Effect of secondary schools on academic choices and on success in higher education

Peer reviewe

Gender differences in academic achievement. The role of school engagement, group composition, and educational choices.

Sinds het begin van de jaren 90, is er door de media, onderwijsonderzoe kers en beleidsmakers veel aandacht besteed aan het ontstaan van een ni euwe genderkloof in prestaties op school. Terwijl voorheen de aan dacht in de literatuur hoofdzakelijk gericht was op de onderwijsachterst and van meisjes, wordt vandaag de aandacht gericht op de onderwijsachter stand van jongens. Meisjes nemen vandaag even veel of zelfs meer d eel aan het hoger onderwijs, hebben hun achterstand in typische mannelij ke vakken zoals wiskunde en wetenschappen gedeeltelijk ingehaald, doen h et beter dan jongens in bijna alle vakken op school, blijven minder vaak zitten en worden minder vaak doorverwezen naar het buitengewoon secunda ir onderwijs dan jongens. Eén van de belangrijkste determinanten d ie in verband gebracht wordt met deze nieuwe genderkloof is de lagere schoolse betrokkenheid of de minder positieve schoolse attitudes van jon gens. Bovendien heeft deze nieuwe genderkloof aanleiding gegeven tot een terugkeer naar gescheiden onderwijs, ondanks een gebrek aan evi dentie voor de effectiviteit ervan voor jongens. In dit onderzoek willen we meer inzicht bieden in de verklaring van gend erverschillen in prestaties voor Nederlands en wiskunde in het secundair onderwijs in Vlaanderen. De verklaring van de verschillen tussen jongens en meisjes in prestaties wordt niet alleen gezocht in (verschill en in) kenmerken van jongens en meisjes zelf, zoals de schoolse betrokke nheid of de schoolse attitudes, maar ook in kenmerken van medeleerlingen in klassen en scholen. Bovendien wordt onderzocht of jongens en m eisjes beter presteren in gescheiden dan in gemengd onderwijs. Ten slotte wordt nagegaan in welke mate verschillen tussen jongens en meisje s in studiekeuzes, meer bepaald wat betreft het aantal uren wiskunde, ge associeerd zijn met de evolutie van wiskundeprestaties gedurende het sec undair onderwijs. De onderzoeksvragen werden beantwoord met behulp van data die verzameld zijn gedurende het LOSO-project (Longitudinaal Onderzoek Secundair Onder wijs), waarin een cohorte van meer dan 6000 leerlingen gevolgd werd tijd ens en na het secundair onderwijs. De verschillen tussen jongens e n meisjes in prestaties werden zowel cross-sectioneel, namelijk aan het einde van het tweede en het zesde leerjaar van het secundair onderwijs, als longitudinaal over de gehele periode van het secundair onderwijs ond erzocht, gebruik makend van verscheidene statistische technieken zoals m ultilevel regressie analyses, cross-lagged panel analyses en latente gro eicurve modellen. De resultaten toonden aan dat meisjes zowel aan het einde van het tweede als aan het einde van het zesde leerjaar beter presteerden voor N ederlands en dat meisjes bovendien - voornamelijk gedurende de eerste gr aad - meer vooruitgang boekten voor Nederlands dan jongens. De lag ere prestaties voor Nederlands van jongens bleken, zoals verwacht, samen te hangen met de lagere schoolse betrokkenheid. De genderverschil len in prestaties voor Nederlands bleven beperkt tot de subgroep die wei nig schoolse betrokkenheid vertoonde. De schoolse betrokkenheid va n klasgenoten had daarenboven een grotere impact op de prestaties voor N ederlands bij jongens. Bovendien daalde de schoolse betrokkenheid (inzet voor Nederlands, huiswerkattitude) gedurende het secundair onderw ijs sterker bij jongens dan bij meisjes en bleek dit samen te hangen met de minder positieve evolutie van jongens in prestaties voor Nederlands (in de eerste graad). Ook bleek de longitudinale ontwikkeling van de schoolse betrokkenheid (belangstelling voor leertaken, relatie met le erkrachten) sterker samen te hangen met de longitudinale ontwikkeling va n prestaties voor Nederlands bij jongens dan bij meisjes. Wat betr eft de prestaties voor wiskunde, vonden we geen of kleine verschillen in het voordeel van meisjes aan het einde van het tweede leerjaar terwijl aan het einde van het zesde leerjaar er verschillen in het voordeel van jongens gevonden werden. Deze ommekeer van genderverschillen gedur ende het secundair onderwijs bleek samen te hangen met het feit dat - on danks gelijkaardige eerdere wiskundeprestaties - jongens in de bovenbouw meer kiezen voor studierichtingen met een sterkere nadruk op wiskunde.