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urvashisingh

Differences in learning for high and low levels of SES students - 14 views

started by urvashisingh on 24 Mar 13
  • urvashisingh
    #1 urvashisingh on 24 Mar 13
     
    I researched an article researching the differences in learning styles of low socioeconomic status for low and high achievers. Through the research completed, it is shown that high achievers, in both reading and math, are characterized as being highly motivated, persistent, responsible, and teacher motivated. The low achiever students were not teacher motivated, therefore they did not do well in reading and math test scores. The overall point of the research is to demonstrate that SES does not play a major role in education, what matters is the amount of effort and encouragement teachers and staff have on their children. If school staff and teacher are more dedicated in helping their kids then SES shouldn't take into account for a child's success. I personally, think it's difficult to separate the two because usually most teachers who teach low ses children lack the motivation to inspire because they do not receive enough funding. It's difficult to define what teachers are motivated based on income.

    http://ic.galegroup.com.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/ic/ovic/AcademicJournalsDetailsPage/AcademicJournalsDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=OVIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Journals&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&displayGroups=&sortBy=&source=&search_within_results=&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CA18960236
  • Lauren Tripp
    #2 Lauren Tripp on 25 Mar 13
     
    Hey, Urvashi - fascinating study! Is there any way you can post a different link to this? I can't access it through this one.
  • Lisa Lee
    #6 Lisa Lee on 25 Mar 13
     
    Very cool. There's a study that found the greatest in-school predictor of academic success/learning gains is teacher quality, which seems to be backed up by the study you found. Some reformers take that finding, though, and think that the way to fix all the problems in education is to focus on teachers... pay them more, fire the bad ones, up the qualifications for teacher certification, etc.

    I don't think anyone is AGAINST improving pedagogy. However, that study found that the greatest IN-SCHOOL predictor is teacher quality. Teachers may have the biggest impact as far as in-school factors go, but they're still only responsible for at most 10% of learning gains. 60% of academic success, on the other hand, was predicted by NON-SCHOOL factors like family income, SES, etc. It's hard to pin what the problem is (or come to solutions, for that matter) when there are so many non-school factors out there!

    In the discussion of this study, the author says "it could be argued that the low socioeconomic child may have an increased risk for exhibiting performance-oriented behavior." Yes sir - low SES students broadly speaking don't perform well on standardized tests (for any number of reasons), so everyone pressures them to improve their performance and they're drilling all day, err day, and all of a sudden their motivation isn't intrinsic anymore...? I'd like to see a study over the past 10-15 years with a group of low SES students to see if the high-stakes tests that came with No Child Left Behind had any effect on intrinsic vs. performance-based motivation. Apparently, I think so!

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