School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemInadequacies in the SES-Achievement model: Evidence from PISA and other studies(WILEY, 2021-10)Abstract Students’ socioeconomic status (SES) is central to much research and policy deliberation on educational inequalities. However, the SES model is under severe stress for several reasons. SES is an ill‐defined concept, unlike parental education or family income. SES measures are frequently based on proxy reports from students; these are generally unreliable, sometimes endogenous to student achievement, only low to moderately intercorrelated, and exhibit low comparability across countries and over time. There are many explanations for SES inequalities in education, none of which achieves consensus among research and policy communities. SES has only moderate effects on student achievement, and its effects are especially weak when considering prior achievement, an important and relevant predictor. SES effects are substantially reduced when considering parent ability, which is causally prior to family SES. The alternative cognitive ability/genetic transmission model has far greater explanatory power; it provides logical and compelling explanations for a wide range of empirical findings from student achievement studies. The inadequacies of the SES model are hindering knowledge accumulation about student performance and the development of successful policies. Context and implications Rationale for this study This review was written in response to the disconnect between the literature surrounding student achievement studies, and the cognitive psychology and behavioural genetic academic literatures. It is well‐established that student achievement is closely related to cognitive ability and both have sizable genetic components, findings largely ignored in achievement studies. This review’s aim is for more considered responses to socioeconomic inequalities in student achievement by both researchers and policymakers. Why the new findings matter The review provides overwhelming evidence that much of the current thinking about SES and student achievement is mistaken. Implications for researchers and policymakers The current emphasis on SES is misleading and wastes considerable human and financial resources that could much better be utilized. The focus should be on student performance ensuring that low achievers have rewarding educational and occupational careers, and raising the overall skill levels of students, not on the nebulous, difficult to measure, concept of SES, which is only moderately associated with achievement.
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ItemDo the labour market returns to university degrees differ between high and low achieving youth? Evidence from Australia(Springer Verlag, 2018-12-01)In almost all developed countries there has been substantial growth in university education over the last half-century. This growth has raised concerns that the benefits of university education are declining and that university education is not appropriate for students who, without the expansion, would not have been admitted. For such students, vocational education or direct entry to the labour market may be more appropriate. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of university and vocational qualifications, net of other influences on a variety of labour market outcomes for Australian youths up to age 25; and if the benefits of university degrees differ across the achievement continuum. Achievement is measured by test scores in the OECD's PISA assessments. The six labour market outcomes investigated are: occupational status, hourly and weekly earnings, employment, unemployment and full-time work. The study finds that university degrees provide substantially superior labour market outcomes which are not confined to high and average achievers, at least for this cohort in their formative years in the labour market.
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ItemShould value-added school effects models include student- and school-level covariates? Evidence from Australian population assessment data(WILEY, 2021-02)There is an enduring issue on whether student‐ and school‐level covariates should be included in value‐added school effects models, in addition to prior achievement. Proponents argue that the addition of covariates allows fairer comparisons of schools, whereas opponents argue that it excuses poorly performing schools and obscures policy‐relevant school differences. School‐level covariates are problematic statistically, but it has been argued that mean school prior achievement should be included in school effects analyses to reduce error. This article reports on school effects analyses of Australia‐wide data of approximately 1.5 million students in both primary and secondary schools that took national assessments in five achievement domains between 2013 and 2018. With appropriate controls for prior achievement, school effects are generally small and most often not statistically significant. The addition of student‐level covariates: further reduces school effects, since part of the school effects is absorbed by the effects of the covariates, which are unlikely to reflect causal social processes; reduces the proportion of schools with significant school effects; does not improve predictive power; increases the amount of missing data; and further reduces the consistency of school effects between domains and their stability over time. Mean school prior achievement did not improve consistency or stability. Incorporating covariates in school effects analyses opens a Pandora’s Box of specification and measurement issues, undermining the legitimacy of school comparisons. It is concluded that researchers and administrators of educational jurisdictions should focus mainly on simpler models based on prior achievement.
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ItemOccupational mobility and cognitive ability: A commentary on Betthauser, Bourne and Bukodi(WILEY, 2020-11)This commentary critiques Betthäuser, Bourne and Bukodi's (2020) paper which finds that cognitive ability does not substantially mediate class of origin effects on educational and occupational outcomes. From these results, they conclude that cognitive ability is only of minor importance for social stratification, reasserting their view of the primacy of class origins for social stratification. The central issue surrounding cognitive ability in social stratification is its effects on socioeconomic attainments vis-à-vis socioeconomic origins, not the extent that cognitive ability mediates classorigin effects. Their analytical strategy of estimating the extent that cognitive ability mediates class origineffects is misleading because: it ignores the only moderate associations of socioeconomic origins with educational and occupational outcomes; the stronger direct effects of cognitive ability; the associations of parents' ability with their own socioeconomic attainments; and the genetic transmission of cognitive ability and other traits relevant to social stratification from parents to their children.
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ItemAccounting for language background differences in the Australian National Assessments - Literacy and Numeracy(WILEY, 2020-03-02)This study examines language backgro und differences inthe Australian National Assessments – Literacy andNumeracy (NAPLAN), and the extent that language back-ground differences are accounted for by socioeconomicbackground, schools and contemporary inuences.
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ItemDetrimental Effects of Living with a Grandparent: Cross-National Evidence(University of Toronto Press, 2007)
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ItemFamily Size, Family Type and Student Achievement: Cross-National Differences and the Role of Socioeconomic and School Factors(University of Toronto Press, 2006)This paper examines the effects of family size and family type on student achievement in reading and mathematics using data from 30 countries. In most countries, socioeconomic background accounts for a sizable part of the effects of family size on student achievement. There was little evidence for the resource dilution explanation to account for the effects of family size. Socioeconomic background and, in many countries, material resources account for much of the effect of a single-parent family. In contrast, these economic factors account for less of the effect of a reconstituted family. Students from larger, single-parent and reconstituted families tend to be located in the academically weaker parts of the school system. The countries that show stronger effects for family size are not the same countries that show stronger effects for family type. The negative effects on student performance of a single-parent and reconstituted family tend to be stronger in more economically developed countries.
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ItemModernisation Theory and Changes Over-Time in the Reproduction of Socioeconomic Inequalities in Australia(Oxford University Press, 2009)
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