in
homes motivated by family needs.
Other contextual variables address conditions in the homeschool
program. For example,
Wartes (1990) examined amount of religious content in the
homeschool experience. He found
no relationship with student achievement. Wartes (1988, 1990)
also documented no meaningful
relationship between grade level and academic achievement in
homeschools, although Rudner’s
(1999) later and more methodologically sophisticated study
suggests otherwise, that student cog-
nitive development does vary with grade level in homeschools.
Rudner’s (1999) landmark study
also shed some light on a suggestive finding by Parker (1992) of
a positive relationship between
length of time homeschooling and student achievement. Rudner
(1999) discovered that students
who had been schooled at home for their entire schooling
experience posted higher achievement
scores than students who had attended public and private

schools as well. Ray (2010) and others
have also begun to provide some initial insights on other
dimensions of homeschooling and
student achievement. In his most recent comprehensive analysis,
he uncovered no differences
in achievement scores between children engaged with full-
package curriculums and other
homeschool students. Wartes’ (1990) work extends this finding
to the structure of schooling more
generally, as well as to hours of formal schooling. Ray’s (2010)
investigation did unearth a posi-
tive relationship between money spent on homeschooling and
student learning. A number of scho-
lars over the last 25 years have explored the link between
homeschool parents’ (past or current)
certification as a teacher and student achievement. The
consistent conclusion from this work is
that no relationship exists between parental certification and
student performance on standardized
achievement tests (Basham et al., 2007; Ray, 2010; Wartes,
1990).
The Take-Away Message on Student Achievement
After all the information on student achievement is arrayed and
reviewed, a number of key

conclusions can be distilled. First, we know more than some
analysts suggest we do. Important
empirically grounded clues are visible and tentative hypotheses
are being formed. At the same
time, we know a lot less than advocates of homeschooling
would have us believe. Second, a
growing body of evidence reveals how homeschool students are
performing academically com-
pared to national norms on standardized tests. Third, a fair
amount of suggestive evidence has
been compiled that homeschooling can damp down the effects
found in public schools of family
socioeconomic variables. Or as Collom (2003:329) so nicely
captures it, ‘‘the two great divides
that public school children face—race and class—are
inconsequential for student achievement
among home-educated children.’’
For all of the reasons discussed herein, all of the current studies
on homeschooling must be
viewed as non-definitive. All of the work in this domain falls
considerably short of the standards
of scientific investigation. Experimental designs have never
been employed. Quasi-experimental
designs are conspicuous by their absence. Until researchers

employ more rigorous research
designs that control for selection bias, claims about academic
effects of homeschooling simply
cannot be evaluated. Fourth, we want to revisit our cardinal
caveat: there are a number of valid
reasons why it is inappropriate to privilege academic
achievement in the algorithm we craft to
assess the impact of homeschooling.
Social Development
The Storyboard
The topic of the social development of children is consistently
reported to be a critical outcome
measure of homeschooling, often ranked first in importance but
almost never less than second
(Arai 1999; Lyman 2000; Ray and Wartes 1991). Those who are
apprehensive about the socia-
lization of homeschool children put forth a theory of action that
runs as follows. Schools are a
critical caldron in which important social skills are formed and
social norms are learned (Guterson
1992; Kelley 1991). Homeschooling, it is asserted, limits the
exchanges by which skills (e.g., con-
flict resolution) and norms (e.g., respect for others) are

developed (Gladin 1987; Gorder 1990;
Shyers 1992). As a consequence, a variety of negative outcomes
materialize (e.g., poor ability
to cope in larger society). The claim is made that by limiting
socialization to the family, children
may be harmed, and that lack of exposure to and interaction
with peers at school can negatively
impact social development, including self worth and social
skills (Delahooke 1986; Medlin
258 J. MURPHY
2000). The fear is that absent the socializing experiences of
traditional schooling, homeschoolers
will not be as socially well adjusted as their conventionally
educated peers, and they could
become social misfits (Romanowski 2001; Sheffer 1995). As
Guterson (1992: 4) captures the
sentiment, homeschool children could ‘‘be like caterpillars who
never become butterflies,
crawling along down the labyrinths of adult life and blinking
unhappily at the shrubbery.’’
Embedded in this logic in action are a variety of more specific
concerns. A central worry is that

