Degree Name

Education Specialist (EdS)

Semester of Degree Completion

1992

Thesis Director

David E. Bartz

Abstract

Truancy is a problem that many school districts must address on a daily basis. One method used to address this problem in Education Service Regions 15 & 20 in southeastern Illinois is a truancy prevention program. This program was presented to six randomly selected second grade classes. Each of these six classes was then paired with a similar second grade class in the same county. This second group of classes was the control group in which no truancy prevention program was presented. The six truancy prevention programs were presented in early September. Attendance rate data were collected for all twelve classes over the entire school year. Attendance rate data comparisons were made between the paired classes.

The initial question addressed by this study was whether there would be a higher attendance rate in each sample class as compared with the control class with which it was paired. A second question that was addressed by the attendance rates in the second semester was whether any effect exhibited in the first was sustained into the second semester.

The findings indicated that those classes that saw the truancy prevention program had a higher attendance rate than did those classes that did not. Analysis of the data for the second semester indicated that some residual effect still kept the attendance rates higher in the sample classes, but the differences between the attendance rates was considerably less pronounced. The reduced effectiveness of the program suggests that further reinforcement activities or incentives should be continued to sustain higher attendance rates during the second semester.

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