Differences among high school students' mathematics achievement based on school location, school socioeconomic status, and student ethnicity.

摘要

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences of school location, school SES level, and ethnicity on students' mathematic achievement. This study was used secondary analyses to compare the 10th-grade mathematics achievement of students (a) of African American, Hispanic, and White, (b) from urban, suburban, and rural schools, and (c) from low-, middle-, and high-SES schools. The main emphases of the present study were on investigating the differences in mathematics achievement (a) between minority and White students from similar school settings (e.g., high-SES suburban area, low-SES urban area, etc.), and (b) among different school settings within each ethnic group.; The database of this study were the data collected for the NELS:88. School location and school SES level were determined by NELS:88 variables G10URBAN and F1C30A, respectively. Mathematics standard scores recorded for that 10 th grade students (F12XMSTD) were used as the dependent variable. T-tests were used to analyze the data due to the technical difficulties. Pooled effect sizes were also calculated to determine the educational significance.; The results of this study indicated the following: (a) White students scored significantly higher on mathematics achievement than Hispanic students, which scored significantly higher than African American students. (b) Suburban students scored significantly higher than both urban and rural students. There was no significant difference on mathematics achievement between urban and rural students. (c) Students from high-SES schools scored significant higher than those from middle-SES schools, which scored significant higher than low-SES school students.; The results also indicated that school SES level had more influence on mathematics achievement than did school location for all students and for each ethnic group. For the overall results and the results within each ethnic group, all three high-SES groups (urban, suburban, and rural) scored higher than three middle-SES groups, which scored higher than three low-SES groups. Furthermore, White students scored statistically significant higher than African American students in all nine paired comparisons of combinations of school location and school SES level. White students also scored statistically significant higher than Hispanic students in seven out of nine paired comparisons of combinations of school location and school SES level.