Which factors are associated to fourth grade children’s academic performance?

Abstract

In this paper it is analyzed which factors are associated with the academic performance of fourth grade children, considering variables of the boy or girl, theirschoolenvironment and their family context. The analyzed participants correspond to 25245 fourth level Primary Education students, evaluated by the “Evaluación General de Diagnóstico” in Spain at 2009. The statistical analysis was Multiple Correspondence Analysis. The main results obtained allow us to conclude that there is an association between high performance and non-repetition in school, the taste (quite a lot) for attending school, the language in which the students took the test (assessment in Spanish) and ownership of the school (private). High academic performance is also associated with a parents’ high educational level. In terms of factors associated with an academic performance considered medium, there is a taste for attending school (very happy), the language in which they carried out the evaluations (Valencian and Catalan), the ownership of the school (public) and the family’s educational level (ESO/EGB). Finally, the factors associated with low values of academic performance are identified with little taste for attending school (not at all), repetition of at least one year of primary school,conducting tests in Basque and single-parent homes. No associations between academic performance and the sex of the scholar were detected.

Keywords

• análisis de correspondencias múltiples
• escolares
• evaluación general de diagnóstico
• rendimiento académico