Abstracts Psychology

Student Mobility: Former Students’ Perspectives and Mitigation Strategies

by Sarah J. Ramirez

Student mobility is commonly related to negative educational effects with mobile students often exhibiting lower achievement scores, more behavioral problems, and poorer grades as compared to non-mobile students. The majority of the literature has focused on the collection of quantitative data to explore this issue. School changes affect students’ personally as well as academically. This study focuses on the social-emotional aspects of these changes and attempts to pinpoint strategies mobile students can use to adjust to these changes as well as policies and programs schools can implement to assist students with these adjustments. This phenomenological study focuses on the experiences of a purposively sampled group of twelve former mobile students and eight current school personnel in a large urban district. The phenomenon of school mobility is explored as related through interviews with these individuals and examines the strategies they used or recommended using to assist with acclimation to new schools.Analysis consisted of the transcription, coding, and categorization of data from the interview responses which were used in order to answer the research questions. Responses fell into five distinct themes: academics and teaching styles, attitudes, peers, school personnel, and extra-curricular activities. Recommendations are made regarding the creation of withdrawal and enrollment protocols, the creation of policies regarding the timing of school changes, student buddy groups, and welcoming protocols, and introducing oneself and getting involved. Opportunities and recommendations for future research in the area of student mobility are also explored.