absent traditional schooling, homeschooled children will
become socially isolated (Farris and
Woodruff 2000; Gaither 2008; Medlin 2000) and the
homeschool movement will produce an
army of social isolates (Delahooke 1986; Gray 1993; Stevens
2001). A number of analysts have
also discussed the concern that too great a reliance on one
institution for socialization, such as the
family, could lead to indoctrinization (Apple 2000a, b; Reich
2005). Scholars have expressed
apprehension about the potential negative effects of
homeschooling in the area of friendship
development as well (Gray 1993; Knowles and Muchmore 1995;
Martin 1997). They sometimes
paint a ‘‘picture of home school students as lonely children who
don’t get a chance to interact with
their peers’’ (Dalaimo 1996:15). Critics worry about identity
formation (Belfield 2004b).
Generalized angst from some that homeschoolers will not
develop needed social skills is present
in the literature (Delahooke 1986; Medlin 2000). Nor, it is
argued, will they learn essential social
norms (Arai 1999). Still another often noted worry is that
homeschool children will suffer from a

lack of exposure to people from all walks of life and to the
diversity of perspectives one finds in
public schools (Lyman 2000; Medlin 1998; Reich 2002), what
Romanowski (1991) refers to as
different viewpoints and distinctive ways of life. They may
have, it is maintained, a limited
horizon of experience (Kunzman 2009a; Reich 2002). Because
of these deficiencies, it is further
asserted, homeschooled graduates may lack the capacity to be
productive members of society, to
fit into the real world (Kelley 1991, Knowles and Muchmore
1995). They may struggle to adapt to
the tough realities of life beyond their families, particularly to
the competitive culture of the work-
place (Arai 1999). Some analysts worry that these youngsters
will be more likely to withdraw
from civic engagements (Apple 2000b; Lubienski 2000; Reich
2002).
Proponents of homeschooling have a different perspective on
the social development of
homeschooled children (Farris and Woodruff 2000), and, as we
will see below, considerably
more empirical evidence to bolster their position.
Home schooling parents, not surprisingly, disagree on every

point. They describe conventional
schools as rigid and authoritarian institutions where passive
conformity is rewarded, where peer inter-
actions are too often hostile or derisive or manipulative, and
where children must contend with a dis-
piriting ideological and moral climate. Home schooling parents
argue that this kind of environment
can stifle children’s individuality and harm their self-esteem.
They say it can make children depen-
dent, insecure, or even antisocial. They believe it can
undermine their efforts to teach their children
positive values and appropriate behavior. Finally, they insist
that it is unlikely to cultivate the kind of
rewarding and supportive relationships that foster healthy
personal and moral development. (Medlin
2000:109)
Proponents maintain that a healthy family provides a better
caldron in which to brew positive
social development than the public school (Belfield 2004a; Gray
1998; Moore and Moore 1981).
They caution us that the robust portrait of socialization
unfolding in America’s schools is some-
what of an illusion (Hill 2000; Holt 1981), carrying as much
negative freight as benefits (Farris

and Woodruff 2000; Gorder 1990; Jaycox 2001). Proponents
also remind us that there is a good
deal more to the day than the few hours of ‘‘school time’’ and
argue that most homeschoolers are
socially engaged during this extended time (Duvall 2005;
Groover and Endsley 1988; Perry and
Perry 2000). Advocates also define ‘‘variety’’ differently,
suggesting that what is lost in engage-
ment with peers in school is more than compensated for with
abundant contacts with other peers
and adults (Dalaimo 1996; Jaycox 2001). Advocates argue that
if the formation of positive social
skills is the goal, then socialization with adults trumps
socialization with peers (Farris and
Woodruff 2000; Meighan 1995). They contend that extensive
peer socialization, which we have
already seen, is viewed suspiciously by all sides of the
homeschool community (Holt 1981;
Moore 1982) as actually likely to be harmful (Boone 2000;
Taylor 1986a; Webb 1989).
The Evidence

