We will be discussing two projects that we are currently concluding in four Chicago Public High Schools. Both projects work with ethnic minority students with physical, learning, and cognitive disabilities to encourage their success in high school and to, upon graduation, promote their successful transition into other life roles. Implementing and evaluating our intervention has been a challenge in each of these four schools. We will share our ways in which we have attempted to maintain our scientific integrity with a rigorous evaluation plan, including attention to both process and outcome issues.
This evaluation plan involves the use of multiple methods. Both qualitative interviews with students, parents, teachers and administrators, in addition to quantitative measures of intervention effects through assessment of student attitudes and behaviors, are incorporated. The challenges of implementing each of these evaluation tools will be discussed.