Family Structure Stability and Transitions, Parental Involvement, and Educational Outcomes

The family environments children live in have profound effects on the skills, resources, and attitudes those children bring to school. Researchers studying family structure have found that children who live with two married, opposite-sex, biological parents, on average, have better educational outcomes than children living in alternate family structures, perhaps due to higher resources, lower stressors, or different selectivity patterns. Socioeconomic stratification plays a major role in family structure, with low-income families seeing more instability. We argue that the impact of family structure is attenuated by transitions in and out of family structures that may decrease a specific resource important to child academic outcomes: parental involvement. This may contribute to increased academic differences already noted across class gaps. Using waves 1 to 6 of the Growing Up in Australia: Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) data, we examine the relationship of family stability and transitions from birth to age 10/11 years on parental involvement and educational outcomes, adjusted for resource, stressor, and selectivity covariates. We find that changes in parental involvement are only apparent for families that experience both a transition and single parenting, and that these differences in parental involvement impact academic outcomes.

Texas Perspectives on College and Career Readiness: An Examination of CTE-Supported Endorsements in Public High Schools

The Texas Legislature passed House Bill 5 in 2013 to adopt the Foundation High School Program, a new graduation program intended to support youth college and career readiness. Texan students entering grade 9 were guided to enroll in one or more endorsements with a specific curriculum designed to introduce them to STEM, Business & Industry, Public Services, Arts & Humanities, or Multidisciplinary areas of study and future career pathways. This research was based on analysis of restricted-use Texas longitudinal administrative and transcript data for 9th graders enrolled in Texas public schools in the academic year 2015/16. We examined the complementary roles that exposure to core academic subjects and career and technical education courses has on making endorsement choices, with a focus on three CTE-supported endorsements, STEM, Business & Industry, and Public Service. The study contributes to the literature on college and career readiness by examining specifically how the academic and vocational dimensions are reflected in the Texas high school endorsements. The study also addresses social equity issues by inquiring who participates in which endorsements and whether student endorsement choices are marked by sociodemographic and academic differences that exacerbate educational inequalities.

ACADEMIC CULTURE BARRIERS FACED BY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS JOINING INTERNATIONAL INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

Academic culture barrier is one of the barriers that students faced when they were going abroad whether for studying or doing their internship. There are lots of students’ encounters a problem when they were doing their internship. This research was conducted to examine the academic culture barriers faced by ELED students joining the international internship program to Thailand. In conducting the research, the researcher utilized the descriptive qualitative design to obtaining formation related to the problem in academic life. The participants of this study were eight students of ELED UMM who join the international internship program in Thailand 2018. The researcher used semi-structured interviews and open-ended questionnaire in order not to limit participants in telling their experience. The results of this study are divided into 3 categories which are academic problems, solutions, and academic differences. The academic problems that the participants faced involve language, English knowledge, the use of Thai letters, curriculum, and students’ participation. The solution that they gave were using gesture in dealing with the language problem, using role-play in dealing with lack of knowledge in English, teach the students alphabet in dealing with the using of Thai letters, designing their own material in dealing with no exact curriculum, and try to interact to the students outside the class in dealing with passive students participation. Furthermore, the academic differences are the relationship between student and teacher, and school culture.

Implementasi Pendidikan Multikultural pada Progam Kurikuler sebagai Sarana Membangun Karakter Bangsa di Sekolah Dasar

This research aims to explain the implementation process of multicultural education as the media to build the character of the nation through the curricular program in primary school. The method used is the qualitative descriptive. The subject of this research includes the headmaster of the school, educator and the students by using purposive sampling. The instrument to gather information includes observation, documentation, and interview. The knowledge regarding the multicultural education includes respect diversities, understand, and accept diversities, either gender, religion, tribe, ethnic, culture, beliefs, economic ability, social condition, besides that the ability of the students to accept their friends who have academic differences either higher academic ability of lower academic ability, how the students can accept achievements in learning, the condition of the students either ABK that has disabilities or mental illness as an act to build the character of the nation. The multicultural learning program is done through: curriculum based on multicultural, intra-curricular program through morning carpet and day carpet, and co-curricular program (assembly, mini trip, resource person, and multiage).