A number of researchers help us think through the rather messy
concept of social development=
socialization. One group assists by providing definitions. For
example, Brim and Wheeler (cited
in Kelley 1991:2) define socialization as the ‘‘process by which
persons acquire the knowledge,
skills, and dispositions that make them more or less able
members of society.’’ McNeil (also cited
in Kelley 1991:2), in turn, ‘‘defines socialization as the process
by which the child learns the
ways of society and how to best function as a part of it.’’
Another cluster of analysts decompose
socialization into its core elements; they provide frameworks
for navigating through the research
examining the impacts of homeschooling on children. Ray
(2005), for example, discusses
socialization around three domains: social, emotional, and
psychological development. Medlin
(2000:110) also unpacks socialization into three components:
‘‘participat[ion] in daily routines
of one’s communities, acquiring the [needed] rules of behavior
and systems of beliefs and
attitudes, and functioning effectively as members of society.’’
Medlin (2000) provides us with

a second framework as well, categorizing socialization as social
activity, social influence, and
social experience. Based on the work of pioneers in the field,
we present the empirical evidence
on the impact of homeschooling on the social development of
children around three constructs:
social engagement, self-esteem, and social skills. Before we
begin, however, it is instructive to
remind the reader that the body of research, although larger than
in most of the impact domains
of homeschooling, is still relatively small.
Social Engagement
Social engagement as an outcome is assessed in three spheres of
the homeschool literature:
engagement of families (parents), engagement of children being
homeschooled, and engagement
of homeschooled graduates. We report on homeschool graduates
below when we take up the
topic of ‘‘post-homeschool success.’’ We touched on the
engagement of homeschool families
in the earlier section on the ‘‘impact on the social fabric,’’
documenting that, in general, home-
school families are at least as involved, if not more involved,
civically as the general public

(Isenberg 2002; Ray 2004a; Smith and Sikkink 1999). Here we
review what is known about
the socialization impact on children when they are being
homeschooled.
We start with the social isolation hypothesis that is batted back
and forth by critics and
proponents of homeschooling. Here is what we can comfortably
say based on the evidence.
Homeschooling does impact the calculus of interpersonal
relationships for homeschoolers, a
260 J. MURPHY
hardly surprising finding given their absence from groups of
peers in formal school settings
(Chatham-Carpenter 1994). At the same time, nearly every
study conducted to date finds that
these children are not socially isolated (Arai 1999; Ray 2004a;
Van Galen 1991). Or as
Chatham-Carpenter (1994) puts it, they are not ‘‘at risk’’
socially when ‘‘riskness’’ is assessed
by the total number of social contacts.
The average homeschool student interacts with a large number
of people on a daily basis. He or

she is part of both an extensive and diverse social network
(McCulloch et al. 2006; Ray 2009b),
although generally less extensive than the network maintained
by the average public school child
(Chatham-Carpenter 1994). Studies reveal that closeness of
connections varies by school type,
with public schoolers having more close contacts than
homeschoolers (Chatham-Carpenter
1994). Also, not unexpectedly, homeschool students spend more
time with siblings and adults
than they do with public school peers (Allie-Carson 1990).
Consistent with what we reported
above, homeschooling is likely to restructure the social world of
the student, promoting more
mixed-age than same-age engagements (Chatham-Carpenter
1994; Ensign 1997; Ray 2009a).
The basis for peer connections also changes for homeschoolers,
from proximity to common inter-
ests. At the same time, fewer peer contacts (i.e., 11 versus 20
for public school youngsters in the
Chatham-Carpenter [1994] study) do not translate into an
insufficient number of peer connections
(Chatham-Carpenter 1994; Montgomery 1989). Indeed, studies
routinely document robust peer

