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Hello, , from NHERI and Dr. Ray.

​​​​​​​The Context

Even within the last few years, negative critics of homeschooling and of homeschool advocacy have claimed that research on homeschooling tells us almost nothing. At times, the criticism of positive claims about homeschooling’s effects has been softened. For example, consider the following:

Those claims [“that homeschooling ‘works’ and ‘leads to’ desirable outcomes”] might be true but cannot be supported by analyses of extant empirical evidence.[1]

Regardless of whether these writers’ claim was true five years ago, is there any recent information that tell us anything definite about homeschooling and its effects? Yes, and it reveals more than many critics seem to want to admit.

​​​​​​​

One Recent Review of Research

The peer-reviewed Journal of School Choice published my manuscript entitled “A Systematic Review of the Empirical Research on Selected Aspects of Homeschooling as a School Choice.”[2] The purpose of the article is to give the demographic characteristics of the U.S. homeschooling population and the reasons that parents choose to homeschool, summarize the findings of studies on the homeschool learner outcomes of academic achievement, social development, and success in adulthood, and propose future research on parent-led home-based education.

One of the unique aspects of this review of research is that only peer-reviewed sources are noted and included for the aspect of the review that deals with the selected learner outcomes of academic achievement, social development, and degree of success in adulthood. In this, the purpose is to compare homeschool students to those who were educated in conventional or institutional schools such as traditional public, charter, or private schools.

This is the first review of homeschool research that I know of to use this approach. Using only peer-reviewed studies enhances discipline and consistency in the review. It reduces the opportunity for the reviewer to be arbitrary, capricious, or biased in what is selected for inclusion. Further, it theoretically enhances the methodological soundness of the studies included in the overview, and thus makes the conclusions based on the data more dependable.

In an earlier news article, I covered one learner outcome, academic achievement, that was in my Journal of School Choice article. Here I will cover the topic of the social, emotional, and psychological development of the home educated. Many call this the “What-about­-socialization question.” Future news articles will address other topics presented in the review article such as the demographic characteristics of homeschoolers, reasons for homeschooling, and the relative success of the homeschooled into college and adulthood.

Research Evidence on the Social Development of the Homeschooled

My literature search resulted in 15 peer-reviewed quantitative studies for inclusion on the topic of social development. Several sub-topics were addressed by researchers, such as depression levels, problem behaviors, social competence, use/abuse of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs, cooperation, self-control, conflict with others, personal security, and social maturity.

Thirteen of the 15 peer-reviewed studies showed clearly positive outcomes for the homeschooled compared to those in conventional schools. Two of those studies reported that some of the findings were more positive for homeschool students but some were more positive for institutional school students. Key details of these studies are presented in Table 2 of the report.

In the journal article, I provided illustrative descriptions of a few of the studies. Here is one of them:

Only a decade ago, very few large and national databases containing data on homeschool children or youth were available; it appears that this is quickly changing. One example is the study by Thomson and Jang (2016), which utilized data from the National Study of Youth and Religion. They were able to control for several potentially confounding variables, and found “homeschooled adolescents to be less likely to drink alcohol and, if they do, less likely to get drunk than their public and private high school counterparts” (p. 295). (p. 9)

Here is a second example:

Shyers (1992), in his classic cross-sectional, explanatory, matched-pair study of homeschool and conventional school 8- to 10-year-olds, found very few differences on his dependent variables. There were no differences between the two groups on student self-concept or passivity. Upon direct observation of the children’s behaviors in play groups by research assistants blinded to the schooling identity of the children, however, they found that homeschool “students received significantly lower problem behavior scores than did their agemates from [a] traditional program” (p. 5). (p. 9 & 11)

Summary

Let the reader and author of this news article get straight to the point. Does research on homeschooling tells us anything with distinctness, or not? Yes. Increasingly, research points to positive correlates and effects being associated with parent-led home-based education.

In 13 of the 15 peer-reviewed studies on social development, there was a definite positive effect on (or correlation with) social, emotional, and psychological development for the homeschooled students as compared to students in other educational settings. That is, 87% of peer-reviewed studies in existence at the time of the article’s writing showed a statistically significant positive connection with home education. That is not “nothing.” That is not “we can’t say anything.”

Might fewer positive relationships with homeschooling be found in the future? It is possible. Might some negative relationships be found? It is possible. Might the make-up and nature of the homeschool community change? It is possible. As of now, however, some definite positive things regarding children’s and adults’ social development as interconnected with home-based education are revealed by peer-reviewed empirical studies.

--Brian D. Ray, Ph.D.

National Home Education Research Institute

P.S. If you would like a free copy of my new research article, please contact me at mail@nheri.org and ask for “the JSC article.”

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Keywords, Categories, Tags: homeschooling, home schooling, home education, home-based education, demographics, academic achievement, socialization, social development, adulthood, research, statistics, school choice research.

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Copyright © 2018 by Brian D. Ray

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