Low Socioeconomic Status Students Research Articles

The Influence of Socio-Economic Status among Matriculation Students in Selecting University and Undergraduate Program

This paper discusses the influence of socio-economic status (SES) among matriculation students’ on their decision in selecting university and undergraduate program. The research was conducted at two local matriculation colleges and 496 students were participated as respondents. The findings showed that low SES students have stronger determination to pursue their studies at tertiary level compared to high SES students. However, both the low and high SES students showed similar trend of perception towards Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) reputation and its engineering program. There is no significant difference between the two groups in the criteria selecting university and course program.

Suicidal Ideation in Medical Students: Who Is at Risk?

Suicide is one of the most tragic problems medical schools are facing today. It is an issue that has not escaped medical schools in either developing or developed nations. To combat this trend, medical educators require efficient and effective strategies for the immediate identification of students who are at an elevated risk of harming themselves. National Yang Ming University medical students were surveyed on various demographic, academic, personal, and extracurricular subjects as well as assessed for suicidal ideation. In addition, students completed the Chinese Health Questionnaire (CHQ, a translated and modified version of the General Health Questionnaire, GHQ), and the Taiwanese Depression Questionnaire (TDQ, a translated and modified version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies' Depression Scale, CES-D). The rate of suicidal ideation was significantly higher in second year students as opposed to fi rst year students (P <0.01). Students of lower socioeconomic status (P = 0.04), with non-inflammatory joint pain (P = 0.02), with headache (P = 0.047), with sleep disorders (P = 0.04), who scored as depressed on the TDQ (P <0.01), and/or who scored abnormally on the CHQ (P <0.01) were all significantly more likely to have experienced suicidal ideation. A number of groups at high risk for suicidal ideation, and thus in greater need of support, were identified. Suicide intervention programmes and depression counselling should target older students and students of lower socioeconomic status. Students presenting to university clinics with non-inflammatory joint pain, headache, and/or sleep disorders should be evaluated for suicidal tendencies. The TDQ and CHQ are potentially valuable screening tests for early detection of potential suicidal students.

Impact of Resilience and Role Model Influence on Academic Achievement of Low Socio-Economic Status Adolescent Students

The impact of Resilience and Role Model among low socio economic status students was examined. Resilience connotes 'bouncing back' to normalcy after facing 'negative events': an individual's capacity to withstand stressors and not to manifest psychological dysfunction, such as mental illness or persistent negative mood in spite of difficult circumstances. Role Model influence is an immense driving force and moral support for the student's academic achievement. A role model is someone with whom, an admirer identifies and wants to be like. The sample consisted of 502 low socio economic status adolescent students. Resilience scale (Annalakshmi, 2009) and Role model influence scale (Nancy, 2009) were administered to the sample. Criterion groups representing high and low levels of Resilience and Role Model Influence were constructed using median of the distribution of scores of the sample. Analysis of covariance, which controlled the influence of covariates Intelligence and Educational Risk on Academic Achievement, revealed that there is an impact of Resilience and Role Model Influence on the Academic Achievement of low SES adolescent students.

Effective university teaching: views of Australian university students from low socio-economic status backgrounds

As the Australian higher education population further diversifies as a result of federal government policy changes, the collective understanding of effective university teaching in the Australian context will need to evolve to incorporate such shifts. The Australian Government has set clear targets for increased university participation of people from low socio-economic status (LSES) backgrounds. While their performance is comparable to students from higher SES backgrounds, many LSES students face particular challenges in undertaking university study. Using a ‘success-focused’ (Devlin 2009) methodological approach, this research documents the factors that a sample of 53 later-year, LSES students at one Australian university report have assisted them to manage and overcome the challenges of remaining at, progressing through and succeeding in their studies. The most helpful factors included teacher availability to help, their enthusiasm and dedication; and their effective communication with students particularly but not exclusively around assessment requirements.

Teacher Beliefs as Predictors of Adolescents’ Cognitive Engagement and Achievement in Mathematics

ABSTRACT The authors explored the moderating effect of teachers’ expectancies and general sense of efficacy on the relationship between students’ achievement and their cognitive engagement and achievement 1 year later. They used hierarchical linear modeling with a longitudinal sample of 79 mathematics teachers and their 1,364 secondary school students coming from 33 schools serving disadvantaged communities in Québec (Canada). Results indicate that teachers’ self-reported beliefs directly influenced student academic experience. However, they did not influence more importantly low-achieving than high-achieving students. Such findings suggest that in schools serving low socioeconomic status students, teachers should be made aware of the role their attitudes can play on students’ cognitive engagement and achievement. Special efforts should also be made to help them develop positive attitudes toward all students.