linkages for homeschoolers (Groover and Endsley 1988; Wartes
1987). Although in short supply,
the data that are available also suggest that homeschooled
students are not isolated from cultural
diversity (Medlin 1998). Homeschoolers on average are engaged
with persons from diverse
socioeconomic backgrounds, ages, religions, and ethnicities
(Medlin 1998, 2000).
Researchers help us see that these out-of-home relations are
fostered through the social and
civic activities in which homeschool youngsters participate. For
the last 30 years, scholars have
documented that homeschoolers are involved in a wide variety
of religious, social, sporting,
cocurricular, government, work, educational, and service
activities outside the home (Basham
et al. 2007; Montgomery 1989; Tillman 1995). Homeschoolers
are engaged at least to the same
extent as their conventionally schooled peers, and often more so
(Duvall et al. 2004; Delahooke
1986; Medlin 2000).
Self-Concept
Researchers consistently find that on various measures of self-

concept and self-esteem, home-
schoolers score as well as or better than peers in other forms of
schooling (Medlin 2000). A line
of analysis also reveals that self-concept and socialization are
tightly linked (Romanowski 2001;
Taylor 1986b), connected in a recursive manner. It is generally
held that socialization can be
measured by self-concept, or that socialization is a core element
in the formation of self-
concept—that self-concept is a reflection of socialization
(Kelley 1991; Taylor 1986a).
On the definitional front, Kelley (1991) reviews an assortment
of meanings for self-concept.
An especially clear and useful definition has been provided by
Woolfolk (cited in Kelley
1991:4): ‘‘how people view themselves physically, emotionally,
socially, and academically;
all self-perceptions taken together.’’ Another was penned by
Taylor (1986a:14): ‘‘a construct
defined as an individual’s perception of himself, of what he
perceives others to think of him
and what he himself would wish to be.’’

Keeping in mind the caveat we have introduced and reinforced
about the limited body of high
quality research studies, almost all of the evidence amassed
over the last 30 years leads to the
conclusion that homeschoolers do not suffer from poor self-
concepts. Their self-concepts are
as strong or stronger than those of their peers in public and
private schools (Ray 2009b). Among
the studies and reviews that focus on self-concept, a few are
foundational, including the seminal
work of Ray (1997b, 2000c, 2009b) and Medlin (1998, 2000).
One of the early landmark studies was conducted by Taylor
(1986a). Using the Piers-Harris
Children’s Self-Concept Scale (PHCSCS), he discovered that
the self-concepts of home-
schooled children were significantly higher than those of their
peers in public schools. Indeed,
he reported that over half of the home-educated children scored
above the 90th percentile on
the composite scale. Only 10% scored below the 50th
percentile. Not surprisingly, he also
found that the homeschool students performed well on each of
the six sub-scales of the
PHCSCS—behavioral, intellectual, physical, anxiety,

popularity, and happiness, with some-
what lower scores on the popularity scale. Within the
homeschool group, he found that socio-
economic status matters. Specifically, higher socioeconomic
status was significantly related to
higher self-concept. He also discovered that self-concept
decreases for homeschoolers as they
increase in age and by grade. His overall conclusion is that a
positive self-concept is a benefit
of homeschooling.
Kitchen’s (1991) analysis, although hampered by limited sample
size, supports the findings of
Taylor. Kitchen documented that homeschooled children scored
better than conventionally
schooled peers on three of the four dimensions (personal
security, academic competence,
familial acceptance) and on the summative dimension of the
Self-Esteem Index. The only area
in which they trailed their peers was in the area of peer
popularity, the area where homeschoolers
scored the lowest in the Taylor (1986a) study as well. Shyers
(1992), as did Taylor, used the
PHCSCS to measure the self-concept of homeschoolers. He
concluded that homeschooled chil-

