Utah Scholars Awareness Research Study



Utah Scholars Awareness Study

Amanda Kunz

Christopher Becker

Jeff Hunsaker

Utah Scholars Awareness Study

The Utah Scholars Initiative is a program that enables students to be better prepared for college. This program has been applied to various states around the country. The scholars program originated in 1989, in a town called Longview, Texas. An organization called the Greater Longview Organization of Business Education (GLOBE) was concerned about the low levels of literacy and math skills of students coming out of high school. They applied a more rigorous program in some of the Texas schools and had positive and successful results. These results were so impressive that President George W. Bush placed funding into the program and enlisted twenty two states to participate. The program became known as the State Scholars Initiative (Utah, 2009). Its purpose is to motivate students to complete a harder and more involved program in high school (DPR, 2009). “Current research demonstrates a direct correlation between challenging high school course work and success in postsecondary education and the modern workforce (Utah, 2009).”

This program was accepted by Utah and is now known as the Utah Scholars Initiative. The goal of the Utah Scholars Program is to get students to stretch farther than they would be able to on a regular high school course. As incentives for the program it offers a scholarship of $1000 for those who complete the requirements and a savings program that enables students that save $400 to be matched at graduation (Utah Scholars, 2009-2010). This is to support those students who put the time into getting a better education in high school. Weber State University has been helping in Mount Ogden Jr. High to encourage more students to go to college. Although in the near future the Utah Scholars Program may see funding discontinued, there will still be many programs that will push students to be better prepared for college.

Utah Scholars has been working with Mount Ogden Junior High (MOJH) through efforts by Weber State Sociology students to determine the percentage of students, parents, and teachers at Mount Ogden Jr. High who are aware of the Utah Scholars Program, their overall understanding of the program, and the potential benefits of the program on their individual goals.

Concepts

The main things that are being measured are awareness, understanding, and relevance. Awareness refers to the knowledge that the Utah Scholars Program exists including the various aspects of the program, like scholarships, curriculum and the savings plan. Understanding refers to how much parents, students, and teachers of Mount Ogden Jr. High know about the Utah Scholars Program and its various parts. These parts include: the purpose of the Utah Scholars Program and the specific details of the scholarship, curriculum, and the savings plan such as the dollar amount of the scholarship, what classes are entailed in the curriculum and how much money the savings plan is willing to match. Relevance is trying to see how parents, teachers, and students think the Utah Scholars Program will help them achieve their academic goals.

Methods

Subjects for Study

Of the 300 surveys handed out at Mount Ogden Jr. High, results were received from 121 students ranging from 12-15 years of age, and 122 of their parents. Of those students 58 percent were female, 76 percent Caucasian and 28 percent Hispanic. The parents were 92 percent female, 82 percent Caucasian, 22 percent Hispanic and 11 other. A survey was also administered to 56 teachers at MOJH. Of the twenty that responded 75% were female and most of them had graduated with a bachelor’s degree or more.

Data Collection Methods

The Survey’s were handed out at the parent teacher conference held in the Mount Ogden Jr. High Gymnasium on October 21st and 22nd. They were administered at both entrances of the gym to as many parents as possible. They also were administered during the conference while parents and students waited in lines to talk to teachers. Many filled them out while standing in line and at our table and returned them to receive a free Utah Scholars t-shirt for each student. There were pre-stuffed envelopes to send surveys home with parents who didn’t have time to fill them out during the conference. Inside them we placed a business reply envelope with either English or Spanish versions so the survey could be returned later with the incentive of a $50.00 Smiths Food and Drug card for parents and a free discount movie coupon entry for students if the survey was returned by November 13th.

A survey was also placed a survey online through Student Voice for all of the teachers at Mount Ogden Jr. High and they were e-mailed a reminder a week later. An incentive of a $40.00 gift card to Olive Garden was given for their completing and returning it by November 13th.

It was determined that surveying was the best data collection method for us in effectively gathering the desired information from the many parents and students. Doing this at the parent teacher conference allowed avoidance of class interruption. It was decided that by sending the survey by e-mail it would enlist a better teacher response rate as it wouldn’t use as much of their time and effort. Each of the surveys were coded with a case id number for future reference and to keep them confidential. There was also a code book for parent and student surveys that enabled the information to be entered into SPSS. Statistics from the Student Voice program were used for teacher surveys enabling the measure of awareness and understanding of the program.

