The Influence of Family and School Factors on Student Achievement in Rural Taiwan

Author(s):

Chi-Ning Chang(presenting / submitting)Li-yun Wang

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

14 SES 05 B, Policies and Actions to Promote School-Family-Community Links (Part 2)

Paper Session: continued from 14 SES 04 A

Time:

2014-09-03

11:00-12:30

Room:

B326 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Satu Perälä-Littunen

Contribution

I. Objectives or purposes

Educational equality is an important issue concerned by all countries of the world. Many countries (e.g.America,France,Germany, and theUK) are doing projects such as the concept of “Educational Priority Area” on rural and remote education in order to reduce rural-urban inequality.Taiwanis no exception that its government helps rural areas with educational projects, and it costs much money to provide them educational resources. However, no one knows whether these supplies can improve students’ achievements or not. Therefore, this research project is of great worth.

Roscigno & Crowley (2001) and Roscigno, Tomaskovic-Devey & Crowley (2006) presented “Conceptual Model of Rurality”. They use the model to research the influence of school/family resources and investments on rural student achievement. These findings indicate that the school/family resources and investments in rural areas are fewer than other places. The investments can explain the achievement gap between rural and urban students more than resources. Resources must translate into effective investments, and improve educational outcomes. That is to say, supplying resources may not be effective.

Because rural policies tend to supply and cost much money, this study, based on “Conceptual Model of Rurality”, aims to examine educational conditions and investments in Taiwan to see if they improve rural students achievements more effectively, and provides concrete suggestions.

II. Perspective(s) or theoretical framework: Literature review

A. Achievement Gap in Taiwan

In 2008, OECD unveiled the PISA scores of 57 countries around the world. Taiwan ranked the first at Mathematics and the fourth at Science. It therefore claimed its education reforms were successful. However, the serious urban-rural differences are ignored in this result. The essay found that villages and small towns in Taiwan have lower scores at Reading, Mathematics and Science than the average scores of other countries.

More surprisingly, those villages and small towns in rural Taiwan have higher standard error than “Town”, “City” and “Large City”. “Village”, in particular, has a dramatically high standard error, showing that the studying performances in rural areas vary considerably. This means that the gap between students’ the school achievements needed to address (PISA, 2008).

B. The Influence of Family and School Factors on Student Achievement

The factors that influence students’ achievements in rural areas include effort-needed education conditions and insufficient investments in education that are chiefly provided by families and schools. Results show that rural areas have worse educational conditions than urban areas in following aspects: educational conditions in schools (e.g. socioeconomic backgrounds of schools, students’ collective expectations for education, distribution of classes, willingness of teachers staying in schools and teaching facilities), schools’ investments in education (e.g. teachers’ efforts to teaching, classes after school, good uses of funds, and developments of specialties of schools), families’ educational conditions (e.g. family income, parents’ educational levels and occupations and family’s unexpected changes), and families’ investment in education (parents’ expectations, parents’ participation in children’s learning, disciplines and extra arts courses) (Lin, 2004; Hong, 2006; Chen & Liu, 2001; Wu, 2005; Lin, 2001; Hou, 2004; Kao, 2007; Chen, 2007; Chen & Jheng, 2000; Chou & Tseng, 2006 ).

C. Rural Education Policies in Taiwan

To improve the conditions of education in rural areas, Taiwan’s government made a significant investment in teaching facilities, extra courses after school, funds, developments of school’s specialty, and parents’ participation in children’ learning. The related policies include “Educational priority area”, “Campus Youth E-service Volunteer”, “Challenge 2008: E-Generation Manpower Cultivation”, “Create digital opportunity for rural areas”, “After school alternative program” and service-learning programs. However, without related evaluation systems, we are unable to know if the policies were effective.

Method

III. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry The main analytic strategies are t-tests and hierarchical linear modeling. First, we use t-tests to examine rural versus non-rural disparities in student achievement and school/family conditions and investments. Finally, we use hierarchical linear modeling to estimate family and school-level effects on student achievement. IV. Data sources The primary source of data is the Taiwan Education Panel Survey (TEPS), a nationally representative survey of about 20,000 7th graders in 2001 (Chang, 2003, 2005). A subset of these students was resurveyed in their 9th grade. The data provides rural and non-rural schools, school/family conditions and investments, as well as achievement outcomes.

