Date of Conferral

2019

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Susan H. Marcus

Abstract

The sudden removal of immigrant parents by deportation can have lasting effects on children's overall wellbeing. While many studies demonstrate the impact parental deportation has on the child development, more research has been called for on how deportation and the removal of parents by deportation can affect school performance among ESL students. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the student factors that predict 5 domains of school performance among ELS students of undocumented parents as perceived by their ESL teachers. Sewell's duality of structures served as the theoretical framework. A quantitative correlational design using an online survey research method was used to examine the extent to which student factors, (e.g., ability to focus, make friends, and persist on school tasks) predicted the 5 domains (e.g., basic skills, arts, humanities, STEM and physical fitness) using a questionnaire completed by 122 ESL teachers. Each of the factors were composed of 3 to 5 items, and interitem analyses revealed that all scales had adequate internal consistency. The data produced no significant correlations between the predictor variables and 5 measures of academic performance. The lack of relationship was likely a function of methodological challenges, and it is recommended that future studies consider more direct measures of immigrant student home and school variables that could influence academic performance.

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