Parents' socioeconomic status and children's academic ... - Nova

Table 2: Pupils’ achievement (in per cent) in case and control group
Norwegian Maths English
Score Case Control Case Control Case Control
Very Good 24 28 21 25 26 31
Good 71 69 62 69 65 64
Fair 5 3 17 6 9 5
N 345 103 347 103 348 104
To compare performances of the pupils in each of the three subjects, in the
two samples, a ‘population proportion’ test was used, with P1 for the case
sample and P2 for the control group. Table (3) summarizes the result of the
comparison. The confidence interval limits for the differences in the three
categories of grades pass through the zero point for the three subjects, except
for the ‘Fair’ category for maths. Hence, differences in this category are
significant. The sign of ‘D’ is positive, indicating that pupils in the control
group do better then their peers in the case sample. I conclude that there is
no difference in pupils’ performance in the subjects Norwegian and English,
while the difference between the two samples is significant in maths.
Table 3. Comparison of pupils’ results. Between the case sample and control group
Norwegian Maths English
Very
Good Good Fair
Very
Good Good Fair
Very
Good Good Fair
(D=P 1 -P 2 ) -0.04 0.01 0.02 -0.04 -0.07 0.11 -0.05 0.01 0.04
Se(D) 0.05 0.05 0.02 0.05 0.05 0.03 0.05 0.05 0.05
95% CI (-0.1,
0.1 )
(-0.1,
0.1 )
(0.0,
0.1 )
(-0.1,
0.1 )
(-0.2,
0.0 )
(0.1,
0.2 )
(-0.2,
0.1 )
(-0.1,
0.1)
(0.0,
0.1 )
In addition to scores in each of the three subjects, aggregates of the scores in
the three subjects are also used. Figure (1) shows the distribution of the total
for both the case sample and the control group. The total ranges from five to
seventeen in the control and four to sixteen in the case sample.
– Parents’ socioeconomic status and children’s academic performance – 25