“do male or female children in foster care have trouble adjusting to the real world once they age out of foster care?” I wanted to include a quantitative variable to my data. In order to do that, I changed my question to “ Does having a larger support group assist with a better adjustment for male and female children once they age out of foster care. The variables I chose included “where do they fall” as far as integrating into the real world that doesn’t involve foster care. My second variable would be the number of people that are there to support them through their decision making.
Gender
“Age Out Scale”
Support System
- Male
4-looking for a job
8 Supports
2. Female
5-starting college
17 Supports
3. Male
0-jail
2 Supports
4. Female
3-moving to a new home
14 Supports
5. Male
5-starting trade school
21 Supports
6. Female
1-homeless
1 Support
7. Male
0-jail
2 Supports
8. Female
0-jail
2 Supports
9. Male
4-looking for a job
9 Supports
10. Female
5-starting college
19 Supports
Male
“Age Out Scale”
Supports
Mean
135=2.6
425=8.4
Median
0 0 4 4 5 = 4
2 2 8 9 21 = 8
Mode
More than 1 mode(0 and 4)
2
Range
5–0=5
21–2=19
Standard Deviations
2((0−2.6)2)+2((4−2.6)2)+(5−2.6)25−1=13.52+3.92+5.764=
5.8‾‾‾‾√=2.408
2((2−8.4)2)+(8−8.4)2+(9−8.4)2+(21−8.4)25−1=
81.92+0.16+0.36+158.764=
251.2‾‾‾‾‾‾√=15.849
Variance
5.8
251.2
Female
“Age out Scale”
Supports
Mean
145=2.8
535=10.6
Median
0 1 3 5 5 = 3
1 2 14 17 19 =14
Mode
5
No mode
Range
5–0=5
19–1=18
Standard Deviation
(0−2.6)2+(1−2.6)2+(3−2.6)2+2((5−2.6)2)5−1
6.76+2.56+0.16+11.524
21‾‾‾√=4.583
(1−10.6)2+(2−10.6)2+(14−10.6)2+(17−10.6)2+(19−10.6)25−1
92.16+73.96+11.56+40.96+70.564=
72.3=8.503
Variance
21
72.3
Based on my data, it is definitely skewed towards one direction. My data shows that females tend to have more support than males do. THerefore, young women will have a better chance at transitioning out of foster care and making their situations a success story. It’s unfortunate that my data shows that males with little support end up in jail or in other bad situations.
From the data collected, I note that using the range doesn’t show much variation. Since the range for the “age out scale” is from 0 to 5, the range would be 5. There’s not much variation with that for both males and females. And using range for the Supports variable doesn’t show the variation of the data either.
The most I use in everyday would be the mean of the data. I mainly use this when I’m calculating my bills. I like to calculate on average what my paycheck would look like so that I deviate my money into the correct areas when it is time to pay for them.