Expected Outcomes

V. Initial Results We find that the critical factors that impact students’ learning performance in rural areas are parents’ expectation and school’s collective expectation for education. When parents in rural areas have low expectations for children and schools are reluctant to encourage their students to study and pursue higher education, funds used in rural schools have little to do with the students’ learning performance. In stead of supply model (Wang & Chen, 2007), finding out ways to increase students’ internal motivations are more important. We find that “School’s collective expectation for education” is the only variable that has a significant difference. If all factors of family are controlled, we could see that “School’s collective expectation” is what impacts students’ learning performance, instead of rurality. VI. Scientific or scholarly significance of the study Urban-rural difference is one of important issues about educational equality. Many scholars take “locations” into account when study students’ learning performance. Rurality, however, has fewer impacts on students’ learning performance than the mechanism behind rurality. Take this essay as an example, instead of rurality, students’ collective expectations for education, family income, parents’ educational levels, mother’s occupation, family’s unexpected changes, parents’ expectations, mother’s participation in children’s learning, parents’ participation in school’s activity and academic cramming are what really impact students’ learning performance. To reduce urban-rural differences, however, considerable investment is not the best solution, since it would increase extra financial burden. In Taiwan, for example, making efforts to increase students’ motivations for learning is a better way than offering rural schools a lot of funding solely. How to make effective investments is what one should think about next.

References

Chang, L. Y. (2003). Taiwan Education Panel Survey: Base Year (2001) Student Data and Parent Data [restricted release computer file]. Center for Survey Research, Academia Sinica [producer, distributor]. Chang, L. Y. (2005). Taiwan Education Panel Survey: Base Year (2001) Teacher Data [restricted release computer file]. Center for Survey Research, Academia Sinica [producer, distributor]. Chen, C. C. & Liu, J. (2001). Rethinking the Function of Schooling: A Study on the Effect of Family Background on Academic Achievement. NTTU Educational Research Journal, 12(1), 115-144. Chen, H. L. (2007). The Issues of Inequality of Educational Opportunity in Rural Junior High Schools and Related Educational Policies: A Preliminary Investigation. Bulletin of Educational Research, 53(3), 1-35. Chen, Y. J. & Jheng, Y. N. (2000).The Changing of Educational Stratification in Taiwan Area: To Explore Cultural Capital, Social Capital, and Financial Capital of Fit in Taiwan. Proceedings of the National Science Council (Part C: Humanities and Social Sciences), 10(3), 416-434. Chou, J. Y. & Tseng, C. R. (2006). A Discussion of Educational Choice and the Innovation of Education Finance Based on Types of Disadvantaged Minorities. Journal of Educational Research and Development, 2(3), 93-122. Hou, S. C. (2002). The study of school effectiveness, parental expectancy and involvement in elementary schooling. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei. Kao, H. J. (2007). The Study of The Relationship Between Teachers’Job Involvement and Willingness of Retaining at Elementary Schools of The Remote Districts in Tao-Yuan County. Unpublished master’s thesis, Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei. Lin, C. Y. (2001). A Study on Relationships between School Involvement Behavior and Educational Expectation and Attitude toward Democratic Participation for Elementary School Parents. Unpublished master’s thesis, National Taitung University, Taitung. Lin, J. J. (2004). The Organizational Reengineering and Efficiency of Elementary & Junior High School. Journal of Ching-e Quarterly for Teacher Education, 16(1), 57-62. PISA (2008). The PISA International Database: Online data. Retrieved October 30, 2008, from http://pisa2006.acer.edu.au/ Roscigno, V. J., & Crowley, M. L. (2001). Rurality, institutional disadvantage, and Achievement/Attainment. Rural Sociology, 66(2), 268-292. Roscigno, V. J., Tomaskovic-Devey, D., & Crowley, M. (2006). Education and the inequalities of place. Social Forces, 84(4), 2121-2145. Wang, L. Y. & Chen, H. L. (2007). Models of Equal Educational Opportunity Policies for Rural Areas in Taiwan:Synthesis and Reflections. Bulletin of National Institute of Educational Resources and Research, 36, 25-46. Wu, Y. I. (2005). Effects of School and Non-school Factors on Elementary Students’ Achievement in Taitung Taiwan :Integrating the Analytic Models of Equality of Educational Opportunity and School Effectiveness Research. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, National Pingtung University of Education, Pingtung.

Author Information

Chi-Ning Chang (presenting / submitting)

National Taiwan Normal University

Department of Education

Keelung City

Li-yun Wang

National Taiwan Normal University

Education

Taipei

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