EDUCATION EQUITY IN SWEDISH COMPULSORY SCHOOL Effects of student background, personal and school characteristics on their academic achievement in PISA 2015

摘要

Aim:In order to explore the Swedish compulsory school equity issues, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Swedish data 2015 in terms of student background, student and school characteristics factors are applied in the study.Theory:The input-process-outcome (IPO) model is applied in this thesis as my theoretical framework since it is widely applied in educational effectiveness research (EER) to lead the selection of variables and specification of statistical models. It not only reflects on dominant way of thinking about group performance in the groups literature, but also plays an important role in guiding researcher’s later research design and select modules from the input, process and output categories in carriable selection.Method:Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and a two-level structural equation modelling (SEM) as the analytical methods are applied in this study. Through a single level CFA analysis, student background and characteristic variables were analyzed. The single-level model was extended to a two-level SEM so that the effects of school characteristics were studied in relation to school and student academic achievement.Results:In two models constructed using CFA and two-level SEM, significant findings are presented in the study. That is, there is education inequity in Swedish compulsory school and it is present on two labels. The single individual level model shows that student family background, student and school characteristics variables have significant impact on student academic achievement. The two-level SEM model shows that variables concerning student background on the school level still has an impact on academic achievement.