THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ACADEMIC FUTILITY AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT: DIFFERENT MECHANISMS FOR MATHEMATICS AND READING LITERACY
Abstract
Research has shown that students in vocational secondary school programs have worse results than students in general-education programs do, even when their initial results and family background are taken into account. Researchers have noted possible causes of this phenomenon in the school climate.
In this article, the school climate is operationalized through a culture of academic futility. We examine whether the feeling of academic futility affects the performance in mathematics and reading literacy of third-year students at grammar schools, secondary vocational schools, and apprenticeship schools, taking into account their family background and initial knowledge.
The analysis used multi-level modeling in MPlus and was performed on a set of 2,846 students from 143 classes in 79 schools who were administered tests and questionnaires at the beginningof secondary school and then again in the middle of their third year. The results confirm the effect of academic futility on student achievement and show slight differences in its effect between the two subjects.