Contextual effects on student academic achievement : a multilevel analysis.

Student achievement

Shawnise Martin Miller

University:University of Louisville

Department:Social Work

关键词: Student achievement;   

Others  :  https://ir.library.louisville.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4512&context=etd

美国|英语

来源: The Universite of Louisville's Institutional Repository

【 摘 要 】

Approximately 1 million young people annually who should do not graduate from high school, positioning them on a downward trajectory of a lifetime of lower income and limited opportunities. The effects of low education ranges from micro-level consequences, such as unemployment and health, to mezzo-level consequences, such as neighborhood crime and poverty rates, to macro-level consequences, such as increased costs in government assistance and policy implications. Data from the 2011 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimate dataset and from the Jefferson County Public School (JCPS) Division of Data Management, Planning, and Program Evaluation were used to examine environmental factors that influence student academic achievement. The model investigated the influence of neighborhood and school characteristics, after controlling for individual characteristics on students‘ ACT/EPAS scores among a sample of students enrolled in Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) high schools. Methods: A cross-classified random effects multilevel model was estimated using MLwiN with a two-level nested structure. The model examined individual differences in 4075 students‘ ACT/EPAS scores for all juniors in the JCPS system in 2009-2010, who attended 21 different schools in Jefferson County and lived in 35 different neighborhoods. Ecological theory and social disorganization theory guided the conceptual model that was tested in the analysis. Results: The results indicated that the school students attended as well as the neighborhood in which they lived in significantly influenced their performance on the ACT/EPAS. The individual controls that contributed the most to individual student academic achievement, were being White, having a high attendance record, not receiving a free/reduced lunch, attending only one high school during the four years of high school and not attending a neighborhood school. Neighborhood characteristics that contributed the most to individual student academic achievement were neighborhoods with a higher percentage of residents with at least a bachelor‘s degree. These neighborhoods were also those with lower levels of poverty, unemployment and female-headed households. School characteristics that contributed the most to individual student academic achievement were schools that had an overall better climate of success (higher average ACT scores, more children going to college, better graduation rates, less dropout rates, less students failing). Significant interactions were detected between neighborhoods and a child‘s attendance record, showing that attendance will have a better influence on a student‘s ACT scores if he/she lives in a more affluent neighborhood. Also, Black children will do consistently worse than White children, but both race groups will show better ACT scores