Shiow-Ling Tsai

Matthew Effects in Education

To test the hypothesized cumulative advantages of educative factors, the science-achievement scores on a 69-item test of science knowledge of 1,284 young adults, ages 26 to 35, surveyed by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in 1977, were regressed on three composite independent variables: motivation and prior and current educative experiences. The test scores were related significantly to prior experience-embodied variables, such as parental socioeconomic status, respondent education, and specific scientific training, as well as to motivation to learn and current amount and intensity of information acquisition, such as news media exposure and reading. Early educative experience predicts current educative activities and motivation; and all three factors contribute significantly and independently to the prediction of achievement.

Childhood Traits and Environmental Conditions of Highly Eminent Adults.

respected biographies show their distinctive intellectual competence and motivation, social and communication skills, general psychological wholesomeness, and both versatility as well as concentrated perseverance during childhood. Most were stimulated by the availability of cultural stimuli and materials related to their field of eminence and by teachers, parents, and other adults. Although most had clear parental expectations for their conduct, they also had the opportunity for exploration on their own. Our research combines psychology and &dquo;Cliometrics,&dquo; the quantitative study of history, after Clio, the muse of history. The criterion of eminence employed (the number of words written about each man in biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias) proved technically reliable; but the ratings of traits and conditions are no doubt distorted to

Mathematics Achievement and Attitude Productivity in Junior High School.

AbstractTo investigate the dependence of mathematics achievement and attitude on each other and other factors, achievement test scores and ratings of 2,368 13-year- old students who participated in the 1977-78 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were anal) zed. Achievement was significantly associated with attitudes, sex, ethnicity, father’s and mother’s education, verbal opportunities in the home, and frequency of mathematical practices, when the variables were statistical!) controlled for one another. Constructive mathematics attitudes were associated with achievement and the same factors except parent education. About 32% of the achievement variance and 8% of the attitude variance can be accounted for by the factors.

Elementary School Mathematics Productivity in Twelve Countries.

Abstract The mathematics achievement scores of 28,274 students in 1443 Australian, Belgian, English, Finish, French, German, Israeli, Japanese, Dutch, Scotch, Swedish, and U.S. elementary schools were correlated with, and regressed on socioe‐conomic status, highest math course taken, weekly hours of homework, interest in mathematics, and several other variables with both individuals and schools within each country as units of analysis. The results corroborate recent syntheses of small‐scale studies of productive factors in academic learning as well as regression analyses of large‐scale surveys. Among directly alterable variables, the amount and the quality or vigour of instruction including homework most strongly influence achievement.

Mathematics productivity in Japan and Illinois

Abstract The scores of 1,700 Japanese and 9,582 Illinois high school students on the High School Mathematics Test (containing 60 items on algebra, geometry, modern mathematics, data interpretation, and probability with an internal consistency reliability of .87) were regressed on background questionnaire measures of several factors in learning. Quantity of instruction and motivational variables emerge as the stronger statistically controlled correlates of mathematics achievement in both Japan and Illinois. In addition, older students did better than younger, and males outscored females in Japan. The two-standard-deviation achievement advantage of Japanese over Illinois students at three age levels dwarfs the differences within countries and may be attributable to unmeasured extramural factors as well as to superior quantity and quality of instruction in Japan.

Reading Achievement and Attitude Productivity among 17-Year Olds

To probe the association of reading achievement and attitude with productive factors in learning, the scores of 2,300 17-year-old students from a National Assessment of Educational Progress sample were regressed on 18 indices of seven factors. The achievement correlations with the factors are close to the averages revealed by recent quantitative syntheses of bivariate studies. A considerable amount of the reliable or adjusted variance in achievement, 51%, is accounted for by motivation, frequency of spare time reading, radio listening, socioeconomic status, home environment, the use of English at home, race, and public-school attendance. Enjoyment of reading and self-concept as a reader are similarly accountable, but attitudes about the importance of reading and freedom to read are less predictable.

Productive Learning in Social Studies Among Early Adolescents

To probe a psychological theory of educational productivity, social studies achievement and attitude test scores of 2,426 13-year-old high school students were statistically related to each other and indicators of constructs that prior research shows are associated with learning out comes. In 8 linear and log-linear, ordinary least-square regressions with from 5 to 9 independent variables, several production factors are significant-socio-economic status, home environment, student-centered instruction, and time or amount of study; and item-learning correlations yield clues for improving learning productivity. Systems regressions, however, reveal ambiguity in the causal relations in that measurement error and exogenous and reverse causes may account for the significant findings.