University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
Doi
Abstract
Student agency is touted as one of the three pillars of college and career readiness as part of the Achievement Via Individual Determination (AVID) organization’s framework (AVID, 2021). However, there is little to no current research specific to student agency as an outcome of the AVID program. This study sought to answer the questions ‘How and to what extent did participation in the AVID program empower students to develop agency?’ The study was conducted in a school district which had a fifteen-year history with the AVID program and was recognized as a ‘model’ school for implementation. A simple mixed-methods questionnaire was used to elicit feedback from AVID alumni who graduated during the years 2009 and 2021. The questionnaire was heavily modeled after a previous study (Zeiser et al., 2018) published by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), using student agency constructs and teacher practices developed in that research. Results of this study indicated very high levels of agreement from AVID alumni regarding their development of agency and the presence of teacher practices that support the development of student agency. Alumni of the program also strongly associated this agency development with their college and career readiness. In addition, the researcher analyzed the results using the theoretical framework of Psychological Empowerment Theory (PET) in order to contribute to an understanding of whether students were fully empowered to develop agency. The researcher developed a framework using the constructs and teacher practices alongside the four dimensions of psychological empowerment (Spreitzer, 1995). Overall, results were positive but presented varying levels of strength among the four dimensions. Implications for practitioners and future work were presented.Doctor of Educatio
