Date of Award

Spring 5-1-2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational Leadership

Abstract

The primary purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if there is a relationship between fatherly involvement in students’ lives and select factors of student descriptors and school success. Specifically, the study sought to discover if there is a significant relationship between fatherlessness and student success and if there is a significant relationship between fatherlessness and select student descriptors. Descriptive statistics and linear regression were used to interpret and analyze the data for the study. There were 1,780 respondents who participated in the study. Respondents included seniors from rural, suburban, and urban public schools. In conducting this study, the following inferential questions were addressed and analyzed by a comparison of responses submitted by public school principals from Indiana public schools: 1. Are there differences on the proportions between fatherless homes and homes with fathers based on the socioeconomic status of the student? Specifically, the Pearson chi-square test was selected to determine goodness of fit and examined whether the distribution was higher in one group than expected. The result of the Pearson chi-square test indicated a significant difference in the expected and actual counts within the two-by-two design, providing justification to split the remaining null hypotheses into two different samples based on lunch status. 2. Is there a significant difference on academic achievement based on the presence or absence of a father in the home for students eligible for free-and-reduced price lunches? This question revealed there was a significant difference. These students, if iv they did not have a father in the home, scored lower on Indiana End of Course Assessments (ECA; i.e., English/language arts and Algebra I), and college admission standardized tests (i.e., ACT, SAT, PSAT). 3. Is there a significant difference on academic achievement based on the presence or absence of a father in the home for students not eligible for free-and-reduced price lunches? It was found that there was a significant difference. Students who do not have a father in the home scored lower on Indiana ECA (i.e., English/language arts and Algebra I), and college admission standardized tests (i.e., ACT, SAT, PSAT). 4. Does attendance, discipline, fatherlessness, grade point average (GPA), and gender serve as a predictor for academic achievement for students not eligible for free-and-reduced price lunches? This question demonstrated that discipline and GPA served as predictors for academic achievement for this group of students. 5. Does attendance, discipline, fatherlessness, GPA, and gender serve as a predictor for academic achievement for students eligible for free-and-reduced price lunches? It was found that attendance, fatherlessness, GPA, and gender serve as predictors for academic achievement for this group of students.

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