Schooling Decisions Research Articles

Why Do Financially Illiterate Students Perceive Lower Education Returns? Evidence From a Survey in Rural China

This paper studies how students’ financial literacy affects their perceptions of returns to schooling and consequently their schooling decisions. We first propose a model of human capital accumulation where financially illiterate students exhibit a cognitive bias of “ironing heuristic.” With this decision heuristic, students tend to linearize the relationship between educational investments and future earnings, resulting in underestimated returns to education and inadequate study efforts. Using survey data from four rural middle schools in Southwest China, we then find a positive correlation between financial literacy and students’ perceived returns to education. In particular, the estimate of students’ perceived earnings function shows that its curvature significantly increases with students’ financial knowledge of compound interest, supporting the assumption in the theory. Our findings suggest that promoting students’ financial literacy may be an effective policy to motivate students to learn at school, especially in poor rural areas. JEL: I26, G53 (Financial Literacy), D91, J24

The Effects of the Physical Environment, Promotion, and Educational Costs on Parents' Choices Regarding Education at Al-Hikmah Vocational High School, Jakarta, Indonesia

It has an effect on the number of new students entering Al-Hikmah Vocational School for the last 3 (three) years starting the 2018 school year fluctuating decreased. The physical environment, promotion, and educational costs are one of the main factors influencing parents in choosing a school for their children. This study aims to: 
 
 Identify and analyze the impact of the physical environment on parents' trust in Al-Hikmah Vocational High School's decision-making regarding education, 
 Identify and evaluate the impact of sales promotion on parents' trust in Al-Hikmah Vocational High School's decision-making regarding education. 
 To determine and assess the impact of education prices on parents' trust in Al-Hikmah Vocational High School's decision-making, 
 To determine and examine the impact of the physical environment on parents' choices of schooling at Al-Hikmah Vocational School, 
 To determine and examine the influence of promotion on parents' choices of education at Al-Hikmah Vocational School, 
 To determine and examine the influence of education costs on parents' choices of education at Al-Hikmah Vocational School, 
 To learn about and analyze the role that trust plays in parents' decisions regarding their children's education at Al-Hikmah Vocational School; 
 To learn about and evaluate the role that the physical environment plays in decisions made through trust; 
 To learn about and evaluate the role that promotion plays in decisions made through trust; and 
 To learn about and evaluate the role that education costs play in decisions made through trust. 
 
 Descriptive quantitative, associative, and quantitative research methods are used along with SmartPLS software for data analysis. The study's results indicate that the Al-Hikmah Vocational School's physical environment, promotional strategies, and educational prices impact parents' decisions on which school to send their children to.

“I Went There”: How Parent Experience Shapes School Decisions

As school choice expands, families face an increasingly arduous decision-making process around school enrollment. Through interviews with a socioeconomically and ethno-racially diverse sample of 60 parents in Dallas, Texas, we illustrate one key way families negotiate this choice landscape. We find that many parents use their own educational experiences as first-stage decision rules for narrowing the types of schools they consider for their children through experience-motivated replication and experience-motivated avoidance. Parents with positive schooling experiences sought to replicate the type of school they attended for their children, while parents with negative schooling experiences aimed to avoid the type of school they attended. While experience-motivated replication was used by parents across race and class positions, it was most common among White parents who often entrenched patterns of white flight through replication of private or suburban school enrollment. In contrast, experience-motivated avoidance was used by Black parents in our sample as a strategy to disrupt educational inequality for their children by eliminating traditional public schools, where parents reported feeling underserved as children, from their choice sets. This study adds to our understanding of how families negotiate the increasingly complex school choice landscape, and mechanisms for the persistence of intergenerational educational inequality.

Is Distributed Leadership Universal? A Cross-Cultural, Comparative Approach across 40 Countries: An Alignment Optimisation Approach

Distributed leadership (DL) is defined as the degree of contact and involvement of various people in making choices or carrying out responsibilities, and is an increasingly used concept among researchers, policymakers, and educationalists worldwide. However, few studies have investigated the cross-cultural comparability of the distributed leadership scale for school principals, and few have ranked countries according to their levels of distributed leadership. This study employs an innovative alignment optimisation approach to compare the latent means of distributed leadership, as perceived by school principals, across 40 countries, using data from the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS, 2018). We found that South Korea, Colombia, Shanghai (China), and Lithuania had the highest levels of distributed leadership in school decisions, from the perspective of school principals. In contrast, the Netherlands, Belgium, Argentina, and Japan had the lowest levels. Our findings may serve as guidance for education stakeholders over which nations they could learn from in order to enhance school principal distributed leadership.

