Investigation the Association of Some Variables with Mathematics Achievement Gap Between Rural and Urban Jordanian Students

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the association of some variables with mathematics achievement gap between rural and urban Jordanian students using TIMSS 2015 database. Due to nested structure of the TIMSS data, hierarchical linear model, was used in this study. To this end the data for 6541 students in 232 schools was analyzed. According to study findings 21.4% of total variation in mathematics achievement was due to the differences between schools. Moreover, the study results revealed that school emphasis on academic success, and school discipline problems as school-level variables were discovered to have statistically significant effect on mathematics achievement gap between urban - rural students in Jordan. Furthermore, concerning student-level variables, student like learning mathematics was the only associated significantly with the urban-rural gap in mathematics achievement. The study recommended the necessity of enhancing the capabilities of rural schools to focus on school success, enhancement discipline, increasing students' enjoyment of learning mathematics to enhance their love of this subject, as well as conducting other studies to explore the causal relationships between variables. Keywords: TIMSS, HLM, Math Achievement, Gap in Achievement, Jordanian Students. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-21-17 Publication date:July 31st 202