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.

Contextual differences in student motivation and self-regulated learning in mathematics, English, and social studies classrooms

Abstract: Recent research on self-regulated learning has stressed the importance of both motivational and cognitive components of classroom learning. Much of this research has examined these components without consideration of potential contextual differences. Using a within-subject correlational design, the present study assessed mean level differences in students' task value, self-efficacy, test anxiety, cognitive strategy use, regulatory strategy use, and classroom academic performance by gender and across the subject areas of mathematics, social studies, and English. In addition, the relations among the motivational, strategy use, and performance measures were assessed using multivariate regressions. The participants were 545 seventh and eighth grade students (51% females) who responded to a self-report questionnaire. Results revealed mean level differences by subject area and gender in the motivation and cognitive strategy use variables, but not in regulatory strategy use or academic performance. In contrast, results indicated that the relations among these constructs was very similar across the three subject areas examined. Findings are discussed in terms of their importance for understanding the contextual nature of students' self-regulated learning.

The Effect of Teacher Coaching on Instruction and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence:

Abstract: Teacher coaching has emerged as a promising alternative to traditional models of professional development. We review the empirical literature on teacher coaching and conduct meta-analyses to estima...

Why Does It Take a Village? The Mediation of Neighborhood Effects on Educational Achievement

Abstract: The urban and educational literature has recently begun to focus on the increase of concentrated poverty in inner-city neighborhoods and the educational failure of youth often associated with living in these neighborhoods. The current study examines this issue by identifying which neighborhood characteristics influence educational achievement and what mechanisms mediate these associations. Using the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 linked to 1990 census information at the neighborhood level, the current study finds not only that neighborhood characteristics predict educational outcomes but also that the strength of the predictions often rivals that associated with more commonly cited family- and school-related factors. When considering how neighborhood characteristics influence educational outcomes, theorists have proposed several mediating processes, including collective socialization, social control, social capital, perception of opportunity, and institutional characteristics. The current study reveals that these mediators account for about 40% of the neighborhood effect on educational achievement, with collective socialization having the strongest influence. Also discussed are the theoretical and policy implications of this study and directions for future research.

High School Size: Which Works Best, and for Whom? Draft.

Abstract: The study described in this article investigates the relationship between high school size and student learning. We used three waves of data from NELS:88 and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) methods to examine how students’ achievement growth in two subjects (reading and mathematics) over the high school years is influenced by the size of the high school they attend. Three research questions guided the study: (a) Which size high school is most effective for students’ learning?, (b) In which size high school is learning most equitably distributed?, and (c) Are size effects consistent across high schools defined by their social compositions? Results suggest that the ideal high school, defined in terms of effectiveness (i.e., learning), enrolls between 600 and 900 students. In schools smaller than this, students learn less; those in large high schools (especially over 2,100) learn considerably less. Learning is more equitable in very small schools, with equity defined by the relationship between learning and student socioeconomic status (SES). An important finding from the study is that the influence of school size on learning is different in schools that enroll students of varying SES and in schools with differing proportions of minorities. Enrollment size has a stronger effect on learning in schools with lower-SES students and also in schools with high concentrations of minority students. Implications for educational policy are discussed.