How Do People Respond When They Know That Robots Will Take Their Jobs?

In recent years, the USA observed a substantial increase in the adoption of robotic technology. The use of industrial robots in the US economy increased rapidly from about 1 robot per 1,000 workers in 2005 to 1.7 robots per 1,000 workers in 2017, a 70% increase. At the same time, there is a concern that the rapid adoption of robots will transform our society in a way that we have never seen before. In this article, we investigate whether individuals are responding to the increasing use of robots in their locality by altering their schooling decision. The results of the analysis suggest that a 10% increase in robot exposure is associated with an approximately 2.5% rise in college enrolment rate. In the long run, we find evidence that more intense exposure to robots during school ages is associated with an increase in the probability of an individual obtaining a college degree.

The Research on the Influence of Luckin Coffee Advertisements upon Chinese University Students’ Consumer Behaviors

Luckin Coffee is a recently emerging beverage brand on the Chinese mainland that is well-liked for its affordable but high-quality offerings. The target market for this brand is young people due to its brand positioning as professional, stylish, and youthful. Luckin Coffee sets up plenty of off-line stores and also develops its online business through WeChat applet. It uses a variety of advertising techniques to advertise their products. Concentration is placed on both the choice of the endorser and the location of the advertisement placement. The impact of the promotional approach on students' purchasing decisions in schools is the main topic of this essay. In order to discover the answer, quantitative research is done on university students, who are thought of as a representative of the youth group. The outcome shows that raw coconut latte, which has been heavily promoted through advertisements, is selected by the respondents as the top product. Meanwhile, celebrity endorsement has a significant impact on how people view products.

The effect of teacher influence relative to principal influence in school decision-making on teacher job attitudes

ABSTRACT Although research has highlighted the importance of teachers’ influence on school-wide policies, less attention has been given to the role of the influence of teachers relative to the principal within a school. This study thus examined the extent to which the influence of teachers relative to the principal in school decision-making predicts teachers’ job attitudes, i.e. job satisfaction and professional commitment. By using the National Teacher and Principal Survey 2015–2016, nationally representative data from 19,450 teachers and 2,860 principals of public schools in the United States were analysed. The findings revealed the greater the relative influence of teachers, the more positive the association with teacher job satisfaction and professional commitment as job attitudes. The current study showed that the extent of teacher influence relative to that of the principal plays a critical role in social conditions within a school and can improve individual teachers’ job attitudes regarding school decision-making.

Role of school preparedness on children's in-person schooling decision during Covid-19 pandemic in Bangladesh

BackgroundDue to Covid-19 impacted disruption, Bangladesh government had temporarily shut all the educational institutes down in March 2020 though it was prolonged until September 2021. After continuous concern of UNICEF, when government considered about reopening of schools for in-person classes amid the pandemic, many parents were found to be worried regarding the status of school preparedness. ObjectiveThe purpose of this study is to investigate compliance status of school preparedness as per UNICEF's guidelines and its effect on children's schooling decision during the pandemic. MethodsThe study considers 30 primary schools and 310 parents by employing a simple random sampling technique in Dhaka city. Along with the descriptive analysis, principal component analysis (PCA) and a logistic regression model have been executed to come up the goal of the study. ResultsThe findings explore that classroom density, level of preparedness on health and hygiene, social distancing and awareness, reporting and referral mechanism, communication with school authority, and school arrival on foot have a positive association with the likelihood of parents’ decision for sending their children back to school. On the other hand, monthly expenditure and distance from school to home have a negative relationship with the likelihood on sending children to in-person schooling. ConclusionThe level of school preparedness greatly affects the parent's decision for children's physical schooling during pandemic. So, to keep mental stability of the children amidst any pandemic, the authorities should take care on school preparedness to ensure physical schooling of the children.

