COMPARISON OF PROPORTION OF TEXAS CAMPUS COLLEGE, CAREER, AND MILITARY READINESS OF ALL STUDENTS TO THE PROPORTION OF TEXAS CAMPUS COLLEGE, CAREER, AND MILITARY READINESS BY ETHNICITY/RACE, GENDER, AND ECONOMIC STATUS

Purpose The primary purpose of this journal-ready dissertation was to determine the degree to which differences might be present in the campus proportion of college, career, and military readiness for Texas high school graduates. In particular, the purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which the overall campus proportion of college, career, and military readiness differed between student ethnic groups (i.e., Hispanic, White, and Black) in categories (i.e., lowest proportion, below average proportion, above average proportion, highest proportion) established using means and standard deviations when compared to the overall campus proportion for all students in two school years. A second purpose was to determine the extent to which the campus proportion of college, career, and military ready students differed by gender compared to the overall campus proportion of college, career, and military ready students in two school years. The third and final purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which the campus proportion of college, career, and military ready students differed by student economic status when compared to the overall campus proportion of college, career, and military ready students in two school years. College, career, and military readiness rates are reported in the Texas Academic Performance Reports, and these data were analyzed for two school years: 2017-2018 and 2018-2019.

Method A non-experimental causal-comparative research design was employed for this investigation to determine the degree to which differences were present among college, career, and military ready students by ethnicity/race, gender, and economic status. Archival data were obtained from the Texas Education Agency’s Texas Academic Performance Reports (TAPR) for the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years. Participants were Texas high school students who graduated college, career, or military ready. Findings In the first investigation, most of the results were statistically for all groups by ethnicity/race for both school years. The White student analysis for the 2018-2019 school years did not reveal a statistically significant result. Effect sizes for all statistically significant results were small or below small (Cohen, 1988). In the second study, gender did not prove a statistically significant difference for the 2017-2018 school years. However, the 2018-2019 school year’s analysis was statistically significant, resulting in a below small effect size for male and female students. In the third and final investigation, results were definitive, revealing no statistically significant difference between the campus proportion of economically disadvantage and the overall campus proportion for both school years.