Obtaining learning independence and academic success through self-assessment and referral to a Mathematics Learning Centre

Globally, universities are striving to increase enrolment rates, especially for low socioeconomic status and mature-aged students. In order to meet these targets, universities are accepting a broader range of students, often resulting in a widening mathematical knowledge gap between secondary school and university (Hoyles, Newman & Noss, 2001). Therefore, even amid the growing trend of scaling back services, there exists a need for extra learning support in mathematics. Mathematics support services are recognised as vital in assisting students to both bridge the knowledge gap and become independent learners. Through a survey of students using the Mathematics Learning Centre at Central Queensland University Australia, it was found that the implementation of scaffolding, adult learning principles and the embedding of mathematics support provides students with not only fundamental mathematical knowledge but also the skills required to become self-directed learners.

The distribution of pedagogical content knowledge in Cambodia: Gaps and thresholds in math achievement

Increasing teacher quality is a major objective of recent Cambodian education policy. In mathematics education literature, pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has emerged as a critical component of teacher quality that is strongly linked to student achievement. In this study I use data from a large survey of Cambodian schools to investigate the effect of math teachers’ PCK on third grade student achievement. I use ordinary least squares and Quantile Regression analyses to examine this aspect of teacher quality. I find that pedagogical knowledge is a strong predictor of student math achievement in Cambodia in comparison to other student, school, and background variables, but that the effect is concentrated among higher achieving students. Quantile Regression with this dataset also exposes gaps and thresholds in achievement associated with other explanatory variables. In addition, I investigate the proportional distribution of teacher PCK in Cambodia and find that lower quality teachers are more likely to be teaching lower achieving students of lower socioeconomic status.

School Choice and Educational Inequality in South Korea

Using a nationally representative sample of eleventh grade students in South Korea, we investigated how the residentially based school assignment policy called the High School Equalization Policy (HSEP) shaped the separation of low and high socioeconomic status (SES) students between schools. We found that there was a smaller between-school separation in the HSEP regions than in the non-HSEP regions. We also found that student achievement significantly depended on a school's mean SES only in the non-HSEP regions. We discuss the implications of these findings for the potential impact of school choice policies on educational inequality for Korea and beyond.

Traumatic dental injury among 12‐year‐old South Brazilian schoolchildren: prevalence, severity, and risk indicators

An increasing prevalence of traumatic dental injury (TDI) has been reported in the last few decades. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence and severity of TDI and its association with socio-demographics and physical characteristics in the anterior permanent teeth of 12-year-old Brazilian schoolchildren. A cross-sectional study was carried out in a population-based sample of 1528 subjects attending 33 public and nine private schools (response rate of 83.17%). A single calibrated examiner performed the clinical examinations at the schools and recorded the TDI index (Children's Dental Health Survey criteria), overjet and lip coverage. Height and weight were measured to calculate the body mass index (BMI). Parents/legal guardians answered a questionnaire containing socio-demographic questions. The relationships among TDI, socio-demographic variables and physical characteristics were assessed by survey Poisson regression models. The prevalence of TDI was 34.79% (mild trauma = 24.37%; severe trauma = 10.43%). Male schoolchildren (RR = 1.41, 95% CI = 1.23-1.61, P = 0.002) and schoolchildren from low socioeconomic status (RR = 1.32, 95% CI = 1.07-1.64, P = 0.021) were more likely to present at least one tooth with TDI, whereas students attending 7th grade (advanced students) were less likely to experience TDI (RR = 0.59, 95% CI = 0.43-0.82, P = 0.012). Regarding the severity analysis, students of mid-high (RR = 1.46, 95% CI = 1.09-1.94, P = 0.022), mid-low (RR = 1.68, 95% CI = 1.01-2.77, P = 0.045) and low (RR = 1.78, 95% CI = 1.11-2.85, P = 0.027) socioeconomic status were more likely to have mild trauma when compared with schoolchildren of high socioeconomic status. No significant association between severe trauma and socioeconomic status was observed. In conclusion, this study showed a high prevalence of TDI in 12-year-old Brazilian schoolchildren. Socio-demographic data and school achievement were associated with TDI.

Principals leading learning: developing and applying a leadership framework

This article addresses the way in which principals can contribute to closing the unacceptable gap in literacy achievement in Australia for low socio-economic status (SES) students by connecting leadership work more directly with the conditions which influence teaching and learning. It draws upon the outcomes of a project funded under the Australian Government's ‘Literacy and numeracy Pilots in Low SES Environments' initiative, called Principals as Literacy Leaders. Discussion centres on a synthesis of recent research literature into a leadership for learning framework or blue print to guide the actions of principals as they interact with their teachers over literacy learning and achievement. The framework was used to organise professional learning experiences for principals to enable them to engage members of staff with key issues known to challenge and enhance literacy learning. A sample of the kinds of experiences employed during the project is described. The combination or blend of curriculum content with professional processes, it is suggested, is in need of further research if initial hopes for improved leadership development in the future are to be realised.