Gender differences in academic achievement of children with developmental coordination disorder

Background: Developmental coordination disorder (DCD) has a negative impact on everyday activities and academic achievement in children, mainly owing to similar underlying motor and cognitive constructs. Academic achievement of boys and girls seems to be different, with boys being more prone to academic backlogs, especially in language-related areas.Aim: This study investigated if boys with DCD displayed more academic problems than girls with DCD.Setting: Ten-year-old children (N = 221, ±0.41) from different economic backgrounds were randomly selected for assessment as part of the NW-CHILD (North-West Child Health, Integrated with Learning and Development) longitudinal study in the North West Province of South Africa.Methods: The Movement Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition, was used to determine DCD status in the group. The results of the Annual National Assessment and the mid-year June exam, which included six learning areas, were used to analyse academic differences between typically developing boys and girls and those who were identified with DCD (seven boys, seven girls). Independent t-testing and Mann–Whitney non-parametric tests were used to determine differences between boys and girls.Results: Boys with DCD had inferior literacy and numeracy skills, significantly poorer manual dexterity and balancing skills and also displayed statistically and large practically significant weaker mid-year grade point averages than girls. Children with DCD also portrayed poorer academic achievement than typically developing children.Conclusion: Significant differences in balancing skills and in languages between boys and girls with DCD might have contributed to the practically significant poorer maths performance of boys.

The effect of math SAT on women's chemistry competency beliefs

In chemistry, lack of academic preparation and math ability have been offered as explanations as to why women seem to enroll, perform, and graduate at lower levels than men. In this paper, we explore the alternative possibility that the gender gap in chemistry instead originates from differential gender effects of academic factors on students’ motivation. Using a sample of approximately 670 students enrolled in a mid-sized university in the United States we conducted: (1)t-tests to understand incoming academic differences between freshman students by gender, (2) regression analysis to determine which academic and attitudinal factors predict success in General Chemistry 1, and (3) a mediation analysis to understand the underlying mechanisms of how academic performance affects students’ beliefs about their competency in chemistry, which in turn has an effect on chemistry achievement. We demonstrate the importance of math ability as a contributor to chemistry achievement, but further that ability differences in math are important because they affect students’ chemistry competency beliefs. Critically, this link between ability and competency beliefs is stronger for women than men. These results suggest that interventions geared towards improving women's chemistry competency beliefs could have an important influence in improving their achievement in the classroom, and in consequence reduce the gender gap in chemistry.

Exploring the influence of individual and academic differences on the placement participation rate among international students

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the low placement participation rate among international students compared with UK students, by examining the impact of individual factors such as gender and domicile and academic achievement such as prior academic qualification, prior academic results and subsequent academic results on students’ choices of degree programmes as well as their graduation status. Design/methodology/approach – This study adopts a quantitative approach by using 268 accounting and finance students in a UK university. Findings – The analyses show that UK students on entry are 35 per cent more likely than international students to choose a degree programme with a placement module after controlling for individual and academic differences. Among females, international students who switch to a degree without placement following entry significantly and statistically underperformed their UK counterparts who complete a degree with placement from the first year onwards. This trend is not observable among male students. Instead, male students who select and graduate with a degree without placement are the worst performers, regardless of their nationalities. Research limitations/implications – The quantitative data used here are collected in a UK institution so the results reported here may lack generalisability. Practical implications – International students need to know more about the benefits of undertaking placements on their academic performance and the development of generic skills before entry. Moreover, UK universities need to provide more assistance to international students, especially females about how to secure placements and how to widen their search for potential placements. Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explain the low participation rate among international students in UK higher education.

Reading against and writing back

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how student learning materials, such as textbooks, are becoming more oriented toward multi-modal approaches using visuality and orality. While such approaches may help students to understand and then to reproduce taught materials, the objective of this paper is to question whether they are serving to promote students’ critical literacy. Design/methodology/approach – The paper assesses the character of current textbooks and other means of student support, such as online learning management systems, and assesses how well they seem able to promote the critical literacy that requires ability in “reading against” and “writing back”. The paper goes on to identify ways in which some parts of the university see orality as preliminary and subordinate to literacy-focused communication, but elsewhere, the pinnacle of students’ work is artistic or creative attainments with lesser need to write complexly literate textual works. Findings – As a means of trying to resolve inherent tensions between differing pedagogical assumptions and methods in the university, the paper proposes ways in which Ong’s (1982, p. 36) nine communication characteristics of “orally based thought and expression” may be able to offer insights into challenges of improving students’ critical literacy. Research limitations/implications – The inherent academic tensions within the university still remain insufficiently theorized. For example, the humanities and social sciences (still) place much store on developing students’ abilities in critical writing, while disciplines such as design or creative arts are much more focused on students’ creative outputs. The paper contributes to a better understanding of such scholars talking past one another. Practical implications – Scholars in different academic camps often note the discrepancies in how their relative pedagogical tasks are to be understood, but typically, it is not clear to them how they might better relate to other parts of the university. The paper aims to elucidate the nature of academic differences that often appear to exist to provide insights into possibly new ways of seeing everyday teaching and learning. Social implications – Ong’s insights into literacy and orality when viewed through a prism of tertiary teaching and learning provide a practical means whereby students and other university stakeholders can develop a better appreciation of the character of the modern university. Originality/value – The novel use of Walter Ong’s model of literacy and orality provides fresh ways of seeing challenges and disputes within the academic community and suggests new ways of seeing students’ work and their teachers’ expectations of them.