Military Children as a Mobile Population: Effects on Achievement

Abstract

Children of military families face many obstacles during their lives with the majorchallenge being mobility throughout their academic careers. With mobility comesseparation when parents are deployed and removed from their families for extendedperiods of time. These separations can cause added stress to an already difficultchildhood and adolescence. Children can be affected by academic achievement,attendance in schools, and emotional well-being. This study was conducted to focus onhow student achievement is affected by the mobility of military families. Students insixth grade who had parents that were active duty military were compared with their nonmilitary peers in the areas of reading and mathematics to determine if there was acorrelation in academic achievement and gender.Research questions were addressed using STAR Reading and Mathematics dataand addressed four main areas: (1) The change in math achievement between sixth gradestudents whose parents were active duty members of the military and those studentswhose parents were not members of the military; (2) The difference in the change in mathachievement between sixth grade students whose parents were active duty members ofthe military and those students whose parents were not members of the military separatedby gender; (3) The difference in the change in reading achievement between sixth gradestudents whose parents were active duty members of the military and those studentswhose parents were not members of the military; (4) The difference in the change inreading achievement between sixth grade students whose parents were active dutymembers of the military and those students whose parents were not members of themilitary separated by gender. The sample included data from 135 students in sixth grade from District XYZ during the 2013-2014 school year. A two-factor analysis of variancewas conducted to test the hypotheses regarding achievement.The results of the study indicate there was a statistically significant interactioneffect of military status and gender on mathematics achievement, as measured by theSTAR. However, there was not a statistical significance between students who hadparents that were active duty military compared to students who had parents that werenon-military in reading or compared to gender in reading.