Household and student survey-based evidence on girls secondary education in Afghanistan

Afghanistan has long had one of the poorest education records in the world and females in particular have exceptionally low rates of literacy. This paper presents descriptive evidence using novel survey data that 1) peer-to-peer mentorship can improve girls math and reading performance and, 2) that maternal education is positively related to the likelihood that girls are involved in schooling decisions and this involvement is positively associated with attendance. Moreover, the data is consistent with teacher education being positively associated with higher academic achievement, and student-teacher ratios not being correlated with educational outcomes among in this population. The survey evidence presented in this paper provides novel, suggestive evidence for future research on and strategies to improve the quality and quantity of female education in Afghanistan. It also suggests that losses in educational attainment in the current generation of girls has important implications for the education of future generations of Afghan girls.

A participação de mães surdas na vida escolar dos filhos ouvintes

Abstract The challenge of understanding the social and academic needs of deaf children in the educational context has been the subject of deep analysis in the literature, but the same does not happen in relation to deaf mothers and the performance of their role as responsible for the education of their children. Often, mothers who are deaf face communicational and attitudinal barriers, requiring adjustments in the family-school relationship, in order to guarantee them the fundamental right to participate in school decisions and in the school life of their students. This study aimed to explore the perspective of mothers who are deaf on their involvement in the school life of their hearing children, in order to identify areas of political action and practices for mobilizing facilitators of family-school relationships. For this, a focus group was held with 10 mothers who are deaf, whose children attended basic education – 1st and 2nd cycles – in Portuguese public schools. The results suggest that, despite the mothers’ willingness and commitment to get involved in their children’s school life, this participation is restricted by the way in which communication and the family-school relationship is traditionally structured. The perceived barriers are associated with the avoidance of situations of interaction with the school, in addition to the concern for the lack of knowledge of their children’s school life. The widespread existence of interpreters in schools or the training of the school community for the use of sign language are some of the changes discussed by mothers who are deaf in achieving their right to participate in the school life of their children.

AS PERCEPÇÕES DOS PROFESSORES SOBRE O ENVOLVIMENTO FAMILIAR NA ESCOLA: FATORES QUE PREVEEM A PARTICIPAÇÃO

ABSTRACT This study aims to analyze teachers’ perception about families’ participation at school. Also, it is intended to know what factors are those that predict this type of participation. For that purpose, it was selected a sample composed of 347 teachers from the Pre-Primary, Primary and Secondary Education stages belonging to both public and private schools in Gran Canaria (Spain) with an average of 19.8 years of professional experience. It was used a 28 like Likert items with values between 1-6 with a total ordinal alpha of the scale of 0.95. Four factors were measured on this scale: opening school to the community, school’s social prestige, closeness and personal treat towards families and students and families’ participation in the school decision-making. As a result, significant differences were found among these factors depending on the teaching staff’s age, the years of teaching experience, the type of school and the educational stage. Significant differences were also found depending on whether the teaching staff had held management positions as well as in relation to the degree of teachers’ participation at schools. On the other hand, it was carried out a hierarchical multiple regression analysis that explains the variables that predict families’ educational participation at schools. These predictive variables are the following ones: the age of the teaching staff, if this latter promotes cultural activities, being a member of the management team, a greater degree of teacher’s participation at school, whether parents’ association organizes activities at school and whether the teaching staff has got a good perception about the level of families’ participation at schools.

Problems of Arabic Teaching for Students of The Government Islamic High School Semarang

The Arabic language has four skills required by all non-native speaking students, especially students from the government school in Samarang, Indonesia. It is the skill of listening, speaking, reading and writing. All of these skills are necessary for non-native students to try to understand them. Although students learn it from a young age, they cannot master this language well. Rather, they face many problems, including difficulty understanding word structures and comprehension of new foreign vocabulary. This research aims to identify the problems of teaching Arabic to students of the Islamic High School in Samarang and solve their problems. This research was a field research using the qualitative approach in conjunction with the use of the current study as one of its methods. Data collection is carried out in three ways: observation, interview, and documentation. The method used to analyze research data is reduction, presentation and investigation. The result of the research was obtained that the problems faced by students of the public secondary school Smaring are of two types, namely the linguistic problem and the non-linguistic problem, and the linguistic problem is vocabulary and structures. The non-linguistic problem is the lack of motivation and enthusiasm of students and the lack of a learning environment. The solutions proposed by the researcher are 1) accustoming students to speech as much as they can, 2) using fun method and strategy such as language games and others, 3) fixing school decisions related to the motivation for their learning of the Arabic language, such as warning and excuse.