Unequal schooling: how the school curriculum keeps students from low socio‐economic backgrounds out of university

The Australian higher education sector has grappled, with little success, to increase the participation of students from lower socio‐economic status (SES) backgrounds. In this article I identify the ways in which the secondary school curriculum contributes to this outcome, and how universities are complicit in this process. Using data collected at three low SES secondary schools, I argue that the hierarchy of subjects and the increase of vocational education options, together with the expectations of schools and teachers, conspire with tertiary selection processes to prevent all but a very few low SES students from gaining entry to university. These students are not well positioned in relation to cultural and social capital to negotiate the educational strategies that facilitate university entrance. When university places are limited and access is based on relative (apparent) merit, the secondary curriculum orders young people into a social hierarchy of post‐secondary options where the success of more privileged students comes at the cost of students from low socio‐economic backgrounds. The article concludes with an exploration of alternative modes of entry that disrupt the established curriculum hierarchy by valuing a broad range of knowledges for entry to university.

The use of national data sets to baseline science education reform: exploring value-added approaches

This paper uses data from the National Pupil Database to investigate the differences in ‘performance’ across the range of science courses available following the 2006 Key Stage 4 (KS4) science reforms in England. This is a value-added exploration (from Key Stage 3 [KS3] to KS4) aimed not at the student or the school level, but rather at that of the course. Different methodological approaches to carrying out such an analysis, ranging from simple non-contextualized techniques, to more complex fully contextualized multilevel models, are investigated and their limitations and benefits are evaluated. Important differences between courses are found in terms of the typical ‘value’ they add to the students studying them with particular applied science courses producing higher mean KS4 outcomes for the same KS3 level compared with other courses. The implications of the emergence of such differences, in a context where schools are judged to a great extent on their value-added performance, are discussed. The relative importance of a variety of student characteristics in determining KS4 outcomes are also investigated. Substantive findings are that across all types of course, science prior attainment at KS3, rather than that of mathematics or English, is the most important predictor of KS4 performance in science, and that students of lower socio-economic status consistently make less progress over KS4 than might be expected, despite prior attainment being accounted for in the modelling.

Positive fantasies predict low academic achievement in disadvantaged students

AbstractUnlike other forms of positive thinking (e.g., expectations), research finds that positive fantasies (experiencing one's thoughts and mental images about the future positively) predict low effort and little success in several domains. However, for vocational education students of low socioeconomic status and minority ethnicity, for whom the present environment is especially difficult, perhaps it would be appropriate to indulge in positive fantasies that depict the future as bright and easily attained. Three studies show that this is not the case. Positive future fantasies measured early in the program predicted more days absent (Studies 2–3) and lower grades at the end of the program (Studies 1–3), even when adjusting for initial academic competence, expectations of successful achievement, and self‐discipline. Expectations of successful achievement predicted fewer days absent and higher grades only when measured midway through the school year, once participants had experience with their own academic standing (Study 3). Results indicate that positive fantasies, which allow people to indulge in images of a bright future, predict poor achievement even in vocational students immersed in a particularly difficult environment. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Effects of year-round schooling on disadvantaged students and the distribution of standardized test performance

Using detailed longitudinal data for the state of California, this paper estimates the effect of year-round school calendars on nationally standardized test performance of traditionally disadvantaged students. The student subgroups studied in this paper are: low socioeconomic status, limited English proficiency, Hispanic and Latino, and African American students. I find significant negative effects of multi-track year-round calendars on academic achievement for all subgroups examined, with only the limited English proficiency student subgroup producing unreliable estimates. Negative and significant results for another type of year-round calendar, single-track, are also found for the full sample of students and low socioeconomic status students.

The Impact of Prestige Orientation on Shadow Education in South Korea

Widespread use of “shadow education,” is a major policy issue in East Asia, especially South Korea, where officials view it as harmful to educational and fiscal equity. Although previous research emphasizes functional explanations, this study takes an institutional approach, exploring how students’ desire for prestigious matriculation influences their parents’ spending on shadow education. It is around that that “prestige orientation” (1) significantly predicts parent spending, especially among students of lower socioeconomic status, and (2) yields strong impact among students with the least likelihood of prestigious matriculation. Such findings indicate that Korean shadow education serves purposes that are as much symbolic as instrumental.

