Evaluating the Effectiveness of Programs to Improve Educational Attainment of Unwed African American Teen Mothers: A Meta Analysis

• Published in: The Journal of Negro education Vol. 75; no. 3; pp. 458 - 477
• Main Author: Baytop, Chanza M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Howard University School of Education 01.07.2006; Journal of Negro Education; Howard University, School of Divinity
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; Adolescents; African Americans; Black students - United States; Child care; Control Groups; Early Parenthood; Education; Educational Attainment; Educational attainment - United States; Educational Development; Effectiveness studies; Hispanics; Meta Analysis; Mothers; One Parent Family; Outcomes of Education; Parenting; Parents & parenting; Part 3: Parental and Family Factors Related to Learning, Achievement, and Student Behavior; Pregnancy; Prevention; Program Effectiveness; Program Evaluation; Randomized controlled trials; Sex education; Single group studies; Social services; Studies; Systematic review; Teen pregnancy; Teenage pregnancy; Teenage pregnancy - United States; Teenagers; United States - Educational policy; Urban areas; United States > US
• ISSN: 0022-2984; 2167-6437

This study applied meta-analytic methods to synthesize the findings and examine the effects of interventions, including secondary teen pregnancy prevention programs, on educational attainment among unwed African American teen mothers. Multiple search strategies were employed to identify published and unpublished reports of randomized and non-randomized intervention studies that evaluated the impact on school enrollment and completion among adolescent mothers (ages 13-19) in the U.S. from 1970-2003. Eligible criteria were applied to yield 29 studies. Based on the pooled estimates of 15 randomized studies, the results suggest that secondary teen pregnancy prevention programs and other interventions for adolescent mothers have had minimal impact on increasing rates of educational attainment among adolescent mothers. The 14 non-randomized studies, primarily based on school-based interventions, estimated significantly larger effects that are not reliable due to the inherent selection bias in these studies. Future research is needed to explore the influence on study characteristics on intervention effect. Recommendations for program and policymakers are reported.