Sources of teacher efficacy in teaching reading: success, sharing, and support

Teacher self- and collective efficacy are important motivational factors in determining teachers’ effort in their professional practice. Teachers’ higher levels of self- and collective efficacy are positively associated with student achievement in specific domains, and teachers’ enhanced wellbeing and commitment to their profession. This qualitative study explores primary teachers’ own views about naturalistic and characteristic experiences and influences that have strengthened and weakened their efficacy in teaching reading. Five themes of naturalistic sources of enhancement in self- and collective efficacy are identified that are consistent with predictions of Bandura’s social cognitive theory and studies involving interventions in schools by expert trainers. The themes are combined into a model of growth in teachers’ efficacy and can potentially inform decision-making in schools in supporting and enhancing teachers’ self- and collective efficacy when teaching reading.

Respect for Resources or Towards a New Paradigm in Education in Romania

"In a world dominated, on the one hand, by the polysemantism of the notion of crisis, and on the other, by the irrational consumption of resources, in the frantic rush for material well-being, the introduction in some schools in Romania and the Republic of Moldova of the optional course Respect for resources aims to break new ground in the awareness of the role of sustainable development, both for current and future generations. From one year to the next, the propagation, among young people, of the 17 objectives of sustainable development (OSDs), will, in the long term, have a major influence in the transformation of mentalities at society level, going, this time, from the educable to the other age groups (adults and the elderly, respectively). The present study aims to highlight, in a critical but constructive manner, the steps followed in the establishment of this new integrated discipline, the specific competencies and operational objectives, the organization of the contents and their relevance, the growing impact on school communities in our country and the perspectives of implementation at school unit level in Romania and the Republic of Moldova. The success of the project depends, to an overwhelming extent, on the teacher’s awareness and knowledge to convince the decision-making factors of the school of the need to integrate such an optional course in the School Decision Curriculum or in the Local Development Curriculum, both at secondary school and at high school level. Keywords: crisis, school decision curriculum, sustainable development, respect, resources, sustainability. "

학교 의사결정에 대한 초등학교 교사의 수용 영역 및 참여 수준 분석

The purpose of this study is to explore the development directions for effective school decision-making by analyzing the zone of acceptance and participation level of elementary school teachers in school decision-making. The main results are as follows. In the results of the zone of acceptance, most of the school decision-making contents were found to be located outside or marginal(high relevance) of the zone of acceptance that requires participation expanding. In addition, the decision-making contents located outside of the zone of acceptance can be recognized not only at the every school level but also at the small group level such as same grade year or subject, whereas the decision-making contents located inside of the zone of acceptance are mainly discussed to the every school level. In the results of participation level, teacher participation in decision-making was mainly classified into four types: Type 1, Type 2, Type 4, and Type 8. In the results of comparison with the zone of acceptance and participation level, it was found that the participation level was made in accordance with the normative direction of participation according to the zone of acceptance for some decision-making contents. However, most of the other decision-making contents were found to be located outside or marginal(high relevance) of the zone of acceptance requiring participation expanding, but the participation level can not reach to the zone of acceptance as a decisional deprivation. Combining the above results, this study derive development directions for effective teacher participation in school decision-making. First, policy support is needed to activate teachers' opinions and influence beyond decision-making participation which was centered on providing opportunities for participation. Second, by subdividing the size or scope of school decision-making contents into the small groups, teachers' approach and immersion to school decision-making should be improved. Third, school needs to establish institutional arrangements or change the school organizational culture to allow school decision-making to be delegated to small groups, in other words on a team level.