& nbsp; Tenslotte werd de effectiviteit van het al dan niet gemengd zijn v an klassen en scholen onderzocht. Rekening houdend met de instroom kenmerken, het type en het net van de scholen, presteerden jongens beter in gemengde klassen dan in jongensklassen in prestaties voor Nederlands . Meisjes daarentegen presteerden voor wiskunde beter in meisjessc holen dan in gemengde scholen.Contents INTRODUCTION 1 1 Presentation of the problem 2 1.1 The emergence of a ‘new’ gender gap 2 1.2 School engagement and peer pressure 4 1.3 Gender differences in participation in math 6 1.4 Single-sex versus co-education 7 2 The hypotheses 8 3 Method 14 3.1 Data: LOSO-project 14 3.2 Variables 16 3.2.1 Student background characteristics and prior achievement 16 3.2.2 Math and language achievement 17 3.2.3 School engagement or school related attitudes 17 3.2.4 Compositional effects of school engagement or school related attitudes 18 3.2.5 Number of hours of math 18 3.2.6 Single-sex versus co-educational classes and schools 18 3.3 Analytical approach 19 3.3.1 Multilevel regression analysis 19 3.3.2 Structural equation modeling: cross-lagged analysis 20 3.3.3 Univariate and multivariate latent growth curve modeling 21 4 Structure of the book 21 5 References 24 CHAPTER 1: The impact of school related attitudes of boys and girls and of peers in classes and schools on the gender gap in language achievement in Grade 8: A multilevel analysis 29 1 Introduction 30 2 Purpose of the study and the research questions 32 3 Method 33 3.1 Data 33 3.2 Variables 34 3.3 Analytical approach 36 4 Results 40 4.1 Descriptive statistics 40 4.2 Gender differences in language achievement and attitudes 40 4.3 Can gender differences in attitudes account for gender differences in language achievement? 42 4.4 Interactions between gender and attitudes towards schooling on language achievement 43 4.5 Are boys more influenced by the attitudes of classes and schools than girls? 44 5 Discussion and conclusions 47 6 References 50 CHAPTER 2: Effects of the attitudes of pupils and of the peer group on the mathematics achievement of boys and girls 55 1 Introduction 56 1.1 Gender differences in math achievement 56 1.2 Gender differences in school related attitudes 58 2 Research questions and hypotheses 59 3 Method 60 3.1 Data 60 3.2 Variables 61 3.3 Analytical approach 64 4 Results 65 4.1 Descriptive analyses 65 4.2 Multilevel analyses 66 4.2.1 Hypothesis 1: It is expected that, taken into account background characteristics and prior achievement, girls achieve higher in math than boys at the end of Grade 8 66 4.2.2 Hypothesis 2: It is expected that the differences between boys and girls in math achievement at the end of Grade 8 are reduced when the disruptive behaviour and the school related attitudes are taken into account 68 4.2.3 Hypothesis 3: It is expected that boys as well as girls achieve higher in classes and schools with very positive school related attitudes than in classes and schools with less positive school related attitudes, but that this association is stronger for boys than for girls 71 5 Conclusions and discussion 74 6 References 77 CHAPTER 3: Effect of single-sex versus co-educational classes and schools on gender differences in progress in language and mathematics achievement 83 1 Introduction 84 2 Research questions 87 3 Data 89 4 Variables 89 5 Method 92 6 Results 93 6.1 Descriptive statistics 93 6.2 Adjusted achievement of boys and girls in single-sex versus co-educational classes and schools 94 7 Discussion 98 8 References 102 CHAPTER 4: Tracking and the effects of school related attitudes on the language achievement of boys and girls 107 1 Introduction 108 2 Tracking and school related attitudes 109 3 Research questions 111 4 Method 113 4.1 Data 113 4.2 Variables 113 4.3 Analytical approach 115 5 Results 116 5.1 Gender differences in language achievement and school related attitudes by track 116 5.2 Are adjusted gender differences in language achievement mediated by gender differences in school related attitudes? 