dren and traditionally schooled children scored about the same.
Lee (1994) also documented that
homeschooled children did not lag behind other children on a
measure of self worth. Using the
Harter Self-Perception Profile for Children, he reported no
significant difference between home
and public schooled children in self-esteem. Parker (1992) and
Sheffer (1995) also reported posi-
tive self-concept for homeschoolers, although without
comparative data.
A moving-forward hypothesis then seems plausible. For a
number of reasons, home-based
education appears at least as capable of nurturing self-concept
as conventional schools. It is
distinctly possible that homeschoolers perform even better in
this area than their peers do in tra-
ditional schools. As Taylor (1986a) and other scholars over the
years have consistently pointed
out, critics should be cautious about placing bets against
homeschooling on the ‘‘socialization
rationale’’ in general and the ‘‘self-concept rationale’’ in
particular.
Social Skills
The third dimension of our social development framework

attends to how well homeschool
children develop the social skills essential to the intercourse of
life. As revealed above in the
discussion of the socialization storyboard, recurring concern
appears in the literature that
because of their isolation, homeschooled children will be stifled
socially and will not develop
the skills they need to engage effectively with others. The
empirical evidence available to date
262 J. MURPHY
suggests that at a minimum this concern is likely overblown and
more likely is without foun-
dation (Dahlquist et al. 2006; Medlin 2000).
To be sure, ‘‘social skills’’ covers a good deal of ground. One
aspect is maturity. We learn
from the research that homeschoolers are as mature as or more
mature than children in public
schools (Saunders 2010; Smedley 1992). We also discover that
they demonstrate good leader-
ship skills (Montgomery 1989) and are rated high on measures
of ability to interact with others,
both peers and adults (Wartes, 1987)—communication skills and

daily living skills (Ray and
Wartes 1991; Smedley 1992; Webb 1989). They do not appear
to be socially anxious (Taylor
1986a). Homeschooled children measure well against their peers
on indices of confidence,
assuredness, and well-adjustedness (Lee 1994; Tillman 1995).
Evidence also reveals that
homeschoolers demonstrate fewer behavioral problems than
conventionally schooled peers
(Delahooke 1986; Lee 1994; Shyers 1992). They tend to be
trustful and non-cynical in nature
(McCulloch et al. 2006). They are generally a happy group
(Taylor 1986a). They score about
the same as conventionally schooled peers on measures of social
acceptance (Lee 1994; Webb
1989). Overall, they demonstrate appropriate pro-social
behavior and social responsibility
(Shyers 1992; Wartes 1987).
Post-Homeschooling Success: Long-Term Impacts
For a variety of reasons—the general lack of research on
homeschooling, the recency of the
movement, the difficulty of engaging the work—research on the
impacts of homeschooling
on ‘‘graduates,’’ or what Knowles and Muchmore (1995) refer
to as the long-term effects of

homeschooling, is in very short supply. While there is no
shortage of theories on what Galloway
and Sutton (1995) call the ‘‘products’’ of homeschools, little
data is available to inform that
discussion. When the data points that have been produced over
the last quarter century are com-
piled, the emerging narrative conveys a story of homeschoolers
who (1) are reasonably success-
ful adults and (2) are holding their own vis-à-vis conventionally
school students (Cochran 1995;
Knowles andMuchmore 1995; Ray 2000a). That narrative as told
by Webb (1989) is comprised
of four chapters: further education, employment, social ability,
and community engagement. Ray
(2004a) arrays the data in two chapters: general and civic
involvement. Cochran (1995), in turn,
packages product data into three broad chapters: employment,
education, and social adjustment.
Below, we build from these frameworks, placing post-
homeschool graduates into four broad
categories: college preparation, access, and success;
employment and military service; civic
engagement; and satisfaction with education and life.
College Preparation, Access, and Success