Experiential ‘hot’ knowledge and its influence on low-SES students' capacities to aspire to higher education

The Australian Government has recently signalled its intention to fund programs that assist in ‘raising’ the aspirations of low socio-economic status (SES) students. However, this objective can imply that low-SES students lack adequate aspirations for their future. This implication supports deficit views of low-SES students and elides the aspirations that families and communities do hold for their futures. In response, this paper pursues a more complex exploration of how access to different kinds of social, cultural and economic resources affects students' capacities to articulate and pursue their aspirations. It draws on Appadurai's notion of the ‘capacity to aspire’, which repatriates aspirations into the cultural domain in order to pursue a more collective analysis than is possible when focusing on individual wants and choices. Ball and Vincent's concepts of ‘hot’ (informal) and ‘cold’ (formal) knowledge provide a complimentary resource for exploring how the social networks through which students from low-SES backgrounds access knowledge can resource their capacities to aspire. Through this conceptual framework, and drawing on empirical data collected in a secondary school on the northern urban fringes of Adelaide, Australia, the paper explores how low-SES students form aspirations within social networks that provide different degrees of access to, and the decoding of, information about higher and further education. The resources available to participants and the different strategies they employ in relation to both kinds of knowledge affect the relative strength or weakness of their capacity to aspire.

EIGHTH GRADE MATHEMATICS TEACHERS’ FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT PRACTICES IN SES-DIFFERENT CLASSROOMS: A TAIWAN STUDY

In this qualitative case study, the researchers explored 3 8th grade teachers’ formative assessment practices as it occurred during their mathematics instruction at socioeconomic status (SES)-different schools in Taiwan. Instructionally embedded formative assessment we refer to as discourse-based assessment practice (DAP). In Taiwan, there is a large mathematics achievement gap among high SES and low SES and minority students in 8th grade. Addressing this issue at the level of classroom practice, we attempt to document teachers’ DAP using a parsimonious, but practical framework for analyzing classroom discourse in 23 lessons. For the purpose of this study, 3 lessons for each teacher are represented. The extended sequence (Mehan, 1979) was the primary unit of analysis, to which we applied our framework for illuminating and differentiating the teachers’ press for student understanding through questions and feedback. The analysis of the teacher’s instruction at the high SES indicated that it was more formative than the others, pressing for mathematical understanding. The 2 teachers at the low SES schools pressed for rote understanding, though there were qualitative differences between them. The findings raise more questions and implications for research and education policy. In Taiwan where there is scant research on classroom practices, DAP as an instructional improvement may be a starting point for educational improvement for all its students.

How Do Technology Application and Equity Impact Student Achievement?

This study examines the impact of technology application on student achievement in the state of Georgia. Technology application includes elements such as technology access, technology integration, and teacher technology proficiency. Student achievement refers to students’ standardized test scores in language, social studies, sciences, and mathematics in elementary, middle, and high schools. Results of Multiple Regression analysis yielded significant percentages of variance in student achievement that was attributable to Internet connected computer access. Another purpose of the study was to investigate the equity issues of school technology. School levels and student socioeconomic status were used as independent variables to determine if significant differences in technology application existed among the school levels and the socioeconomic status categories. Results of Analysis of Variance indicated that students of low socioeconomic status had far less opportunities to access Internet connected computers than students of high socioeconomic status. The level of technology application increased as students moved up the school level.

Teacher Effects on Minority and Disadvantaged Students’ Grade 4 Achievement

ABSTRACT The authors examined the differential effects of teachers on female, minority, and low-socioeconomic status (SES) students’ achievement in Grade 4. They used data from a randomized experiment (Project STAR) and its follow-up study (LBS). Student outcomes included Grade 4 SAT scores in mathematics, reading, and science and student demographics included gender, race, and SES. The authors used multilevel models to determine how teacher effectiveness interacted with student gender, race, and SES. We also explored whether teacher effects were more pronounced in schools with high proportions of minority or female students. Results indicated that all students benefited from having effective teachers. The differential teacher effects on female, minority, and low-SES students’ achievement, however, were insignificant. There is some evidence in mathematics that teacher effects are more pronounced in high-minority schools. Finally, teacher effects seem to be consistent within and between schools.

“Stay Out of the Way! My Kid is Video Blogging Through a Phone!”

The current trends in social network media, coupled with increasingly advanced and ubiquitous mobile technology point towards great potential for their use in learning support and an emerging possibility of “deconstructing digital divide.” This paper explores a mobile video blogging model embedded in a learning support community as a means of addressing learning needs among underperforming students of low socioeconomic status. In this study, various mobile video recording approaches were analyzed and some blogging strategies were linked to higher learning outcomes. Although a few challenges and issues were identified, the mobile video blogging community was generally found to be a viable learning support model for children in underserved communities.