Measurement

In making a survey it is best to come up with questions that will acquire the information needed in the simplest and most effective manner. In the survey for Utah Scholars to achieve this goal a variety of measurement types were needed to use. To measure whether people knew the program existed only required a simple yes or no question, either people knew it existed or they didn’t.

When it came to understanding there were too many different aspects of the program to use only one yes or no question. To accurately measure how well the people understand the goals and the offers of the Utah Scholars program the use of the Likert scale was needed. The Likert scale is when there is a range from one to five of how well or little a person knows about something. This scale allowed the knowledge of understanding to be put in a range and enabled the understanding of the researcher to see if people understood the program how well they understood it.

To measure the knowledge of the different parts of the Utah Scholars Program a check all that apply method was used. This was to see if people did understand certain aspects of the Utah Scholars Program, like scholarships, savings plans, and curriculum, and to what extent they understood the different parts. This way it could be seen what parts of the program have been properly advertised and what parts have not.

Finally to measure relevance there was no better way to measure what the respondents thought the benefits of the program were than to ask them. By using an open ended question it allowed the individuals to put what they were really thinking and feeling about the program itself. This enabled the people’s voice to come out as well as allowing the commonalities to arise without accidentally guiding the respondent to answer a certain way. Below is a table of the various questions that were used in the Utah Scholars Survey.

|Concept: |Measurement: |

|Awareness | |

|Awareness of the programs existence |Have you heard of the Utah Scholar’s Program? |

|Understanding | |

|Understanding what the program offers |How well would you say you understand what the Utah Scholar’s |

| |Program has to offer? |

|Understanding the program’s goals. |How well would you say you understand the goals of the Utah |

| |Scholar’s Program? |

|Understanding of the scholarships offered |What do you know about what the Utah Scholar’s Scholarship |

| |Program offers? |

|Understanding of the Savings Plan |What do you know about the Utah Scholar’s Program’s UESP 529 |

| |Savings Plan? |

|Understanding the core curriculum |What do you know about the Utah Scholar’s Program’s core |

| |curriculum? |

|Relevance | |

|How it might help students/parents |In what ways do you think the Utah Scholar’s Program might |

| |benefit you? |

Results

Each of the surveys was coded with a case id number for future references to the survey and to keep the survey confidential. There was also a code book created for the student and parent surveys to enter the information into SPSS. The statistics for the teacher surveys were found on Student Voice and it was used to compare to the student and parent surveys. The information was then used to measure the level of awareness and understanding the parents, teachers, and students had of the Utah Scholars Program.

Awareness

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The overall results of the survey for the students, parents, and teachers were that most people did not know that the program existed therefore did not know what the program entails. Of the 243 surveys given to parents and students only 76 were aware that the program existed at all, the teachers seem to be the most in the know about the existence of the program. This is the only part of the research that includes all of the research participants. All the rest of the information comes only from those 76 parents and students and the 20 teachers that were aware the Utah Scholars Program existed.

Understanding

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The first aspect used to measure what people understood about the program was to see if they knew what the program offered. Most of the respondents understand the program a little bit, but teachers understand the offers the most and parents understand them the least.

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The second aspect that was measured was the understanding of the goals of the Utah Scholars Program. The goals of the Utah Scholars Program seem to be the best understood out of the two. A higher number of students, parents and teachers say that they understand the goals of the Utah Scholars Program than what the program offers. Similar to the offers results teachers know the most about the goals while parent know the least.

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A majority of the respondents understand that the Utah Scholars Program offers a scholarship but not the amount or the requirements for the scholarship. Students know more about the program than both the parents and the teachers. Students, parents and teachers know more about the requirements for the scholarship than the actual amount of the scholarship itself. Of all the aspects of the program all three groups of subjects know more about the scholarship offer than any other part.

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As with the other parts of the program students, parents and teachers know the least about the details of the savings plan but around half of them know that a savings plan is offered. It’s seems like students know a good amount more than both parents and teachers but a majority of them do not know the amount of the match. It’s seems like a majority of the respondents don’t understand the specific details of the savings plan.

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About seventy percent of the students, parents and teachers understand that there is a core curriculum required. This is the only section where all three groups are about equal. Students seem to know more about the particulars of the program than do parents or teachers. There is a rather larger gap between the amount of people who know a curriculum is required and the specific details of the curriculum itself.

Relevance

When looking through the different information respondents wrote about the benefits of the Utah Scholars Program, certain themes began to arise. The main focuses of those themes were different between students, parents, and teachers.

