Abstract
Determinants of educational achievement extend beyond the school environment to include the home environment. Both environments provide tangible and intangible resources to students that can influence science achievement. South Africa provides a context where inequalities in socio-economic status are vast, thus the environments from whence students draw resources vary. This paper investigates school and home environments to determine what resources influenced science achievement. Multiple regression analyses were conducted on data from 11,969 South African Grade Nine students, who participated in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study in 2011. The findings reveal that both the school and home environments play important roles in students’ science achievement, with the strongest associations exhibited with: speaking the language of the test at home, home assets, and the condition of school buildings. Implications for policy are discussed. Keywords : home resources; learning environment; predictors of performance; science performance; South Africa; TIMSS 2011
Highlights
In a global environment characterised by the growing role of science and technology in our economic, social and political lives, the role of science education has become increasingly important
It is concerning that the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) found the average science achievement of Grade Nine South African students to be well below the international centre point of 500 points (Mullis, Martin, Foy & Arora, 2012)
Data Source and Sample The data of South African students used for this paper was taken from the 2011 TIMSS study conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)
Summary
In a global environment characterised by the growing role of science and technology in our economic, social and political lives, the role of science education has become increasingly important. In developing countries, such as South Africa, science, technology and innovation have become forces that drive economic growth and competitiveness and have the potential for improving the quality of life. A knowledge-based economy, in its simplest form, relies on the generation of relevant knowledge and the productive use of that knowledge to advance growth (World Bank, 1999) This type of economy is built, in part, on people who are skilled and educated in science subjects. It is concerning that the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) found the average science achievement of Grade Nine South African students to be well below the international centre point of 500 points (for all students who participated in the TIMSS study) (Mullis, Martin, Foy & Arora, 2012)
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