title: The effect of school dropout on verbal ability in adulthood: a propensity score matching approach.
abstract: Compared to high school graduates, adolescents who drop out of school are more likely to have a range of negative outcomes, including lower verbal capacities; however, the true nature of this association is not well-understood. Dropping out of school could have an important effect on reducing verbal skills, or the link between dropping out of school and diminished verbal skills could be a spurious association that is the result of unmeasured confounding variables. The current study tested these two competing perspectives by using propensity-score-matching (PSM) to unpack the association between school dropout and verbal skills among 7,317 respondents from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (51% female, 49% male; 62% Caucasian, 38% minority). The results of the PSM models indicated a small yet meaningful statistically significant effect of dropout on verbal skills in adulthood even after taking into account a range of confounders. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results.
authors.affiliation: Saint Louis University, 3550 Lindell Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63103, USA. mvaughn9@slu.edu
authors.forename: Michael G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Vaughn
authors.forename: Kevin M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Beaver
authors.forename: Jade
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wexler
authors.forename: Matt
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: DeLisi
authors.forename: Gregory J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Roberts
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D015986:Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004521:Educational Measurement; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012649:Self Concept; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013060:Speech; D013067:Speech Perception; D013332:Student Dropouts / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D014825:Vocabulary