Grade Attainment Research Articles

Neuropsychological profiles in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis: Relationship to psychosis and intelligence

Background Characterizing neuropsychological (NP) functioning of individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis may be useful for prediction of psychosis and understanding functional outcome. The degree to which NP impairments are associated with general cognitive ability and/or later emergence of full psychosis in CHR samples requires study with well-matched controls. Methods We assessed NP functioning across eight cognitive domains in a sample of 73 CHR youth, 13 of whom developed psychotic-level symptoms after baseline assessment, and 34 healthy comparison (HC) subjects. Groups were matched on age, sex, ethnicity, handedness, subject and parent grade attainment, and median family income, and were comparable on WRAT-3 Reading, an estimate of premorbid IQ. Profile analysis was used to examine group differences and the role of IQ in profile shape. Results The CHR sample demonstrated a significant difference in overall magnitude of NP impairment but only a small and nearly significant difference in profile shape, primarily due to a large impairment in olfactory identification. Individuals who subsequently developed psychotic-level symptoms demonstrated large impairments in verbal IQ, verbal memory and olfactory identification comparable in magnitude to first episode samples. Conclusions CHR status may be associated with moderate generalized cognitive impairments marked by some degree of selective impairment in olfaction and verbal memory. Impairments were greatest in those who later developed psychotic symptoms. Future study of olfaction in CHR samples may enhance early detection and specification of neurodevelopmental mechanisms of risk.

Student nurse absenteeism in higher education: An argument against enforced attendance

Unauthorised student nurse absenteeism in higher education troubles many university lecturers. Anecdotally, absenteeism is occasionally raised as an issue by attending students who resent others "getting away" with non-attendance and some policy documents appear to suggest that attendance should be mandated. This paper argues against enforced attendance in higher education and challenges those who would mandate attendance to explain and justify their position. Drawing on a range of nursing and non-nursing material we here discuss some of the literature on attendance, absenteeism, effort or time spent in study and grade attainment. Informed by this admittedly partial review we maintain that the evidence linking grade attainment with attendance and study effort is less conclusive than intuition might initially suggest. We note that enforcing attendance apparently runs counter to important pedagogic (humanistic and androgogic) principles. We propose that responses to absenteeism cannot be separated from questions of 'harm' and we suggest that lecturers should refrain from associating non-attendance with unprofessional behaviour and poor professionalization.

Long-Term Impact of Investments in Early Schooling: Empirical Evidence from Rural Ethiopia

This paper identifies the cumulative impact of early schooling investments on later schooling outcomes in a developing country context using enrollment status and relative grade attainment as short-run and long-run measures of schooling. Using a child-level longitudinal data set from rural Ethiopia, we estimate a dynamic conditional schooling demand function where the coefficient estimate on the lagged dependent variable captures the impact of all previous periods schooling inputs and resources. We find that this lagged dependent variable indicates a strong positive association between current and lagged schooling. Past history matters more for girls than boys and for children from higher income households compared to the poor.

Determinants of Schooling Outcomes: Empirical Evidence from Rural Ethiopia

This paper examines the determinants of schooling outcomes - current enrollment status and relative grade attainment - among primary school children in rural Ethiopia. We use repeated cross-sectional data from 15 rural villages in Ethiopia to capture the impact of the changing socioeconomic environment on these outcomes between 1994 and 2004. We find that parental schooling is positively associated with schooling enrollment but its estimated effects declines over time. We observe a similar decline in the estimated impact of father’s schooling on relative grade attainment, while the impact of mother’s schooling increased during this period. OLS estimates of the impact of household income are biased downwards relative to IV results. Community characteristics are not associated with schooling enrollment. However, the provision of electricity is positively, and distance to primary school negatively, associated with relative grade attainment. These findings suggest that policies that address both supply and demand side constraints have the potential to improve the low levels of schooling attainments found in Ethiopia and elsewhere.

Ghosts in the Machine: Student Participation and Grade Attainment in a Web‐Assisted Social Work Course

For many social work educators, the debate about whether social work education should be delivered using online technology has, as a result of institutional imperatives, moved on to how best this can be done. In this article, the process of designing and delivering part of a social work course using asynchronous online discussion is described and reflected upon. Student participation in the online environment is also compared with final course grades and the findings discussed in relation to existing literature. Recommendations for the future delivery of social work courses using online technology emerging from this discussion are offered.

