Researchers

Caitlyn Anderson

Karissa Barlow

Christopher Becker

Courtney Fulbright

Jeff Hunsaker
Jameson Jenson

Amanda Kunz

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. It 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 post-secondary 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. The program begins in the 9th grade, and students must fulfill curriculum requirements in order to receive the incentives offered by the program. The requirements include four years of math, which comprises of Elementary Algebra, Geometry, Intermediate Algebra, and another advanced math class; three and a half years of social science, including Geography, World and US History, Economics or Government; four years of English, with classes focused on reading, writing, and public speaking; two years of a foreign language; and three years of a lab-based, natural science comprised of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.

The incentives offered for completion of the program include a scholarship worth $1000 , 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.

Fall 2009 Study

During the Fall semester of 2009, Weber State Sociology students worked with faculty at Mount Ogden Junior High to determine the percentage of students, parents, and teachers at MOJH 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. The results from this study were used to augment an awareness campaign at the school during the fall; this campaign included representatives appearing at faculty meetings, parent nights, and the maintaining of a Utah Scholars after school club for the students. Then, during the Spring semester of 2010, a second group of Weber State students conducted the same study (while adding new questions to determine where people got their information about Utah Scholars, and what the most effective methods of disseminating information might be), to see if the awareness campaign had affected the levels of awareness and understanding among students, parents, and teachers at MOJH.

The survey was first conducted in October of 2009, at MOJH's Parent Teacher Conferences held in the school's gymnasium. They were administered at both entrances of the gym to as many parents and students 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, or 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. Each survey packet included a business reply envelope with either English or Spanish versions so the survey could be returned later with the incentive of a chance to win 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. Of the 300 surveys handed out at Mount Ogden Jr. High, results were received from 121 students (ages 12-15), and 122 parents.

A survey was also placed online through Student Voice, an online survey delivery system, for all of the teachers at Mount Ogden Jr. High and they were e-mailed a reminder a week later. An incentive of a chance to win a $40.00 gift card to Olive Garden was given for their completing and returning it by November 13th. Of the 52 teachers who were sent the survey, only 13 responded.

Demographics

Table 1. Demographic Characteristics of Fall 2009 Respondents

MaleFemaleCaucasian Hispanic Other

Parents20% 80% 71% 19% 10%

Students49% 51% 67% 25% 8%

83% of respondents were primarily English speaking.

66% of parents had an Associates Degree or higher level of education.

The overwhelming majority of parents who attended the Parent Teacher Conferences were female, while the gender divide of the students was split evenly. Both groups were predominately Caucasian, and lived in primarily English-speaking homes. Most of the parents had some form of college degree.

Measurements

A variety of different questions were constructed to determine the levels of awareness, understanding and relevance. For awareness, it was necessary to measure whether people knew the program existed, which only required a simple yes or no question.

When it came to measuring the concepts of 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 uses 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 understanding 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 the concept of 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 to measure each of the concepts discussed above.

Table 2. Measurement of Research Concepts

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?

Table 2 Measurement of Concepts (cont’d)

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?

Each of the surveys was coded with a case id number for future reference 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.

Results

In this section, the three key concepts of Awareness, Understanding and Relevance are broken down into their individual questions, and the parent and student responses for each question are analyzed.

Awareness of the Utah Scholars Program

As shown in Figure 1 above, the overall results of the survey for the students, parents, and teachers suggest that most people did not know that the Utah Scholar's 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. The rest of the analysis was conducted on data from the 76 parents and students and 20 teachers who were aware the Utah Scholars Program existed.

Understanding The Utah Scholars Program

Respondents were asked to rate their understanding of what the Utah Scholars Program has to offer and the goals of the program. Figures 2 and 3 show the percentage of students, parents and teachers rating their understanding in one of three categories: well, a little, or not at all.

As you can see in Figure 2, teachers are more likely to rate their understanding of what the USP has to offer in the highest category of understanding the program offerings “well”. However, most respondents understand “a little” of what the program offers.

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.

Respondents were also asked to rate their knowledge about 3 aspects of the program; the scholarships, savings plan, and the core curriculum. Figures 4, 5 and 6 show the percent of respondents understanding each of these aspects.

As shown in Figure 4, 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.

Findings displayed in Figure 5 suggest, 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.

Findings in Figure 6 show that 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 – How might the Utah Scholars Program benefit you?

Finally, data from the open ended question regarding how the USP is relevant to the respondent were compiled and analyzed for common themes. 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. As one parent put it, “I feel that the USP would help out with my child's ability to see how she can make our money can go a little further for her higher education.”

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.

SPRING 2010 STUDY

During the Spring Semester of 2010, another group of students set out to perform the same study, to determine if there had been any change in awareness or understanding after an awareness campaign was launched at MOJH. This group used the questions from the original survey, and also added a few new ones, designed to determine where people were getting their information from, and what the best way to inform them in the future might be.

Surveys for both the student and parent were constructed along with a parental consent form and a cover letter. The surveys were constructed to compile data concerning the concepts of awareness, access, effectiveness, relevance, and understanding of the Utah Scholars program. Handing out surveys seemed to be the most effective way to reach the broad range of participants and to receive a large enough sample to gain sufficient information regarding the Utah Scholars program. A table was set up at MOJH to hand out packets containing the student survey, the parent survey, a parental consent form and a cover letter to the students, and offered incentives for them to return the packets with everything filled out.

The incentives for participating in the study were free t-shirts and Weber State University sports team posters for the students, and a drawing for a pair of movie tickets for the parent and student family. The first 100 students to return the completed survey’s and consent forms were given a free t-shirt and poster. Upon returning surveys and consent forms respondents were entered into a drawing for 10 student-parent pairs to receive a couple of free movie tickets. The survey administration process was during the week of March 8th- March 12th during the students lunch periods. Packets were given out up until the 11th and the 12thwas the last day for collecting the packets. Packets that were returned were checked for completeness from both student and parent surveys, as well as consent forms and then the incentives were given out to the students and they were informed that they were entered into win a pair of movie tickets.