Texas 4-H Career and College Readiness Survey

Texas 4-H is participating in a survey with Edward Tarlton, an Agriculture Education doctoral candidate at Texas A&M University.  As a result of us participating in this research project on Career and College Readiness, you may receive an email from Mr. Tarlton (etarlton@tamu.edu) informing you that your child has been randomly selected to participate in an online survey.

Texas 4-H supports Mr. Tarlton’s study as it has the opportunity to help improve our college readiness experiences within 4-H.  We hope, as a parent, you will allow your child to participate through the signing of the consent forms. Additionally, we want you to know that:

• Participation is voluntary. If you or your child chooses not to be in this study or stop being in the study, there will be no effect on your relationship with Texas 4-H, Extension or Texas A&M University.
•  Aside from their time (15-20 min.), there are no costs or risk involved in taking part in the study
• Students will not be paid for their participation, but those that complete the survey within seven (7) days of receiving the email to access the questionnaire will be put into a raffle for one of three (3) $50 American Express gift cards
•  The records of this study will be kept private. No identifiers linking you or your child to this study will be included in any report that might be published. Research records will be stored securely, and only the Principal Investigator and other research study personnel will have access to the records

About the study and its goal:

The study seeks to survey 8^th-grade 4-H youth that has participated for at least 2-years and attend public school. The goal of the study is to assess students’ non-academic college and career readiness levels.  Specifically, your child will be taking the ACT ENGAGE 6-9 survey which asks questions related to motivation, self-regulation, and social engagement. Information about the survey can be found here: http://www.act.org/content/act/en/products-and-services/act-engage/about-act-engage.html.

The benefit to students & parents:

At the survey completion, participants will receive a link to download a PDF copy of their assessment report, which highlights areas of strength and those that can be improved. The report provides parents and students suggested interventions to assist students to improve their non-cognitive and cognitive academic success levels. (see the attached Sample Student ACT 6-9 Report)

The benefit to Texas 4 H:

Findings from the study will be used to assist the researcher to propose interventions that Texas 4-H can use to design interventions to include in all of its “life skills” programs to improve students college and career readiness.

Thank you in advance for your time and consideration. Do not hesitate to contact Edward Tarlton at 301.803.0110 should you have questions. Lastly, we appreciate your help in improving the 4-H Program and the positive impact it has on the youth of Texas.