The Teacher-Police-School-Community Scale and the Prediction of School Suspensions and Truancy
The purpose of this study was to investigate the ability of the TPSC scale to predict suspensions and/or truancy from school. The sample population consisted of the student body of the one junior high school in an urban school district of some 4,500 students located in the south-central part of the United States. Of the eight- and ninth-grade students in the study, 385 were males and 368 were females; 85% were white, 15% black, and 31% were from low income families. The TPSC Teacher and School subscales were used as the predictor variables. Criterion variables were established by mean of school records used to classify each student as truant or non-truant, and suspended or nonsuspended. It was a basic assumption underlying the analyses of these data that the samples being compared were from the same population. However, analysis by means of a t test indicated that significantly different score distributions resulted from the standardization sample and the sample used in this study. Separate analysis indicated significant differences between scores classified by sex within the present sample, therefore, further analysis of date by ex was mandated. A point bi-serial correlation was used to examine the relationships between the TPS predictor variables and the criteria of truant / suspended. A significant correlation (£ < .01) was found between the Teacher subscale and suspension with the male group. On the school subscale significant correlations (£ < .01) were found with regard to both suspension and truancy with the male group. The correlation associated with the teacher subscale and truancy with the male group was nonsignificant as were all correlations with the female group. The significant relationships accounted for only a small portion of the total variance and the predictive efficiency of the TPSC subscales. as demonstrated by a cutoff table procedure was not felt to be of practical usage.
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