Effects of weight on children's educational achievement

In this paper, we investigate the association between weight and children's educational achievement, as measured by scores on Peabody Individual Achievement Tests in math and reading, and grade attainment. Data for the study came from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), which contains a large, national sample of children between the ages of 5 and 12 between 1986 and 2004. We obtained estimates of the association between weight and achievement using several regression model specifications that controlled for a variety of observed characteristics of the child and his or her mother, and time-invariant characteristics of the child. Our results suggest that, in general, children who are overweight or obese have achievement test scores that are about the same as children with average weight.

Early Childhood Nutrition, Schooling, and Sibling Inequality in a Dynamic Context: Evidence from South Africa

Abstract This article examines the effects of early childhood nutrition on schooling investments and outcomes to assess the dynamic nature of human capital production, using panel data from South Africa. Height‐for‐age Z‐score is used as a measure of health and nutritional status in early childhood. Based on a comparison of siblings, the empirical analysis shows that improving children’s health significantly lowers the age when they start school, increases grade attainment, decreases grade repetition, and improves learning performance in the early stage of schooling. However, the observed effect diminishes as a child ages, which implies that (i) height at ages earlier than three better explains subsequent schooling outcomes and/or (ii) the role of health capital changes from one schooling stage to another.

The Impact of Nutrition during Early Childhood on Education among Guatemalan Adults

Early childhood nutrition is thought to have important effects on education, broadly defined to include various forms of learning. We advance beyond previous literature on the effect of early childhood nutrition on education in developing countries by using unique longitudinal data begun during a nutritional experiment during early childhood with educational outcomes measured in adulthood. Estimating an intent-to-treat model capturing the effect of exposure to the intervention from birth to 36 months, our results indicate significantly positive, and fairly substantial, effects of the randomized nutrition intervention a quarter century after it ended: increased grade attainment by women (1.2 grades) via increased likelihood of completing primary school and some secondary school; speedier grade progression by women; a one-quarter SD increase in a test of reading comprehension with positive effects found for both women and men; and a one-quarter SD increase on nonverbal cognitive tests scores. There is little evidence of heterogeneous impacts with the exception being that exposure to the intervention had a larger effect on grade attainment and reading comprehension scores for females in wealthier households. The findings are robust to an array of alternative estimators of the standard errors and controls for sample attrition.

Quality or Quantity? The Supply-side Determinants of Primary Schooling in a Poor Rural Economy1

The role of school quality in determining educational outcomes has received much research attention in the United States. However, in developing countries, where a significant part of the school age population never attends school, policymakers must consider both quality and quantity when deciding how to maximise the impact of scarce investments. Acknowledging this difference in the policy environment in developing countries, this paper provides comparative estimates of the impact of quality versus quantity investments in school supply in rural Mozambique, one of the world's poorest countries. Policy simulations show that improving school quality increases mean grade attainment and efficiency by approximately 4% and overall enrolment rates by a similar amount. However, much greater improvements can be generated by increasing starting enrolment probabilities through the establishment of new schools in all rural villages that currently do not have schools. Furthermore, significant rates of increase in school achievement indicators can be achieved by building schools in only 56% of all villages currently without schools, provided these schools are placed in those villages that also do not have a school nearby. When cost information is considered, the main policy implication is that the expansion of school quantity through well-targeted placement of new schools will provide the most cost-effective increase in educational outcomes for Mozambique at this time. Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press.

Gender Gap in School Completion Rates: Evidence from Rural India

Using the Uttar Pradesh-Bihar Living-Standard Measurement Survey (1997) this paper examines the factors that have created a wedge in the grade completion levels of the male and the female children. Our study reveals that in the context of educational outcomes, the birth order of the child as measured by the presence of older siblings is not as important as the age of the child itself. The sex bias is more severe for older children. The household religion and caste continue to exert a strong influence on the demand for schooling even after controlling for income and the education of the parents. The schooling of the parents affects the male and female samples differently in the two states: the number of grades completed by the male child is not always sensitive to maternal education whereas mother's education always matters for the female sample. Our decomposition results suggest that an improvement in the mean characteristic levels of the female sample particularly household atmosphere and development of the village can act as key factors in reducing the gender gap in grade attainment.

