Research Wednesday: Counselors need to take holistic approach when preventing dropouts

Across the nation, dropout intervention efforts are focused on helping academically struggling students get the help they need to get to graduation day.

And now, increasingly, programs aimed at preventing dropouts (and recovering those who have already left school) are focusing on giving students the support and flexibility they need to overcome the non-academic obstacles that often stand in the way of a diploma.

But one area that is often neglected is the spiritual and psychological wellness of a student.

In this week’s edition of Research Wednesday, we look at a 2011 study published in the Journal of At-Risk Issues that found that psychological and spiritual components factor into whether a student stays in school.

The study, conducted by Jan C. Lemon and Joshua C. Watson, showed that addressing absenteeism, deviant behavior and social anxiety, common factors in dropouts, does not prevent a student from leaving school.

The authors, however, did find that students who feel like they matter, or are important to others, don’t suffer with the same depression and disconnect as their peers who don’t feel like they matter.

More importantly, though, the study found that students who can incorporate high school completion into their personal value systems end up graduating.

The trick, of course, is finding a way to convince teenagers that graduating is important.

School counselors, the study suggested, should include “interventions that promote skills, which develop purpose in life, compassion for others, moral values, and a sense of oneness with the universe.”

Hitting that target means individual and group counseling “with an emphasis on freeing students with ‘should’ and ‘oughts’ in their belief systems and creating plans with new outlooks on how to make the most of the student’s academic attributes, personal beliefs, and individual strengths.”

The authors acknowledged that counselors and educators can’t make someone believe something, and they can’t make someone do something they find useless.

“Thus, the attributes that protect students from making poor academic decisions can only be understood from the aspect of the student’s private logic,” the study stated.

The study concluded that a paradigm shift needs to occur when addressing the dropout epidemic.

Dropping out, the study reasoned, “has long been considered a problem of student dysfunction and should now be approached from a perspective that addresses life and academic behaviors affecting the student intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally.”

What are your thoughts on taking a holistic approach to addressing the needs of a student? Do you think or have you found this to be an effective or ineffective method of stemming the dropout epidemic?