The Home, the School and Educational Achievement: A Study of Change in Performance in Mathematics and Science during the First Year at Secondary School

Abstract

The purpose of this inquiry was to examine the ways in which characteristics of the educational environment of the home, the school and the peer group accounted for change in performance at school over the period of a year, in which the children selected for the investigation progressed from primary to secondary school. Since this transition involved a marked change in the educational environment, it was assumed there. would also be a distinct change in educational outcomes. The performance of the student at school was assessed by objective tests and attitude scales rather than by marks assigned and judgments made by the student's teachers. The interaction between the student and the teacher was examined in this inquiry, and the marks given for school tests and a teacher's assessment of a student's attitudes would have depended, in part, on this interaction Consequently objective tests and attitude scales were used as the sole measures of student performance, whatever• their shortcomings. The study also examined the relationships• bet-ween the sociological and demographic characteristics of the home on the one hand and the parents’ attitudes and child-rearing practices on the other . In addition, these sociological and demographic variables were correlated with the characteristics of the classroom the student entered at secondary school and the characteristics of the friends the student chose. In these respects the study fell within the mainstream of current sociological inquiries. The investigation was restricted to children in the Australian Capital Territory. who came from homes in which English was the language normally spoken. A simple random sample of 242 was drawn from children who were in their final primary school year. Assessments of the home environment were made from interviews with the mother and the father of each child. Complete information was obtained in 1968 for 231 out of the 242 students in the sample. To examine factors influencing change in performance the children were tested in 1968 with the New South Wales Basic Skills tests, specially prepared mechanical arithmetic and mathematics’ tests, a general ability test and an attitude questionnaire. They were tested again during Form I in 1969, and full information was available for 215 children after the testing was completed. At the secondary school level, the investigation was limited to the subject areas of mathematics and science. In 1969, at the beginning of the secondary school year, a science test was administered, and at the end of the year science and mathematics tests as well as general information and attitude questionnaires were given to all children in all schools in the A.C.T. at the Form I level. The testing of all students in all schools at this Level avoided isolating them for special testing, and made possible the eliciting of information from the friends of the students in the sample.