While more research is available on this post-homeschool
outcome than most others, the empiri-
cal portfolio is still relatively thin (Cogan 2010; Saunders
2010). On the issue of preparation,
evidence has been generated in two areas: perceptions of
significant actors in the chronicle
and test scores. In the first area, when asked, college admission
officers have assessed home-
schoolers as being academically and socially prepared to handle
the rigors of college life (Prue
1997; Sorey and Duggan 2008), and at least as well prepared as
graduates of public high schools
(Jenkins 1998). In the second area, test scores, researchers find
that homeschoolers demonstrate
academic preparedness equal to graduates of public schools on
measures of verbal, writing, and
critical thinking skills (Galloway and Sutton 1995; Oliviera et
al. 1994). Two investigators have
found that homeschool students score as well as or better than
their public school peers on col-
lege entrance examinations, both the ACT and the SAT (Cogan
2010; Ray and Weller 2003).

Early indications are that homeschooled children apply to and
are admitted to postsecondary
education in proportions similar to their conventionally
educated peers (Lips and Feinberg
2008; Ray 1997b). They are enrolling in some of the nation’s
most distinguished institutions
of higher education as well (Basham et al. 2007; Gaither 2008;
Marean, Ott, and Rush 2005).
So far, the research shows that once enrolled, homeschooled
students in colleges and univer-
sities are performing as well as public school graduates (Ray
2009b), remembering that the body
of evidence is small (Cogan 2010; Gray 1998; Prue 1997). As
with ‘‘preparedness,’’ the data on
success is of two types, perceptual and harder indicators. On the
perceptual side of the ledger,
researchers such as Jenkins (1998), Ray (2005), and Sorey and
Duggan (2008) reveal that college
admissions officers report that homeschooled youngsters are as
successful as (or better than) pub-
lic school graduates. Harder measures of student success also
dot the impact literature. Turning
first to earned grades, findings of equivalence are found here as
well (Gray 1998; Galloway and
Sutton 1995; Oliviera et al. 1994). The operational hypothesis at

this point in time is as follows:
there are ‘‘few if any’’ meaningful differences in retention and
academic performance in college
between homeschooled students and peers from public schools
(Saunders 2010).
Sutton and Galloway (2000) assessed additional domains of
success beyond academic
achievement. They bundled 40 discrete indicators of success
into five broad impact categories:
achievement, leadership, professional aptitude, social behavior,
and physical activity. They
reported equivalence between homeschoolers and public school
graduates on all the additional
four domains. Their interpretation follows:
Implications from the nonsignificant results are mixed for home
schools. First and foremost, the fact
that neither the public school nor the private school groups
significantly outperformed the home
school group is noteworthy . . .. Conversely, however, the
inability of the home school group to out-
perform their private and public school counterparts
academically suggests that home school students
are not generalizing their exceedingly high K-12 achievement
scores to the college level. (143)

Research on postsecondary graduation rates of homeschooled
students is very limited. We have
a few empirical starting points (Cogan 2010; Ray 2004b) but no
body of evidence.
Success in the Workforce and the Military
We begin our discussion here with a recurring theme: a very
thin data base from which to draw
conclusions dominates this impact domain. In one early study,
Knowles and Muchmore (1995)
reported that homeschooled adults tended to move into
entrepreneurial and professional posi-
tions. In his comprehensive study, Ray (2004a) documented
remarkably high levels of satisfac-
tion with their jobs among homeschooled adults, with 61.4
percent being very satisfied and 34.5
percent expressing moderate satisfaction.
We were able to uncover only one robust examination of the
success of homeschooled grad-
uates in the military. While the investigators are careful to
specify the limitations of their study,
especially in terms of the small and likely nonrepresentative
sample of homeschoolers who enter
264 J. MURPHY

