Juntos’ Latest Research
A recent study done by Juntos focuses on the impact the Juntos program has on the participating youth. Juntos is made up of four wraparound components, which are:
- Family engagement which includes a five-week middle school or six-week high school Juntos Family Workshop Series followed by bi-monthly family nights to increase parent involvement and school communication
- Monthly one-on-one success coaching by a local Juntos Site Coordinator to help students with their academic progress
- After-school Juntos 4-H club meetings and activities twice a month throughout the school year
- Summer programming (including a week-long summer college experience, full-day college family events, soccer tournaments, and other educational events.
The study included 241 students that participated in all four components of the Juntos program during the 2016-2017 school year. All of these students were of Latino/a background. The majority of the respondents were in 8th grade, but there was also a large representation from 9th and 10th grade. We created an instrument that had 89 quantitative and seven qualitative questions. Data was gathered from 293 pre-surveys and 247 post-surveys. The study measured the effectiveness of the Juntos program in terms of meeting its four goals. The goals and the results of the findings in terms of each goal are listed below.
First Goal: “Increase Latina/o student success by improving student attendance and grades, and achieving high school graduation”
- 94% of students felt motivated to get good grades
- 87% felt they improved their grades to prepare for college
- 78% felt that they were more motivated to graduate from high school
- 68% felt that their school attendance improved
- All of the 12th graders in the program graduated from high school on time.
Second Goal: “Increase the percentage of Latina/o students preparing for and attending higher education.”
The table below shows the improvement of college preparedness of the participants. This was measured with six matching pre-test and post-test questions. The responses were based on a four-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree).
- Approximately 91% of the youth were confident that they would continue their education after high school
- 52% of seniors in the program reported being accepted to a college and planning to attend, this is 19% above the average for Latino/a seniors in NC.
- 47% of the teens in the program planned on getting a bachelors degree and 33% planned to pursue graduate studies.
Third Goal: “Increase family engagement that leads to students’ educational success.”
- 85% of participants felt that the program taught their parents how to help them do well in school
- 96% reported that their parents talked to them about their grades and 78% of them talked about their college options
- 91% of participants said their parents were monitoring their homework
- 83% reported that their parents attended school events numerous times
Fourth Goal: “Increase the sense of belonging among Latina/o students and families in their schools and communities.”
- 94% felt they belonged in their school
- 77% felt they were able to advocate for themselves at school, which increased by 18% from the pre-test
Below is a pdf with a summary of the research and its results