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Abstract
This exploratory study examines the academic outcomes of homeschooled students who enter a medium size doctoral institution located in the Midwest. Descriptive analysis reveals homeschool students possess higher ACT scores, grade point averages (GPAs) and graduation rates when compared to traditionally-educated students. In addition, multiple regression analysis results reveal that students who are homeschooled earn higher first-year and fourth-year GPAs when controlling for demographic, pre-college, engagement, and first-term academic factors. Further, binary logistic regression results indicate there is no significant difference between homeschooled student's fall-to-fall retention and four-year graduation rates when compared to traditionally-educated students while controlling for these same factors.
Introduction
Homeschooling is a type of education which typically occurs in the home with the child's parent or guardian serving as the primary educator. Prior to the advent of compulsory education im the 1700s, homeschooling was the primary form of education of the masses as the concept of hiring a teacher or tutor was available only to the elite (DiStefano, Rudestam and Silverman 2004). In the United States, compulsory education laws were adapted by nearly every state by the early 1900s. In essence, these compulsory laws decreased the number of homeschooled students dramatically as many states determined homeschooling was a controversial form of education and in many cases illegal (Knowles, Muchmore and Spalding 1994).
In the 1970s, it was estimated there were 13,000 K-12 students receiving their education through a homeschooling format im the United States (Lines 1991). Currently, homeschooling is legal in all 50 states and is considered to be one of the fastest growing segments of K-12 education in the United States (Ray 2009). The National Center for Education Statistics: (Bielick 2008) recently released an estimate indicating the number of homeschooled students between the ages of 5 and 17 has increased from 800,000 in 1999 to 1,508,000 m 2007. This represents an 88 percent increase im the number of homeschooled students in the US during, this period. Based on these estimates, homeschooled students represent approximately 3 percent of children attending K-12 in the US. As a group, the population of homeschooled students in the US is nearly as much as the population of students in New York City and Los Angeles combined (US Department of Education 2008) One of...