Richard T. Lipan, Norman C. Gysbers, Yongmin Sun presented a research study named as “The Impact of More Fully Implemented Guidance Programs on the School Experiences of High School Students: A Statewide Evaluation Study “in 1997. The researchers have conducted this study statewide in order to find the relationship among diversified guidance programs and school experiences of the students in High Schools. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of fully comprehensive guidance programs on the desired outcomes of high school students across different states of the country. In this research study, the first goal of the researchers was to explore whether comprehensive guidance programs of high school in different states are playing a major role in the academic improvement of the students. The second goal was to find out that comprehensive guidance programs in high school increase academic performance of the students irrespective of their gender, races, socioeconomic States of their family, school enrollment etc. The third goal of the researchers was to investigate the possible positive influence of comprehensive guidance programs on the environment of high schools leading to the improved academic performance of the pupils. The fourth goal of the current research study was to find out whether the guidance programs are fulfilling the career- development needs of high school students by providing adequate career information.
In this study, the school improvement program of Missouri schools was studied to find the relationship between comprehensive guidance programs and behavior of students towards academic performance, school environment, and career development. In order to achieve the desired goals, the researchers have used three research questions. The first research question was: is there a positive relationship among students’ features and desired outcomes? The second question examined in the current study was that is there a positive relationship between the level of implementation of comprehensive guidance program and students’ anticipations towards academic performance, the likeness of the school environment and career development. The third research question focused by the researchers in this study to explore the positive impact of the level of fully implemented guidance programs of high school on regression slope among students desired academic outcomes and a range of students characteristics including gender, socioeconomic status of parents, school environment etc.
This study used the data of a random sample of 22,964 students of Missouri high schools for the years 1992-1995 available in the database of MISP. The variables considered in this research study were school characteristics, school environment, students’ characteristics, and students desired outcomes were tested by using a Likert scale to obtain the results for making decisions. The school characteristics consist of the level of implementation of guidance programs in high schools, enrollment size, and socioeconomic status of the school and strength of minorities students were analyzed in this study. The school environment was considered as school safety, uninterrupted classes, and the behavior of classmates. The student’s characteristics considered in this research included gender, parents’ qualification, minority students, career information availed at school etc. The desired students’ results in the study included students’ grades, students perception about the quality of education for career development and likeness of school.
A hierarchical linear modeling approach was used in this study to analyze the data of Missouri high schools to investigate the impact of comprehensive guidance programs on academic improvement of students. The impact of school environment and relationship among students’ characteristics and outcomes were achieved by using regression slope and interception. In order to measure the statistical significance, the researchers have used t-test. The findings of the hierarchical linear model supported the four goals of this study. The findings showed that the schools who have implemented comprehensive guidance programs are playing a major role in improving the academic performance of their students. The students reading in those schools who have implemented comprehensive guidance programs believed that their schools are providing adequate career development information and they like their school environment more than other students. The study also found that comprehensive guidance programs do not influence the relationship between students’ outcome and gender, races and socioeconomic status of students.
