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.

Longitudinal Structural Equation Models of Academic Self-Concept and Achievement: Gender Differences in the Development of Math and English Constructs:

Abstract: Longitudinal causal models of growth in math and English constructs (school grades, standardized tests, academic self-concept, affect and coursework selection) were based on three waves of data from the large (N = 24,599), nationally representative National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988. Math and English self-concepts had significant path coefficients leading to subsequent school grades, coursework selection, and standardized test scores. Unlike previous studies that did not consider math and English constructs in the same model, we found these relations to be very domain specific (e.g., there were significant positive paths from math self concept to subsequent math outcomes but not to subsequent English outcomes). Girls had higher scores for all English constructs and math school grades, but they had lower math self-concepts. Whereas similar studies conducted over the past 20 years found diminishing gender differences, these data show relative gains for girls in achievement and coursework selectio...

Long-term Effects of Parents' Education on Children's Educational and Occupational Success: Mediation by Family Interactions, Child Aggression, and Teenage Aspirations

Abstract: We examine the prediction of individuals' educational and occupational success at age 48 from contextual and personal variables assessed during their middle childhood and late adolescence. We focus particularly on the predictive role of the parents' educational level during middle childhood, controlling for other indices of socioeconomic status and children's IQ, and the mediating roles of negative family interactions, childhood behavior, and late adolescent aspirations. Data come from the Columbia County Longitudinal Study, which began in 1960 when all 856 third graders in a semi-rural county in New York State were interviewed along with their parents; participants were reinterviewed at ages 19, 30, and 48 (Eron et al, 1971; Huesmann et al., 2002). Parents' educational level when the child was 8 years old significantly predicted educational and occupational success for the child 40 years later. Structural models showed that parental educational level had no direct effects on child educational level or occupational prestige at age 48 but had significant indirect effects that were independent of the other predictor variables' effects. These indirect effects were mediated through age 19 educational aspirations and age 19 educational level. These results provide strong support for the unique predictive role of parental education on adult outcomes 40 years later and underscore the developmental importance of mediators of parent education effects such as late adolescent achievement and achievement-related aspirations.

Effective Schools: Interpreting the Evidence.

Abstract: This paper develops a theoretical context with which to understand the evidence on effective schools. I begin by specifying a central problem in the operation of inner-city schools--that good teachers are difficult to recruit and almost impossible to retain because the rewards of teaching do not outweigh the frustrations. Exceptions to this are identified in effective schools--schools that are distinctive in important ways. Principals of effective schools have a unitary mission of improved student learning, and their actions convey certainty that these goals can be attained. Such actions include recruiting outstanding teachers who have goals similar to their own and to those of other staff, organizationally buffering teachers to ensure that their efforts are directed toward raising student achievement, monitoring the academic progress teachers make, supplying additional technical assistance to needy teachers, and providing--mostly in concert with teaching colleagues--the opportunities to establish strateg...