First Grade and Educational Attainment by Age 22: A New Story

Studies of the persistence of social stratification rely heavily on students’ experience in secondary schools. In this study, outcomes for a randomly selected panel of Baltimore children, followed from age 6 to age 22, demonstrate that first graders’ social contexts and personal resources explain educational attainment levels in early adulthood about as well as do similar resources measured in adolescence. Years of schooling and the highest level of school attempted respond most strongly to family SES, but parental psychological support and the child’s own temperament/disposition had substantial effects on first‐grade academic outcomes. The predictive power of race, gender, SES, and neighborhood quality measured in first grade on educational status at age 22 supports Lucas’s “effectively maintained inequality.”

THE DETERMINANTS OF GRADE ATTAINMENT IN LOW‐INCOME COUNTRIES: EVIDENCE FROM RURAL BANGLADESH

This paper presents an econometric analysis of the effects of child health on school enrollment and grade attainment in Bungladesh. It improves on past studies in a number of ways mainly by incorporating into its analysis the endogenous nature of child health. The results challenge the conclusions found in the literature. First, it finds that in Bangladesh, a child's health and his/her probability of being enrolled in school are at best weakly related. Second, it shows that once enrolled, nutritional deficiencies retard substantially school progress: Underweight children tend to be in lower grades than well‐fed children of the same age. It is estimated that a one standard deviation improvement in weight‐for‐age would be expected to reduce the grades behind by about 0.25 years or about 13.5 percent of the actual years completed. Finally, the estimates suggest that the weight‐for‐age indicator appears as the best predictor of nutritional status.

Written Physical Activity Educational Materials

0768 A variety of written physical activity educational materials (PAEMs) have been developed by organizations within the private and public sectors. PAEMs have addressed important topics such as, the health benefits of physical activity, guidelines for physical activity participation, and helpful hints/strategies to adopt a physically active lifestyle. Several studies have suggested that a large percentage of the general population reads <6th grade level, even though actual grade attainment may be much higher. Because of these findings, health literacy experts suggest that health education materials be written at a 6th grade level. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the readability of English-language written PAEMs available to the general public. METHODS: Written PAEMs (n = 20) were collected from government agencies (e.g., National Institutes of Health), national organizations (e.g., American Heart Association), and pharmaceutical corporations (e.g., Pfizer). Calculation of readability (i.e., grade level) was done using McLauglin's (Simplified Measure of Gobbledygoop) SMOG formula. The SMOG is accurate, has shown to highly correlate with other readability formulas and has been recommended by the American Cancer Society for written materials. RESULTS: All PAEMs evaluated in this study were written above the recommended 6th grade reading level. The mean SMOG grade level of written PAEMs was 10.58 ± 1.87 (range 8–16). PAEMs averaged 53.32 ± 18.71 >3-syllable words per piece. Words such as, “metabolism,” “glucose uptake,” “circulation,” and “hyperextension” appeared routinely throughout PAEMs. CONCLUSIONS: Currently, PAEMs are written at a level that many American adults are unable to comprehend. To be effective in helping adults make informed choices regarding physical activity, PAEMs must be understandable to the clientele for whom they are intended.

Schooling and Educational Attainment: Evidence from Bangladesh

Education and human capital accumulation are essential components of economic development. The present paper attempts to identify some of the individual and household level characteristics that affect the demand for schooling in Bangladesh. I examine the current enrolment status of children aged 6-12 and the highest grade attained for children aged 13-24. The first is estimated using a standard probit model and the second using a censored ordered probit model. Estimation results show that there is no gender differential in current enrolment status but grade attainment is higher for girls, relative to boys. An increase in the permanent income of the household is always associated with an increase in educational attainment. Parental education has a positive and statistically significant effect on the educational attainment of children, and mother's education has a stronger effect on both school enrolment and grade attainment of children compared with father's education.

Causes and consequences of schooling outcomes in South Africa: Evidence from survey data

This paper provides an overview of evidence on education in South Africa provided by household survey data, with a particular focus on large national surveys such as the 1993 South African Living Standards Survey and the annual October Household Survey. These surveys indicate that racial gaps in schooling persist in South Africa, although they have declined steadily over time. There is essentially no gender gap in schooling, however, with almost identical schooling outcomes for men and women in all racial groups. The racial gap in schooling can be largely attributed to a high rate of grade repetition for Africans, with only small differences in enrollment rates across racial groups. School quality has an important effect on both grade attainment and adult economic outcomes, and is clearly an important component of the racial gap in schooling. Survey data clearly demonstrate a large effect of schooling on earnings beginning in late primary years, with a higher rate of return to schooling for Africans than for whites. Datasets Used October Household Survey (OHS): South Africa, 1995 Schooling outcomes in South Africa

