{"id":844,"date":"2013-08-02T22:27:57","date_gmt":"2013-08-02T22:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=844"},"modified":"2014-02-10T19:23:41","modified_gmt":"2014-02-10T19:23:41","slug":"reflections-on-a-decade-of-changes-higher-education-and-homeschooling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=844","title":{"rendered":"REFLECTIONS ON A DECADE OF CHANGES: Higher Education and Homeschooling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Record: <\/strong>Gene W. Gloeckner and Paul Jones, “Reflections on a Decade of Changes in Homeschooling and the Homeschooled into Higher Education<\/em>,” Peabody Journal of Education<\/em> 88, no. 3 (2013): 309-323.<\/p>\n

Summary:<\/strong>\u00a0 Gloeckner<\/a>, an education professor at Colorado State University, and Jones<\/a>, interim president of Georgia College and State University, here revisit the two questions they first addressed in two widely cited 2004 pieces about homeschooling and higher education, both published in the special issue dedicated to that theme<\/a> by the Journal of College Admission<\/em>.\u00a0 The questions concerned 1. the success of homeschooled students in college when compared with students from conventional schools, and 2. the perception of admissions officers about homeschooled applicants.<\/p>\n

For the first question they summarize the results of a few recent studies (including those of Snyder<\/a> and Cogan<\/a>) of homeschooler performance in college relative to their conventionally-schooled peers.\u00a0 In all studies the homeschooled performed either equal to or better than students with other educational backgrounds.\u00a0 Gloeckner and Jones acknowledge that the original studies do not claim causality and have caveats, but the basic point stands that in every study looking at homeschooling and academic achievement in college the homeschoolers are doing well.<\/p>\n

For the second question Gloeckner and Jones sent out a survey to 159 admissions officers representing colleges and universities in the Western and Rocky Mountain regions of the United States (including Hawaii).\u00a0 They got 55 back, a 35% response rate, representing a diverse group of institutions public and private, religious and non-religious.<\/p>\n

Gloeckner and Jones fond that most schools (75%) have a policy for homeschooled applicants.\u00a0 The specifics of these policies differed, but in most schools required something to prove that homeschooled applicants were college-ready, including ACT or SAT scores, an essay, GED scores, letters of recommendation, and in some cases a personal interview and\/or a portfolio.\u00a0 Four of the officers claimed that their institutions did not accept homeschooled applicants.<\/p>\n

As for attitudes toward homeschooling, 78% of those surveyed believed that homeschoolers were likely to be as successful as or more successful than conventionally-schooled applicants in college.\u00a0 Only two of the 55 thought homeschoolers were likely to do worse.\u00a0 A similar spread was found for perceptions of retention rates, first year GPA, and other measures.\u00a0 The only exception was the question of socialization.\u00a0 45% of those surveyed thought homeschoolers would do as well or better socially but 35% thought they wouldn’t.\u00a0 The rest didn’t know or didn’t answer.<\/p>\n

Gloeckner and Jones summarize, “Overall, the attitudes and perceptions of admissions officers proved favorable toward the expected success of the homeschooled graduate.” (p. 320).\u00a0 Officers at private, secular institutions were more likely than large public institutions or religious institutions to have negative attitudes, though even here attitudes are much more positive than they were decades ago when the first surveys of this kind were conducted.<\/p>\n

Appraisal:<\/strong>\u00a0 With the exception of some bad history in parts of the paper, this is on the whole a decent summary of what little research there is on the academic success of homeschoolers in college and a competent if not pathbreaking survey of admissions officers.\u00a0 For a more comprehensive review of the literature see section 9 of this recent piece<\/a>, written by Rob Kunzman and myself.\u00a0 One of the points we make there is that some qualitative literature suggests that some admissions officers might harbor more negative views of homeschooling in private than they would ever express on a survey.\u00a0 But in general Gloeckner and Jones found this time just what they found in 2004 and what others have found as well, that homeschoolers do fine in college and that most colleges are glad to admit them.<\/p>\n

Milton Gaither, Messiah College, author of Homeschool: An American History<\/a>\"\"<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer<\/strong>:\u00a0 The views expressed in reviews are not the official views of ICHER or of its members.\u00a0 For more information about ICHER\u2019s Reviews, please see the \u00ab\u00a0About these Reviews \u00bb Section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Record: Gene W. Gloeckner and Paul Jones, “Reflections on a Decade of Changes in Homeschooling and the Homeschooled into Higher Education,” Peabody Journal of Education 88, no. 3 (2013): 309-323. Summary:\u00a0 Gloeckner, an education professor at Colorado State University, and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[817,814,171,779,815,816,472,249,780,66],"class_list":["post-844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collegepostsecondary","tag-act","tag-colorado-state-university","tag-ged","tag-gene-w-gloeckner","tag-georgia-college-and-state-university","tag-hawaii","tag-marc-snyder","tag-michael-f-cogan","tag-paul-jones","tag-sat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=844"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1075,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844\/revisions\/1075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}