the armed services, their conclusions, nonetheless, reflect
poorly on homeschoolers. Specifically,
Wenger and Hodari (2004) documented that, compared to public
school graduates, homeschoo-
lers: (1) have significantly higher attrition rates; (2) are less
likely to enter the military at an
advanced pay grade (a measure of quality); (3) are more likely
to be admitted on a waiver
(another measure of quality); (4) are more likely to exit the
military for negative reasons; and
(5) are not viewed as high quality at the time they leave the
armed forces.
Participation in the Community
Consistent with the findings on socialization of homeschooling
youngsters and the social and
civic engagement of their parents (Lines 2000a), available
research finds that homeschooled
adults also participate in community-based activities at rates
much higher than those found in
the general population (Ray 2005). Two studies in particular
open a window on this issue. In
the mid-1990s, Knowles and Muchmore (1995) reported that
homeschooled adults were not

disengaged socially or civically. In a comprehensive analysis of
the issue a decade later, Ray
(2004a) documented that homeschooled adults were indeed
heavily involved in community life
at the local and national levels and were more civically
involved than the general population of
adults. He found that compared to public school graduates,
homeschooled adults were more
likely to (1) vote; (2) be involved in ongoing community
service; (3) be part of an organization;
(4) write, telephone, or sign petitions; and (5) participate in a
protest or boycott.
Satisfaction with Education and Life and Economic Benefits
There are some clues in the empirical literature that students
who complete their education at
home enjoy higher ‘‘life satisfaction’’ ratings than peers who
graduate from public schools
(Basham et al. 2007). In a similar vein, homeschooled children
view their homeschooling experi-
ences quite positively (Knowles and Muchmore 1995; Ray
2004a). Again, these data are in line
with the limited findings on satisfaction when students are
engaged in the homeschooling experi-

ence (Duvall et al. 1997; Jackson 2007). One good but indirect
measure of satisfaction is a will-
ingness and commitment of homeschooled adults to home
educate their own children (Webb
1989). Using this measure, we learn that homeschooled adults
are very satisfied with education
they received (Meighan 1995; Ray 2004a).
While we know that homeschooling decisions are rarely made
on the basis of cost-benefit
calculations, there are no available studies on economic benefits
to homeschool graduates
(Aurini and Davies 2005).
CONCLUSION
In this article, we provided an extensive review of what is
known about the impact of home-
schooling in the United States. We saw that the homeschooling
population has grown substan-
tially over the last 40 years. It has become a central element in
the portfolio of privatization
initiatives (e.g., charter schools, vouchers) accompanying the
evolution from the institutional
and hierarchical forms of education in the twentieth century to a
system of schooling with greater

emphasis on consumer- and market-oriented infrastructure. We
explained how homeschooling is
larger than schooling. Home-based education is also a social
movement. It is both the result of
and a contributing factor to the changing dynamics of religion,
family, and politics. It has raised
the prominence of evangelical Christian fundamentalism.
Homeschooling has helped reposition
the dialogue and action around the role of the family, especially
the mother, in the United States.
We also noted how homeschooling both adds to and shapes the
rivers of conservative politics.
We investigated the educational outcomes associated with
homeschooling. We were careful
to the point of redundancy in exposing the incipient and
immature nature of the research on
homeschooling. We reported that for many domains of
homeschooling, most especially those
in the family of outcomes, the amount of research is quite
limited. We also explained that the
body of work undertaken to date has left a good deal to be
desired in terms of methodological

rigor. The overall message is one that at best only allows us to
report that research ‘‘suggests’’
certain finings. Existing findings need to be subjected to more
scientific study. Given these
limitations, the evidence currently at hand leads us to be
cautious about too readily accepting
the claims of homeschool critics that the academic and social
well-being of youngsters is harmed
by homeschooling.
AUTHOR NOTES
Joseph Murphy is the Frank W. Mayborn Chair at Vanderbilt
University. He works in the area of
school improvement.
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