Ralph Mcneal

University of Connecticut | UConn · Department of Sociology

Researchers focusing on parent involvement continue to concentrate their efforts on the relationship between involvement and student performance in isolation of the school context in which involvement occurs. This research outlines an ecology of involvement and how this social context affects parent involvement and student performance. Relying on B...

There is a lot we know about online courses, but a lot is yet to be discovered. We know quite a bit about how to develop these courses, as well as how to deliver them. We know quite a bit about assuring the quality of these courses, and how to assess student performance. We know quite a bit about how to "incentivize" faculty to develop these course...

There are many conflicting findings regarding the relationship between parent involvement and student performance. Some findings support a positive relationship between involvement and achievement, whereas others support a negative relationship. The most common explanation for the negative findings, in which parent involvement is associated with lo...

It is known from previous research that the likelihood of dropping out is affected by a number of individual traits, including, among others, socioeconomic status (SES), race/ethnicity, gender, and employment status. It is also known that dropping out is contingent on a variety of school characteristics. What is less known about is how dropping out...

Prevention research continues to focus on school-based substance use programs aimed at adolescents. These programs are designed to reduce substance use and risk behavior by targeting key mediators, such as normative beliefs, which in turn reduce substance use. All Stars is a newly developed program that was recently evaluated in a randomized field...

This paper compares the potential for twelve psychosocial variables to act as change agents (mediators) in substance use prevention programs. A sample (N = 4,412) of students in grades six through eleven were surveyed during two consecutive years of a longitudinal study. A five-factor model of psychosocial influences was used to predict subsequent...

This study examines psychosocial predictors of self-initiated substance use cessation among youths who have had recent substance use experience. Variables included those that are the focus of many primary prevention programs. Middle school and high school students who used either alcohol, cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, marijuana, or inhalants were...

Parental involvement is a much investigated area of research. Unfortunately, there are many conflicting findings. In some cases, researchers claim parental involvement positively affects academic achievement, while others claim parental involvement negatively affects academic achievement. Finally, a third grouping of studies find parental involveme...

Using the concepts of cultural and social capital, I provide a theoretical framework for why there should be differential effects of parental involvement across cognitive (e.g., science achievement) and behavioral (e.g., truancy and dropping out) outcomes. Findings indicate that parental involvement is generally a salient factor in explaining behav...

Objectives. This research conceptualizes the high school context as one which provides an opportunity structure for students. Within this theoretical framework, I examine how the school affects student participation in high school extracurricular activities. Methods. This research uses the High School and Beyond database and analyzes school structu...

Understanding normative practice in drug education is a key to identifying means of improving preventive intervention outcomes. In this paper, we report findings of an observational study in which drug education in multiple periods of 146 middle school classes was categorized minute-by-minute according to the type of instruction provided to student...

This study longitudinally examines the changes in key mediators for adolescent substance use. Previous research and intervention strategies typically target mediators as important loci for program intervention. Findings presented here indicate that while some deterioration of key mediators occurs developmentally among all adolescents, the deteriora...

Much existing research documents the benefits gained by students when they participate in high school extracurricular activities (Camp, 1990; Eidsmore, 1964; Haensly, Lupkowski, & Edlind, 1986; Holland & Andre, 1987; McNeal, 1995; Yarworth & Gauthier, 1978). However, we know little about the patterns of participation (i.e., who is more likely to pa...

Despite the burgeoning literature on the effect of students' employment on various outcomes, only the relationship between the intensity of employment (hours worked) and dropping out of high school has been investigated. This article presents an analysis of the author's research, which used data from High School and Beyond to examine the relationsh...

The D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program has relied on a curriculum that addresses a variety of psychosocial processes thought to be related to substance use and potentially modifiable through programmatic intervention. This study examines 12 postulated mediators of substance use prevention programs to determine the degree to which D....

Data from the High School and Beyond data set ( N = 5,772 high school [HS] students, mean age 15.5 yrs) were used to study the school's role in creating HS dropouts, specifically the impact of school structural (size, pupil/teacher ratio [P/TR], specialization and teaching intensity) and contextual (school climate, academic emphasis and social mil...

Objective. This research conceptualizes the high school as providing an opportunity structure for students and possibly altering a student's likelihood of dropping out. Methods. This research analyzes data from the High School and Beyond database. Select school-level concepts are estimated using confirmatory factor analysis; school effects are esti...

The application of mediating variable analysis can yield information about the potential effectiveness of interventions that target social behavior. The application of widely accepted statistical equations to the analysis of simulated data demonstrates that the magnitude of the relationship between mediators and behavioral outcomes directly affects...

Widely disseminated programs often fail to include experimental or quasi-experimental evaluation designs to test effectiveness. This article presents several data-analyzing strategies that may help evaluators assess program effectiveness under the conditions of natural experiments. The suggested methodology is to perform multiple independent analys...

Previous research on high school dropouts has typically examined the relationship between a student's attributes and dropping out, but research on the more "voluntary" or behavioral attributes associated with dropping out of high school has been limited. The findings presented here indicate that participation in certain extracurricular activities (...

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This study deals with intervening factors such as family composition, religiosity, and HIV/AIDS knowledge in understanding the association of race and ethnicity with HIV/AIDS-related attitudes and behaviors. Data represent Wave 1 of a five-month panel design involving 10th grade students in eight public high schools in Dade County (greater Miami) F...