119 5.3 Interactions between gender and school related attitudes on language achievement 121 5.4 Post hoc research 122 6 Discussion 124 7 References 127 CHAPTER 5: The gender gap in language achievement in Grade 12: The role of school related attitudes of class groups 131 1 Compositional effects and achievement 132 2 Gender, school related attitudes and peer pressure 133 3 Research questions 135 4 Method 136 4.1 Data 136 4.2 Variables 137 5 Results 140 5.1 Descriptive statistics 140 5.2 Gender differences in language achievement (hypothesis 1) 141 5.3 The differential impact of the attitudinal composition of the classes on the language achievement of boys and girls (hypothesis 2) 143 5.4 Are boys and girls more influenced by their same-sex classmates? (hypothesis 3) 146 6 Conclusion and discussion 149 7 References 153 CHAPTER 6: The causal ordering of math course-taking and math achievement for boys and girls: A longitudinal study in secondary education 159 1 Introduction 160 1.1 Math achievement and math participation 160 1.2 Gender differences in math participation and math achievement 161 1.3 Structure of the secondary educational system in Flanders 162 2 Research questions 164 3 Method 165 3.1 Data 165 3.2 Variables 165 3.3 Analytical approach 166 4 Results 168 4.1 Descriptive statistics 168 4.2 Reciprocal effects of math achievement and number of hours of math 170 4.3 Gender and the reciprocal effects of math achievement and number of hours of math 173 4.4 Multiple group analyses 174 5 Discussion and conclusions 175 6 References 178 CHAPTER 7: The relationship between the development of school engagement and the development of language achievement: Gender differences across Grades 7 through 12 183 1 Introduction 184 2 Gender differences in the development of language achievement 186 3 Gender differences in the development of school engagement 187 4 Research questions 189 5 Method 190 5.1 Sample and procedure 190 5.2 Measures 191 5.3 Analytical approach 192 6 Results 195 6.1 Descriptive statistics 195 6.2 Univariate latent growth models 197 6.3 Gender differences in growth curves 199 6.4 Multivariate latent growth curve models 203 6.5 Multiple group multivariate latent growth curve models 206 7 Discussion 207 8 References 211 CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION 215 1 Introduction 215 2 The meaning and the size of gender differences in language and math achievement 216 3 Summary and discussion of the results 219 3.1 Disengagement with schooling: a boys’ problem? 219 3.1.1 Language achievement 219 3.1.2 Math achievement 222 3.2 The engagement of class- and schoolmates 223 3.2.1 Language achievement 223 3.2.2 Math achievement 225 3.3 The development of gender differences in math achievement across secondary education 227 3.4 A justified return to single-sex education? 229 3.5 A short summary of the main results 231 4 Limitations and contributions of the conducted studies 232 4.1 Limitations 232 4.1.1 Data 232 4.1.2 Variables 234 4.1.3 Method 236 4.2 Contributions 237 4.2.1 Theoretical contributions 237 4.2.2 Practical contributions: possible solutions to boys’ lower achievement in language and girls’ lower participation in math 240 A) Boys and language 240 B) Girls and math 242 C) Conclusion: creating equal opportunities for boys and girls 243 5 Future directions for research 243 5.1 Why are boys less engaged towards schooling? 243 5.2 More longitudinal research is needed 244 5.3 Methodological advances 245 5.4 ‘Which’ boys are at risk? Variable orientated versus person orientated approaches 245 5.5 Single-sex versus co-educational classes and schools 246 5.6 Extension to other educational outcomes 247 5.7 What happens before and after secondary education? 248 5.8 Use of qualitative research and investigating case-studies 249 6 References 250 APPENDICES 257 SAMENVATTING (Summary in Dutch) 277status: publishe