Schooling of girls and boys in a West African country: the effects of parental education, income, and household structure

In this paper we investigate gender differences in the determinants of several schooling indicators—grade attainment, current enrollment, and withdrawal from school—in a poor urban environment in West Africa, using ordered and binary probit models incorporating household-level random effects. Increases in household income lead to greater investments in girls' schooling but have no significant impact on schooling of boys. Improvements in father's education raises the schooling of both sons and daughters (favoring the latter) but mother's education has significant impact only on daughters' schooling; these estimates are suggestive of differences in maternal and paternal preferences for schooling daughters relative to sons. Domestic responsibilities, represented for example by the number of very young siblings, impinge strongly on girls' education but not on boys'. Policies such as subsidized childcare that reduce the opportunity cost of girls' time in the home may therefore increase their ability to get an education. JEL 015, I21

An additive model of test anxiety: Role of exam-specific expectations.

The study tested a hypothesis whereby anxiety concerning examinations covering different subjects is an additive function of dispositional test anxiety and the anticipated results of individual tests. This hypothesis was generated on the basis of the integration of test anxiety theory and appraisal models of emotion. The study involved 118 students who took 3 examinations during the course of a Scholastic Aptitude Test preparation class, namely Quantitative, Verbal, and English (as a foreign language). Results with a repeated-measures design indicated that expected success, measured with self-efficacy for grade attainment 3 days before each test, incrementally predicted anxiety level during the test (i.e., beyond the prediction offered by test anxiety [trait], general efficacy [trait], and self-efficacy ratings for the previous exam). The same results were obtained when anxiety level was residualized on the basis of anxiety level associated either with the previous exam or with the Quantitative exam. These data indicate that anxiety level associated with different exams is an incremental function of dispositional and situational factors.

Does Schooling Buffer the Effects of Early Risk?

The data presented here come from a 20-year study conducted in a rural area of Guatemala. Data on early biological indicators, graduated parameters of social structure, and preschool cognition were combined into a risk scale and analyzed in relation to primary school grade attainment and adolescent psychoeducational test performance. Similar to empirical relations reported in industrialized countries, performance declined as the number of risk factors to which a subject was exposed increased. More important, primary education was observed to buffer the effects of early risk for a subset of subjects. Subjects at high risk who stayed in school performed significantly better than subjects with similar levels of risk who completed fewer than 4 years of primary school.

MATERNAL EDUCATION AND CHILD ATTAINMENT IN JAMAICA: TESTING THE BARGAINING POWER HYPOTHESIS†

In a bargaining model of household decision‐making, any variable reflecting the outside opportunities of household members will influence household demand patterns. Mother's education has been found to be an important determinant of children's education and health outcomes. This paper argues that within a bargaining framework, mother's education may influence children's health and education by shifting bargaining power within the household. An empirical strategy is developed and applied to data on teenage grade attainment and school enrolment in Jamaica. The results support the bargaining power hypothesis, and imply a broader role for mother's education than has previously been considered.

High Fertility and Children's Schooling in Ghana: Sex Differences in Parental Contributions and Educational Outcomes

This paper explores the linkages at the family level between sustained high fertility and children's schooling in Ghana, in the context of a constrained economic environment and rising school fees. The unique feature of the paper is its exploration of the operational significance of alternative definitions of “sib size” – the number of “same-mother” siblings and “same-father” siblings – in relation to enrolment, grade attainment, and school drop-out for boys and girls of primary and secondary school age. The analysis is based on the first wave of the Ghana Living Standards Measurement Survey (GLSS) data, collected in 1987–88. The results of the statistical analysis lead to the conclusion that the co-existence of high fertility, rising school costs, and economic reversals is having a negative impact on the education of girls, in terms of drop-out rates and grade attainment. Some of the costs of high fertility are borne by older siblings (particularly girls) rather than by parents, with the result that children from larger families experience greater inequality between themselves and their siblings by sex and birth order. Because fathers have more children on average than mothers, the inequality between their children appears to be even greater than between mothers' children, particularly given the importance of fathers' role in the payment of school fees. The paper concludes that the greatest cost for children in Ghana of sustained high fertility is likely to be the reinforcement of traditional sex roles, largely a product of high fertility in the past.