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- Rasmusson, Maria, 1973-
(author)
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A Multilevel Analysis of Swedish and Norwegian Students’ Overall and Digital Reading Performance with a Focus on Equity Aspects of Education
- 2016
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In: Large-scale assessments in education. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2196-0739. ; 4
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Background: Influence of external factors in general, and socioeconomic background factors in particular, on traditional reading performance has been extensively researched and debated. While traditional reading is well investigated in this respect, there is a lack of studies on equity aspects related to digital reading achievement, in spite of the fact that time spent on reading from digital devices such as computers, tablets, and smart phones without doubt is increasing all over the world. In the hope of contributing to an area that up until now to a great extent has been left unresearched, the present study aims at investigating to what degree external factors, such as cultural and economic capital, parental pressure, and school choice, are related to 15-year-old students’ achievement in digital reading and in overall reading on both the student level and the school level in Norway and Sweden.Methods: To conduct the analysis, multilevel structural modelling techniques have been used on PISA data from the two countries.Results: The results for the Norwegian as well as for the Swedish sample showed that overall reading achievement was related to cultural capital in both countries, as expected, and in line with previous research. An identified digital reading factor, representing the unique aspects of digital reading achievement when overall reading was controlled for, was less influenced by the external factors of cultural and economic capital, and by parental pressure and school type, compared to performance in overall reading. Interestingly, on the school level, it was found that the external factors, school choice, and parental pressure related to overall reading achievement differently in the Norwegian and Swedish samples. School choice influenced overall reading in the Swedish data but not in the Norwegian data, and the opposite pattern was found for parental pressure.Conclusion: In conclusion, it is suggested that the results indicate aspects of inequity in the school systems in Norway and Sweden. However, no influence of background factors on the unique aspects of digital reading ability was found, and a tentative interpretation could be that digital reading ability is not (yet) perceived as a part of a cultural capital
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| 2. |
- Rosén, Monica, 1962, et al.
(author)
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Is computer availability at home causally related to reading achievement in grade 4? A longitudinal difference in differences approach to IEA data from 1991 to 2006
- 2016
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In: Large-scale Assessments in Education. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2196-0739. ; 4:5, s. 1-19
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Research on effects of home computer use on children’s development of cognitive abilities and skills has yielded conflicting results, with some studies showing positive effects, others no effects, and yet others negative effects. These studies have typically used non-experimental designs and one of the main reasons for the conflicting results is that studies differ with respect to how well they control for selection bias in comparisons of children with different amounts of computer use. The current study takes advantage of data from international comparative studies of educational achievement and uses the trend design of these studies to conduct longitudinal analyses at the country level. This allows for a difference in differences approach which effectively controls for within-country selection bias, time-invariant country-level omitted variables, and random errors of measurement in the independent and dependent variables. The empirical investigations are based on data from the IEA 10-Year Trend Study and the PIRLS 2001 and 2006 studies. For these studies, information about frequency of home computer use is available in the student questionnaire. The main analytical approach employed in the paper is regression estimation based on micro-data, with fixed country effects and cluster-robust standard-errors. This approach allows estimation of main effects of home computer use and interaction effects with student characteristics (gender and socio-economic status). For both data sets negative effects of home computer use on achievement are found. Results are discussed in substantive and methodological terms, focusing particularly on possible threats to valid causal inference, such as omitted variables that are not time invariant.
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| 3. |
- Yang Hansen, Kajsa, 1969, et al.
(author)
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Determinants of country differences in effects of parental education on children’s academic achievement
- 2016
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In: Large-scale Assessments in Education. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2196-0739. ; 4:11, s. 1-13
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background In a previous study, the total, direct and indirect effects of parental education on reading, mathematics and science achievement have been estimated for Grade 4 pupils of 37 countries that participated in PIRLS and TIMSS 2011 studies (Gustafsson et al. in TIMSS and PIRLS 2011: Relationships among reading, mathematics, and science achievement at the fourth grade—implications for early learning. pp 183–289, 2013). Several theories proposed to account for the variation were reviewed. With this previous study as the point of departure, the current study was to identify determinants and mechanisms that can explain the substantial variation found in the relationship between parental education and school achievement across the 37 countries in the previous study. Methods The effects estimated in Gustafsson et al. (TIMSS and PIRLS 2011: Relationships among reading, mathematics, and science achievement at the fourth grade—implications for early learning. pp 183–289, 2013) formed the empirical data of the current study. In a first step of analysis the total, direct and indirect effects were described for the 37 countries, focusing on countries with a high and low level in these three respects. In the second step of analysis, two indicators of characteristics of the educational system, the Gini index as a measure of degree of economic inequality and the HDI as a measure of general societal development, were related to the estimated coefficients. Results We found different patterns of relations with the direct and the indirect effects of parental education, and the direct and indirect effects therefore tended to cancel, so that small or no total effects were found. We also found opposite results when we investigated bivariate correlations and when we investigated partial correlation with HDI and Gini. Conclusion The pattern of empirical findings thus is more complex than expect. There is, potentially, a large number of factors outside of the home which may be of importance mediating the relation between parental education and student achievement. However, the data available for the current study does not allow investigation of such factors, so this will be tasks for further research. Keywords Parental education – Academic achievements – Early literacy and numeracy activities – Literacy and numeracy abilities – PIRLS – TIMSS – Indirect effects
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