A study of the effects of students' feelings towards schoolwork and gender, race, and system size on academic achievement
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to demonstrate whether or not students' feelings about school and schoolwork relate to academic achievement. Additionally, the subproblems of this study were to demonstrate if there is a significant difference in the following: (1) the way majority and minority students respond to questions of how they feel about school and schoolwork, (2) the way male and female students respond to questions of how they feel about school and schoolwork, (3) the way majority and minority male students respond to questions of how they feel about school and schoolwork, (4) the way majority and minority female students respond to questions of how they feel about school and schoolwork, and (5) the way students in large school systems and students in small school systems respond to questions of how they feel about school and schoolwork. Further, there was a comparison of the academic test scores for the following groups: majority versus minority, male versus female, and large school system versus small school system. During the 1987-88 school year, fifth grade students in Tennessee were asked to respond to research questions relating to schoolwork and their feelings about school simultaneously with the administration of the Stanford Achievement Test. The Stanford Achievement Test is a nationally normed, standardized achievement test which is administered to all public school students in grades 2, 5, and 7 as a result of the passage of the Comprehensive Education Reform Act of 1984. One component of the Act mandated the state's testing program. A total of 46,876 students responded to all of the research questions. The responses to the research questions were analyzed for this study. Also, the stanine scores of the Reading Comprehension subtest were used to identify academic achievement. The stanine scores were broken down into three categories. They were 1-3, 4-6, and 7-9. The t-test was applied to the data to determine significance. Results from the analyses revealed that students' feelings about school and schoolwork effect academic achievement. Additionally, gender, race, and system size effect academic achievement.
Subject Area
School administration
Recommended Citation
Fretta Marlene Bunch,
"A study of the effects of students' feelings towards schoolwork and gender, race, and system size on academic achievement"
(1989).
ETD Collection for Tennessee State University.
Paper AAI9017222.
https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/dissertations/AAI9017222