Hello from the Penn State University Rural Youth
Education (RYE) Project staff!
The Rural Youth Education Study is designed to increase
understanding of the future educational, career and residential
plans of youth in rural Pennsylvania, and the factors influencing
student success in achieving their goals. The study has a
longitudinal design where the same students will be surveyed every
other year for four waves of data collection. The study began in the
2004/2005 school year when we surveyed the 7th and 11th grade
students in 10 rural school districts throughout Pennsylvania--a
total of 1,536 students. By Wave 4, the 11th grade cohort
will be five years past high school graduate age, the 7th
grade cohort will be one year past high school graduation. In Wave
1, we asked about future plans for school, work, starting a family,
and where the youth want to live as adults. We also asked about
factors that influence student success in school and what might
shape their aspirations—such things as feelings about their school
and community, their closeness with parents, and how well they are
doing in school.
Wave 2 data collection occurred in Fall 2006 when the former 7th
grade students were in the 9th grade, and the former 11th grade
students were one year out of high school. We asked many of the same
questions as in wave 1, with more focus on their local community and
how it influences their future plans related to education, work,
family and where they want to live. For the older group we asked if
their plans had changed, what they were doing (working, in college
or vocational training, combining work and school, starting a
family). With this information we are able to assess if the youth
are beginning to achieve their goals.
Data collection for wave 3 is currently underway and will occur
throughout the 2008-2009 school year. The younger cohort now in the
11th grade are completing surveys in their respective schools thanks
to the continuing cooperation of the school districts. The older cohort is now three years past high school
graduation age. Data collection for the older
cohort has also begun and is being collected by phone and/or web survey
throughout the Fall 2008 and into
Spring 2009. Our purpose is to continue understand how
aspirations for education, work, family and where rural young people
want to live develop, change and are achieved over time.
The purpose of this web page is to provide information about the
project. Please follow links on this page to see copies of the
surveys for each, reports on the project, fact sheets developed from
project findings, and a section that provides periodic project
updates. If you have questions about the study please do not
hesitate to contact Diane McLaughlin at 814-863-8626 or
dkk@psu.edu or Anastasia Snyder at 614-256-8959 or
ASnyder@ehe.osu.edu .
Project funding has been provided, in part, by The Center for Rural
Pennsylvania, a legislative agency of the Pennsylvania General
Assembly; by a grant from the USDA National Research Initiative,
Grant 2007-35401-17736, and by Hatch Grant 4001 to The Pennsylvania
State University. |