Students

The information showed that students thought the main benefits of the program were to provide opportunity for college so that eventually they could get a job and earn more money. They saw the scholarship as the most important incentive of the program. They frequently mentioned their need for financial help in the future for education. They were also interested in being able to get into college. They saw the Utah Scholars Program as an opportunity to be able to get more scholarships when they applied to college as this one student says, “it might get me a good scholarship and The greatest education and college ever.”

Parents

Parents were very interested in motivating their students currently while they are still in Jr. High and also to get them to further their education. On top of that they saw Utah Scholars as an opportunity for their students to get help with tuition when they went to college. The issue of being able to afford college was a big issue for both parents and students at Mount Ogden Jr. High.

Teachers

Teachers mainly saw Utah Scholars as a program that pushed students to want to succeed and gave them something to be motivated for in the future. They saw it as something that would push students to succeed because many students don’t have anything to work toward as this one teacher stated, “Currently many of our students have no direction or goals for the future. It is that lack of drive that impedes learning.” To teachers Utah Scholars best serves as a motivator for the students to be better and do better.

Conclusion

To reiterate the first big takeaway, less than a third of students and parents surveyed had heard of the Utah Scholar's Program. Whatever systems are in place to inform the students and parents about the program apparently aren't working (which isn't much surprise, given what was learned from Alisha Massen, one of the people who closely work with USP at MOJH, about the school not mailing out the information).

Of those who had heard of it, students were by far the most well-informed group, often doubling or tripling the number of parents and teachers in those same areas. While all three groups had a decent understanding of what aspects of the program existed (that they offer scholarships, offer a savings plan, and require a core curriculum), only the students showed significant understanding of the details of each program. Of the three groups, the parents seemed the least informed, often having the most "no understanding" responses, and the least amount of understanding of the individual parts of the program. So while news of the program's existence isn't getting the traction it should, when it does get out, students seem to be getting more out of it than both the parents and the teachers.

The other noteworthy finding was that families tended to know or not know together. Most of the time, when a parent had some understanding of the program, so did the child. We didn't have a question asking where knowledge of the program came from, so we don't know if it's students informing parents or parents informing students. Based on their levels of understanding, it seems likely that the information is traveling from the students to the parents, but we can't know for certain.

Lastly, those who were aware of the Utah Scholar's Program tended to see its usefulness in two main categories: students tended to see the USP as a chance to gain scholarships, and ease the financial burden of college. Parents and Teachers both see the program as a means to motivate students, both to do better in school and to give them direction in their life.

Recommendations

When looking through the results section, it was determined that the best plan of action to get people to understand and know about the program is to use the information from the relevance section to head the awareness campaign the following year. By using the things that students, parents, and teachers find most important in a students education, it would enable the specifics of the program to be better advertised and accepted. For example, if the campaign used motivation for students to do better in school and to go to college as the focus more parents might be willing to sit down and listen about he specifics of the program.

The next thing that was realized is that parents need to be targeted more than the other respondents because they seem to know the least about the overall program. By focusing on the parents it also enables the information to be passed down to the children.

Last of all when focusing on the students, parents or teachers their needs to be a focus on the specific details of the program because overall there is not a great knowledge of those aspects. It is important to get all of the information of the program more out in the open but there are certain parts that people know less about, like the number of credit hours required in the curriculum.

Limitations

In the results, the information was heavily skewed toward certain demographics. An extreme majority of the population of respondents were Caucasian females. This doesn’t allow a correlation to be measured for race or gender in the knowledge of the program.

The second problem that came up was the fact that the survey had to be distributed at the Parent Teacher Conference at Mount Ogden Jr. High. This skews the results to only those parents who have time or who care to go to the Parent Teacher Conference.

There also was an option that was left off of the parents and students surveys that was put on the teacher survey. On all of the understanding questions there was no “Don’t Know” option for the respondents to check. This would have reduced some confusion and made the answers more clear.

Last of all the problem that occurred is that there was such a small sample size of teachers that there is very low reliability. Of the 56 teachers only 20 actually responded and one of those twenty chose not to participate in the survey.

Bibliography

DPR Communications, Initials. (2009). About Utah scholars. Retrieved from

Utah Scholars. (2009). FAQ background and overview. Retrieved from

Utah Scholars Initiative, 2009-2010, Utah scholars initiative: an overview

Western Interstate Commission for higher Education, Initials. (2009). State Scholars initiative background facts and figures. Retrieved from

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