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Family Factors and Student Outcomes

by
Nailing Xia

To examine the effects of family process variables (specific things families do) and family status variables (who families are) on students' academic achievement and nonacademic outcomes, the author uses the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, a U.S. longitudinal dataset that follows a nationally representative sample of children from kindergarten through fifth grade, and the Programme for International Student Assessment, a cross-country cross-sectional dataset that assesses academic achievement of 15-year-old students. The U.S. data indicate that even after controlling for demographics and school inputs, student achievement was associated with such process variables as parental expectations and beliefs, learning structure, resource availability, home environment, parenting and disciplinary practices, and parental involvement. In addition, doing homework more frequently, having home Internet access, and owning a community library card had higher returns in terms of student achievement for black children or children from low socio-economic families than for their counterparts. U.S. students did not fare as well as their peers in other countries and economies, and family process variables, especially considered collectively, are important factors in explaining student achievement in an international setting.

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Document Details

Copyright: RAND Corporation
Availability: Web-Only
Pages: 246
Document Number: RGSD-256
Year: 2010
Series: Dissertations

Chapter One

Family Factors and Student Achievement: The Case of U.S.
Chapter Two

Family Factors and Nonacademic Outcomes: The case of U.S.
Chapter Three

Family Factors and Student Achievement: An International Comparison
Appendix 1A

Variables Measuring Family Process Factors in ECLS-K
Appendix 1B

Scale Items and Reliability Coefficients
Appendix 1C

Descriptive Statistics: Waves 2-5
Appendix 1D

Family Process Factors by Race/Ethnicity: Waves 2-5
Appendix 1E

Correlations Between SES and Reading/Mathematics Test Scores
Appendix 1F

Correlations Between SES and Family Process Factors: Waves 2-5
Appendix 1G

SES by Family Process Factors: Waves 2-5
Appendix 1H

Coefficients of Unconditional Models
Appendix 1I

Coefficients of Interaction Models
Appendix 2A

Scale Items and Reliability Coefficients
Appendix 2B

Correlations Between SES and Teacher SRS Scale Scores
Appendix 2C

Coefficients of Unconditional Models
Appendix 2D

Education Production Function and Econometric Estimation Strategies
Appendix 2E

Specification Tests
Appendix 2F

OLS Coefficients of Baseline and Family Process Models
Appendix 2G

Tobit Coefficients of Baseline and Family Process Models
Appendix 2H

Tobit Coefficients of Interaction Models
Appendix 3A

PISA 2006 Countries and Economies
Appendix 3B

Variables Measuring Family Process Factors in PISA 2006
Appendix 3C

Achievement Test Scores by Country
Appendix 3D

Coefficients of Unconditional Models
Appendix 3E

Coefficients of Interaction Models

This document was submitted as a dissertation in December 2009 in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the doctoral degree in public policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. The faculty committee that supervised and approved the dissertation consisted of Richard Buddin (Chair), Sheila Nataraj Kirby, and Vi-Nhuan Le.

This report is part of the RAND Corporation dissertation series. PRGS dissertations are produced by graduate fellows of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, the world's leading producer of Ph.D.'s in policy analysis. The dissertations are supervised, reviewed, and approved by a PRGS faculty committee overseeing each dissertation.

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