Class composition: An exploration of possible explanations

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Effectiviteit van het GOK-beleid: Eerste resultaten van het SiBO-onderzoek

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Effecten van individuele attitudes en van de attitudes van de peergroup op de prestaties voor wiskunde van jongens en meisjes

Effects of attitudes towards schooling on gender differen-ces in mathematics achievement In this study we investi-gated whether the gender gap in favour of girls in mathema-tics achievement can be explained not only by gender differ-ences in attitudes and behaviour but also by the attitudes of the peer group. Multilevel analyses were carried out on the LOSO-data. The results showed that girls have more posi-tive attitudes towards schooling and behave better at school and that once these gender differences were taken into account, the gender gap in mathematics achievement disappeared. We found that the gender gap became smaller, the more boys and girls had positive attitudes towards schooling. Moreover, the results indicated that the attitu-des of the peer group had effects on the mathematics achievement of boys and girls: girls and boys performed better in groups with high positive attitudes towards schooling than in groups with low positive attitudes towards schooling (A-curriculum).Departement Pedagogische wetenschappen. Afdeling Didactiek. Centrum voor Onderwijseffectiviteit en -evaluatie. Afdeling Fundamentele en comparatieve pedagogiek en methodologie. Centrum voor Methodologie van het pedagogisch onderzoek. Centrum voor Gezinspedagogiek. Centrum Vrouw en opvoeding. Onderzoeksinstituut Opvoeding en opvoedingsproblemen in gezin, gezinsaanvullende en gezinsvervangen. Leuvens Instituut voor onderwijsonderzoek (LIVO)status: publishe

The impact of school-related attitudes of the peer group on gender differences in language achievement

In this study, we will investigate how the school related attitudes of the peer group are associated with the underachievement of boys in language in different tracks at the end of secondary education. Data were drawn from the LOSO-project, a longitudinal project in secondary education. The results showed that in the lower ability tracks - and not in the highest ability track - significant gender differences in language achievement were found. In the lower ability tracks, we found that boys with similar background characteristics perform better in classes with a high mean relationship with teachers and with a high mean well-being at school. For girls, the attitudes of the class did not have a big impact on their language achievement.12status: publishe

Impact of students' and their schoolmates' achievement motivation on the status and growth in math and language achievement of boys and girls across grades 7 through 8

The present study focuses not only on the impact of students’ achievement motivation, but also on the influence of achievement motivation of fellow students on status and growth in language and math achievement across Grades seven and eight. The achievement motivation of schoolmates may create a learning environment that facilitates or impedes learning above and beyond what would be expected on the basis of the individual student’s achievement motivation, intelligence and background characteristics. Data from the LOSO-project, a longitudinal study in secondary education, have been analyzed using multilevel linear growth curve modeling. It turns out that the effect of achievement motivation, both of individuals and in groups, should not be neglected in explanations of individual progress in achievement, even when ability and background characteristics such as the socio-economic status, age, sex and home language have been controlled for. In addition, the data suggest that especially boys with poor achievement motivation at the start of secondary education are at risk of falling behind with regard to language achievement in the subsequent years.status: publishe

Curriculum choice and success in the first two grades of secondary education: students, classes, or schools?

The major aim of educational effectiveness research is to examine and explain school, class, and teacher differen-ces with respect to relevant educational criteria. Until now, in the large majority of studies, language and mathematics scores were used as a criterion. In the present study, the educational track students choose at the start of secondary education (at the age of 12) and their success in the chosen curriculum are examined in relation to primary school and classes (Grades 1 to 6). Two-level models show that students had higher aims in secondary education if they had attended primary Catholic schools and/or primary schools with high average curriculum advice. The latter schools were also highly effective with respect to achievement, and their students had a high socioeconomic status and background. Multilevel models with a cross-classified structure showed no direct long-term effects of primary schools and classes.status: publishe

Effects of single-sex versus co-educational classes and schools on gender differences in progress in language and mathematics achievement

In this study, the effects of single-sex versus co-educational classes and schools on the progress in language and mathematics of boys and girls at the end of the second year of secondary education are investigated. Data from the Longitudinaal Onderzoek Secundair Onderwijs project are used. Multilevel analyses were carried out on a sample of approximately 4000 pupils, 330 classes (190 single-sex), 180 teachers and 50 schools (20 single-sex). The results indicate that for boys the gender composition of the classes has more impact than the gender composition of the schools, whereas for girls the gender composition of the schools is more important. Boys make more progress for language (and not for mathematics) in co-educational classes even after we have taken into account the selective nature of the classes. Girls, on the other hand, make more progress for mathematics (but not for language) in single-sex than in co-educational schools.status: publishe