The responsiveness of high school achievement to the quality of school life for grade ten students in Newfoundland

Whitt, Morley E. (1989) The responsiveness of high school achievement to the quality of school life for grade ten students in Newfoundland. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

This study examines students' perceptions of the quality of their school lives and addresses four broad questions. First, are there differences between schools in terms of aggregate student rating of the Quality of School Life (QSL)? Secondly, how responsive is the students’ perceptions of the Quality of School Life to the background variables Location, Sex, Age and level of Parents' Education? Thirdly, how responsive is high school achievement in mathematics and reading to students' perceptions of QSL? Finally, how responsive are students expressed satisfaction and dissatisfaction with school to their perceptions of QSL? -- All data for this study was obtained from The Quality of School Life Project. Only information pertaining to the grade ten students was used. This data had been collected from eight schools located in urban and rural areas of the province. Students answered a questionnaire containing a revised Williams and Batten (1981) instrument, and completed a standardized achievement test in mathematics and reading. The instrument was designed to measure five domains of the quality of school life and student well-being (satisfaction and dissatisfaction). The parents also completed a questionnaire. -- Principal component analysis was conducted to describe the psychometric properties of the instrument. The alpha reliabilities, construct and concurrent validities of the measures were within acceptable ranges. -- On the basis of the results, it was concluded that high school students’ perceptions of the quality of school life can be accurately measured even though the measurement of QSL and its domains will undoubtedly be improved as an outcome of further research. -- It was found that not one of the four background variables, Location, Sex, Age or Parents' Education contributed significantly to QSL. However, when controlling for these variables, the QSL effects on mathematics and reading performances were statistically significant. The domains of QSL with the greatest effect were status and opportunity. -- The QSL variable also accounted for more than 40 percent of the variance in schooling satisfaction or student well being. The domains of QSL with the greatest effect were the Adventure and Teacher domains respectively. -- It was found that females reported more satisfaction with school than did males. When controlling for QSL, large differences in mathematics and reading were found between the urban and rural students, with the clear advantages shown to be in favour of the urban students. The relationship between age and achievement was negative, indicating that older students were lower achievers. Achievement was positively related to the level of Parents’ Education.

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