An Exploration of the Relationships Between Academic Enablers and Middle School Achievement
Open Access
- Author:
- Strunk, Theresa Anne
- Graduate Program:
- School Psychology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- October 29, 2014
- Committee Members:
- James Clyde Diperna, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
James Clyde Diperna, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Robert Leslie Hale, Committee Member
Rayne Audrey Sperling, Committee Member
Lisa M Conyers, Committee Member - Keywords:
- academic enablers
self-efficacy
academic achievement
middle school - Abstract:
- The purpose of the present study was to explore the relationships between middle school students’ academic enablers and their later academic achievement. Based on previous research, five student academic enablers (academic self-efficacy, academic motivation, interpersonal skills, academic engagement, and study skills) were used to predict students’ year-end standardized achievement scores after controlling for cognitive ability, prior achievement, gender, and free/reduced lunch status. The final data set included 733 students in Grades 6-8 at one suburban middle school in the Northeast U.S. It was hypothesized that all enablers would demonstrate small to moderate relationships with language arts and math achievement across all grade levels. After controlling for cognitive ability and student background characteristics, none of the academic enablers substantially added to the prediction of achievement test scores. Although math self-efficacy demonstrated a statistically significant relationship with later math achievement in all grades, this relationship was negligible in magnitude. These results were similar to several previous studies that included cognitive ability or previous achievement in the models. Results indicated that cognitive ability and previous achievement continue to have the greatest impact on academic achievement gains at the middle school level as they do in younger and older populations. Limitations of the study, implications of the findings, and directions for future research are addressed.