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Mission of the Interdivisional School Completion Task Force
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Purpose of the Interdivisional School Completion Task Force
In response to the national efforts towards dropout prevention, the Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association (APA) passed a resolution on dropout prevention in August 1996 that recommends:
The APA should work to increase the participation of psychology and psychologists in assisting in national, state and local efforts to prevent school dropout. APA's efforts would involved consulting with leading experts and active inter-directorate collaboration within APA and with other major professional organizations involved with psychological aspects of children's schooling and development. The active involvement of parents and students as client/consumers in this process must also be a major component of any initiative undertaken by APA.
Towards this end, an Interdivisional School Completion Task Force was convened in 1997 to:
- Identify and disseminate information about psychological processes (e.g., social, emotional, and cognitive) that pertain to dropping out of school including:
- a) successful dropout prevention programs (incorporating both primary and secondary
prevention) and practices that address psychological aspects of dropping out, and;
- b) empirical research that furthers our understanding of the psychological underpinnings of
dropping out.
- c) With special attention paid to research or programs that address the disproportionate
dropout rates in ethnic minority communities and, in particular, to the exceptionally high dropout rates within many of the nation's Hispanic communities.
- d) Because psychological contributions to dropping out are likely present long before the
student actually leaves school, our examination of dropout prevention will extend to those initiatives that begin in the earliest grades or even the years prior to school.
- Develop empirically defensible and pragmatic conventions for psychological research on dropping out or that evaluates psychological components of dropout prevention programs including, for example:
- a) Uniform standards for defining when a student has dropped out and for computing dropout rates within communities or cultural groups, or effective measures, procedures; or
- b) experimental designs for investigating psychological factors contributing to dropping out.
- Articulate an agenda of psychological research and program development initiatives that will further our understanding and effective use of the psychological processes that mediate between risk factors and dropping out of school. Advocate for the inclusion of this agenda in governmental and private initiatives supporting dropout prevention efforts.
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