Determination of school dropout risks of high school students according to various variables (Edirne province example)

School dropout is a problem that all states are making great efforts to solve today. It is a known fact that school dropout causes great losses to both individuals and states in the short and long term. Particularly, not completing the secondary education level, where the greatest gains are made in terms of preparing individuals for the business world in many respects, causes major problems at this point. In this study, it is aimed to determine whether high school students have a risk of dropping out of school and how this risk differs within the scope of certain variables within Edirne Province. The sample of the research; It consists of 1676 students studying in Imam Hatip High Schools, Anatolian High Schools, Vocational and Technical Anatolian High Schools, Music and Performing Arts High School, Social Sciences High School and Sports High School. The School Dropout subscale of the Risky Behavior Scale developed by Gençtanırım-Kuru (2010) was used in the study. The validity and reliability studies of the scale were conducted by Gençtanırım-Kuru (2010), and the validity and reliability study of the School Dropout sub-dimension to be used in the research was conducted by the researcher with confirmatory factor analysis. In the first part of the scale, there was a personal information form in which demographic characteristics such as students' gender, grade level, number of siblings, number of siblings studying, mother and father's survival status, mother and father's education level, monthly income of the family and school type were collected. In the research, The collected data were analyzed with statistical package program. Mann-Whitney U Test to determine whether students' school dropout risks differ according to gender and parents' survival variables; Kruskal Wallis analysis was conducted to determine whether there were differences according to grade, number of siblings, number of siblings studying, parents' educational status, family income and school type variables. To evaluate the effect sizes of the variables on the scale, eta v squared (μ2) values were calculated in accordance with Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis H tests. The findings obtained in this research are as follows: the risk of school dropout of students is higher among male students higher than female students. Students studying in the 12th grade have a higher risk of dropping out than students studying in the 11th grade. Students whose fathers are not alive have a higher risk of dropping out of school than those whose fathers are alive. Likewise, students whose fathers have a higher education level have less risk of dropping out of school. The risk of school dropout is higher in students studying in Sports High School, Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School and Imam Hatip High School.