2010 - The Role of Schools, Families, and Psychological Variables on Math Achievement of Black High School Students

Attribution: Strayhorn, Terrell L.
Researchers: Terrell L. Strayhorn
University Affiliation: The Ohio State University
Email: strayhorn.3@osu.edu
Research Question:
  • What is the impact of school-, family-, and person-level affective or social psychological variables on math achievement for a nationally representative sample of Black high school students?
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: The High School Journal
Journal Entry: Vol. 93, Number 4, pp. 177-194
Year: 2010
Findings:
  1. Black women, first-generation college students, those who scored lower on the 8th grade math exam, and those with an external locus of control tended to perform less well on the math achievement exam in 10th grade compared to Black men, continuing generation students, 8th grade achievers, and those with an internal locus of control.
  2. Gender, parents’ level of education, prior math achievement, locus of control, parental involvement, and mother’s expectations were positively related to Black students’ math achievement. Percent free lunch in school was negatively related to Black high school students’ math achievement.
Keywords: Academic AchievementAfrican AmericanAttitudesCollegeHigh SchoolMathParentsSelf-EsteemMethodologies: QuantitativeAnalysis Methods: Multilevel Models Sampling Frame:Black 10th graders
Sampling Types: RandomAnalysis Units: ParentSchoolStudentData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:
  • Data for this study were drawn from the National Education Longitudinal Study:1988/2000 (NELS:88/00)
  • Due to the stratified sampling technique used in NELS:88/00, each individual was assigned a sampling weight which is equal to the inverse of the probability of selection. Thus, after applying the appropriate adjusted weight, the weighted analytic sample consisted of 354,450 Black students (unadjusted N = 1,766).
  • DV:
    • Math Achievement (measured by standardized score on a math exam administered in the 10th grade)
  • IV:
    • Parents level of education, math attitudes, perceived math usefulness, locus of control,

      parent attending school meeting, parent spoke to teacher, parent attended school event, parents

      educational expectations, gender, urbanicity of school, percent of school that qualifies for free and

      reduced lunch, how often parents limited the TV.

  • Theoretical Perspective:
    • Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory describes four types of nested systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. Each system contains roles, norms, and rules that shape one’s development. Bronfenbrenner suggests that each subsystem, beginning with the microsystem, is nested within a larger ecological system in a layered fashion, so that reoccurring interactions between the individual and their environmental contexts (called proximal processes) will affectively shape human growth and development.
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts