While pursuing her doctoral degree in education and becausessed bythe performance of homeschooled students in her classes, Rhonda Galloway, an English teacher at Bob Jones University (BJU), decided to doher dissertatin on checking out these students. First she identified 60 freshmen admitted to BJU ho had been exclusively homeschooled through high school and compared them with 60 freshmen who had attended private Christian schools and 60 freshmen who had attended public high schools as totheir performance in their first-year English courses. The results showed that homeschooled students did as well as the other students. This study satisfied her requirements for her doctorate, but didn't completely satisfy her curiosity about htese students.

Four years later she decided to do some more investigating, specifically to see how thes students performed during the rest of their college years. She was able to determine that 21 of the homeschooled students graduated from BJU, along with 26 of the private school studnts and 17 of the public high school students. But she still wanted toknow no only their academic performance, but also 63 other indicators of their success int he categories of cognitive, social, spiritual and psychomotor performance. Academics, of course, were determined by grade pint average, class rank, etc. while the cognitive classification involved thedifficulty of the student's major and being a member in academic organizations. The social category included extra-curricular activities like dance, music and drama while the spiritual indicators were taking part in mission trips and records of behavior. Lastly, such activities as sports and cheerleading demonstrated their psychomotor involvement. She compared the averages for each group on the basis of these 63 measures.

This time the results were remarkable. In 42 of the 63 indicators, homeschoolers came in first - with a large margin in all but one. And undertandably, that was the psychomotor which included sports and cheerleading. Academically, homeschoolers achieved first place for te out of the twelve indicators and first for 17 out of the 23 measures in the cognitive area. They were the highest in the social category with seve out of the ten first-place ranks and in the spiritual category with seven out of the eleven indicators.

The most significant results showed that homeschoolers were highest in leadership abilities, holding offices in campus organizations. Rhonda Galloway frankly stated that, "They are the leaders on campus," and "I don't ever want to hear again that homeschooled children are socially inept." She pointed out the value of the individualized academic program that homeschooling affords, creating a model learning environment which provides an ideal preparation for college. Another significant point is that homeschoolers are not peer-grouped, learning to get along with a variety of people, making them mature socially and adjustable to new and challenging situations. She also pointed out that their environment had been nurturing and secure in the family, stating that "A child's relationship to his or her parents is at the heart of that child's success as an adult."

Adapted from aricle by Dr. Rick Medlin in Homeschooling Today, Jan/Feb 1999
Reprinted with permission for the Moore Report International Nov/Dec 1999