The development of self-determination: a qualitative exploration of the Indiana choice scholarship program

Abstract

The 1960s launched the school movement of choice. Today, school choice is nationally threaded through many states serving a diversity of students. Indiana developed and implemented the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program (ICSP) policy in 2011 to align with these national initiatives to benefit students. The goal for Indiana was to ease the burden of private education costs for families regardless of a family’s income, but not all challenges within implementation have been remedied. The historical evolution of school choice currently focuses on the effectiveness of these state policies with regard to transitioning from the public to the private school for learners. Undergirded by Self-Determination Theory, this study focuses on high school students who matriculated from public to private ICSP Catholic schools. Participants were interviewed about their experience in both school settings after using the ICSP for at least one full school year. Participants reflected on their ability to make autonomous decisions, the importance of feeling connected to others, and their understanding of actions needed for career readiness. By implementing qualitative inquiry (Saldana, 2016), interviews explored perceptions about the ICSP, focusing on SDT. This approach aided in analyzing individual students’ perceptions behind the reasons why they chose to leave the public schools and enroll in Indiana’s Choice Scholarship Program. Qualitative inquiry allowed for a discussion about what had worked well, what had been a challenge, and what had helped ICSP students imagine college and career readiness after transferring schools. This design gave participants an opportunity to discuss choices regarding behaviors developing autonomy, relatedness to peers and mentors, and competence within academic programs and extracurriculars. Qualitative inquiry also discussed relevant topics that naturally evolved from conversations (Crotty, 2015) such as the COVID pandemic. The rationale for this selection was to explore how the ICSP had shaped a student’s opportunities for overall student success and college and career readiness using the SDT as a platform. The focus of this study was to have a discussion to understand if students see any benefit to a voucher scholarship program to attend an ICSP school. Cross-referencing responses added depth and understanding to the findings. Families still find school choice in Indiana difficult to sustain. Students in the study noted the challenge of transitioning from the public to the private school climates, commitment expectations, and financial costs associated with transferring to an ICSP school. While families still continue to struggle, Indiana continues to evolve the program to serve as many students K- 12 as possible. Regardless of personal tests, participants in this study were satisfied with their decisions to leave the public school to attend the ICSP school. They felt for their college and career success, the transition was necessary.