Date
8-29-2025
Department
School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in Education (PhD)
Chair
Jeffrey Savage
Keywords
resilience, military-connected high school students, academic credit loss, high geographic mobility
Disciplines
Education
Recommended Citation
Klink, Jamie Alicia Cannon, "Examining Credit Loss Faced by Military-Connected Students: A Causal Comparison Based on High School Mobility and Resilience Factors" (2025). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 7463.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/7463
Abstract
This quantitative, causal-comparative study investigated the number of academic credits lost among military-connected high school students based on their geographic mobility: those who moved zero, one, or more than one time during their high school years, when controlling for the students’ resilience, as measured by the Current Experience Scale. Understanding the impact of geographic mobility on the resilience and academic credits of military-connected high school students is critical, as it exemplifies the unique challenges and obstacles this student population faces. A one-way analysis of covariance was used to test the hypothesis, but assumptions were violated and transformations were unsuccessful. Ultimately, two one-way analysis of variance tests were used to analyze the data. Credit loss increased across the three groups: students who did not move at all lost the least amount of academic credit, students who moved once lost more academic credit, and students who moved two or more times lost the most amount of academic credit. Resilience scores were lowest for the group that moved one time, but higher for the group that did not move at all, and highest for the group that moved two or more times. This research is significant for military families and national defense policymakers who prioritize recruitment, retention, and morale of servicemembers and their families, as well as academic outcomes for military-connected students.
