Academic achievement

About: Academic achievement is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 69460 publications have been published within this topic receiving 2227289 citations. The topic is also known as: academic performance & educational achievement.

Learning from text: A multidimensional and developmental perspective

Abstract: Three students preparing to read and discuss a chapter from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, sit in a literature circle and hope that their attempts to learn from this novel prove successful. One of the students, Ralph, has been struggling because the world of Huck Finn seems alien to him. He does not understand why Huck Finn finds the river a place of escape and freedom because he knows rivers only from glimpses from the family car. He also finds the language of the runaway slave, Jim, strange. Despite these impediments, Ralph is fascinated with the character of Huck Finn and the interesting predicaments that Huck faces. Because of this interest, Ralph is determined to learn more about Huck’s adventures. Clare faces other challenges than Ralph. She has already read several of Mark Twain’s short stories and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in junior high school. Through these previous exposures, Clare has an adequate understanding of Twain’s satiric style. She is also aware of his interest in exploring the psyche of young male characters striving for adventure. She has also learned to read the dialect aloud to get the meaning. However, Clare does not find Huckleberry Finn interesting. She cannot relate to the mostly male

The Link Between Teacher Classroom Practices and Student Academic Performance

Abstract: Quantitative studies of school effects have generally supported the notion that the problems of U.S. education lie outside of the school. Yet such studies neglect the primary venue through which students learn, the classroom. The current study explores the link between classroom practices and student academic performance by applying multilevel modeling to the 1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress in mathematics. The study finds that the effects of classroom practices, when added to those of other teacher characteristics, are comparable in size to those of student background, suggesting that teachers can contribute as much to student learning as the students themselves.

A Multilevel Examination of the Distribution and Effects of Teacher Trust in Students and Parents in Urban Elementary Schools.

Abstract: In this article we develop the theoretical argument that teacher trust in students and parents is critical to school success. Next, using survey data collected on 452 teachers and data on achievement in reading and mathematics and on socioeconomic status of 2,536 fourth-grade students in 47 urban elementary schools, we show that trust varied greatly among the elementary schools and that this variation was strongly related to differences among schools in socioeconomic status. Finally, results of the study showed that even after accounting for variation among schools in student demographic characteristics, prior achievement, and school socioeconomic status, trust was a significant positive predictor of differences among schools in student achievement. We discuss the implications of these findings for improving academic achievement in elementary schools and for future research.

Mothers' Strategies for Children's School Achievement: Managing the Transition to High School.

Abstract: The American educational system requires parents to manage their child's school career to maximize their child's school achievement. But parents differ in the specific strategies they select to help their children through school. These strategies are one way in which family background influences children's school achievement. We expand the extant model of how parents influence their children's school careers to encompass various pragmatic strategies devised for the crucial transition to high school. We analyze the responses of a small heterogeneous sample of mothers of eighth graders, who are beginning the transition from middle school to high school. The findings of this exploratory study indicate that parents actively manage their child's school career in ways that can have direct consequences for their child's educational achievement. The number and types of schooling strategies suggested by mothers do not vary among mothers, which indicates that there may be standard parental strategies. The implementation of strategies, however, does vary by the socioeconomic status of the mother, even when the child's academic performance is controlled. Mothers who have at least a college education know more about their child's school performance, have more contact with the teachers, and are more likely to take action to manage their child's academic achievement. We also find that mothers with a college education are more likely to choose college-preparatory courses for their child, regardless of their child's academic performance. We discuss how these findings contribute to our understanding of the process by which parents' socioeconomic status influences the child's academic achievement and educational attainment.