The Gendered Impact of Rural Road Improvement on Schooling Decisions and Youth Employment in Morocco

This paper examines the impact of a rural road improvement project on schooling decisions and youth employment in Morocco. Paved rural roads are expected to reduce travel time and costs, allowing additional school choices and increasing the motivation for youth to enter higher education. On the other hand, immediate earning opportunities created by new connections may encourage youth to seek paid employment. Thus, the impact of rural road improvement on schooling and youth employment warrants empirical investigation. We employ a difference-in-differences estimation using a household-level dataset collected under a quasi-experimental setting. First, we do not observe any positive effect on primary school completion for either sex, but we find a positive and significant effect on secondary school attainment or above for females. Moreover, the higher educational attainment of females is associated with a lower proportion of early marriage. Second, we do not observe any significant effects on self-employment for either sex, but we find a positive and significant effect on wage employment for males, which is pronounced among the better educated. Our findings reveal sharp gendered differences in the impact of the rural road improvement project, with increased motivation towards better education for females and paid work for males.

Records and information management in evidence-based decision-making public schools in South Africa

Records are important assets in the decision-making process and promote transparency and accountability. The successful provision of educational and training services in public schools relies on reliable and authentic records. Thus, evidence-based decision-making can help address the challenges in the basic education sector in public schools. The challenges manifest as weaknesses between the different sectors and departments responsible for early childhood development services and poor quality of school education outcomes in public schools. The said challenges were identified in the National Development Plan 2030 and their resolution can contribute to the achievement of education and training goals. The main purpose of this study was to outline the role played by records and information management in supporting evidence-based decision-making in public schools in South Africa. This study adopted the qualitative research approach and used content analysis to identify challenges hindering national development plan goal achievement in the basic education sector. A content analysis of available literature consisting of policy documents, internet sources, books and journal papers was used to identify and describe the challenges and propose solutions. It is guided by the Association of Records Managers and Administrators’ Generally Accepted Record Keeping Principles as a framework. The study found that poor educational outcomes could be improved through proper records management practices enabling evidence-based decision-making to thrive. The study recommends that governmental bodies in South Africa utilise the power of records and information management to enable goal achievement, with the professional assistance rendered by the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa (NARSSA) and provincial archives.

Community voices on factors influencing COVID-19 concerns and health decisions among racial and ethnic minorities in the school setting.

Racial and ethnic minority communities have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, but the uptake of COVID-19 mitigation strategies like vaccination and testing have been slower in these populations. With the continued spread of COVID-19 while in-person learning is a priority, school-aged youth and their caregivers must make health-related decisions daily to ensure health at school. It is critical to understand factors associated with COVID-related health decisions such as vaccination, testing, and other health behaviors (e.g., wearing masks, hand washing). Community-engaged campaigns are necessary to overcome barriers to these health behaviors and promote health equity. The aim of this study was to examine COVID-19-related concerns and influences on health decisions in middle and high schools serving primarily racial and ethnic minority, low-income families. Seven focus groups were conducted with school staff, parents, and students (aged 16 years and older). Qualitative data were analyzed using a general inductive approach. Factors related to COVID-19 concerns and health decisions centered on (1) vaccine hesitancy, (2) testing hesitancy, (3) developmental stage (i.e., ability to engage in health behaviors based on developmental factors like age), (4) cultural and family traditions and beliefs, (5) compatibility of policies and places with recommended health behaviors, (6) reliability of information, and (7) perceived risk. We explore sub-themes in further detail. It is important to understand the community's level of concern and identify factors that influence COVID-19 medical decision making to better address disparities in COVID-19 testing and vaccination uptake.

Covid-19 Pandemic and Changes in Parents’ School Preferences in Bursa Province

This study examines families’ preferences to choose the best educational institutions for their children in Bursa, Turkey, using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) Model. For this purpose, sixty-one face-to-face interviews were conducted with students and their parents at private high schools, public high schools, and open high schools in Bursa. Health concerns, quality, price, time management, safety, and self-confidence were considered the criteria in determining families’ decisions in private schools, public schools, and open high schools. The AHP results reveal that the most important criteria are health concerns with 44.91%, quality with 21.30%, safety with 12.02%, price with 8.88%, time management with 6.71%, and self-confidence is the least important criterion, which has a percentage of 6.24%. According to the criteria, values reached within the same method ranking use the criteria weights for health concerns, quality, safety, price, time management, and self-confidence. According to the AHP-weighted SAW method, private high schools are in the first place, public schools in the second place, and open high schools in the third place.

Data-based decision-making in schools: Examining the process and effects of teacher support.

Data-based decision-making in schools: Examining the process and effects of teacher support.