Socio-economic versus educational input variables as related to grade IV reading achievement among boys in St. John's, Newfoundland

• Main Author: Roe, Geraldine Mary
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Memorial University of Newfoundland 1970
• Subjects: Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://research.library.mun.ca/7463/; https://research.library.mun.ca/7463/1/Roe_GeraldineMary.pdf; https://research.library.mun.ca/7463/3/Roe_GeraldineMary.pdf

The major purpose of this study was to determine whether socio-economic variables were more related to reading achievement among grade four boys in urban Newfoundland than were certain educational inputs which have in the past been given emphasis in efforts to raise educational productivity in the province. Several minor hypotheses were set up to elucidate the relationships between reading achievement, as measured by vocabulary and paragraph comprehension scores, and the following variables: intelligence, father's occupation, mother's education, reading material at home, size of family, pupil absenteeism, teacher's qualifications and size of the school. -- Three hundred and fifty pupils were selected randomly from the fourth grade male population in schools within the city limits and operating under the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic School Board for St. John's. Data collection took place in May and June, 1968, using three standardized tests and two questionnaires. A complete set of data was obtained for 305 pupils, their parents, their twenty-five teachers and twelve schools. -- Pearson product-moment correlation, partial product-moment correlation and multiple correlation were used to test the hypotheses. A descriptive analysis of the data, classifying pupils by each of the variables in the study and using means and medians, was also presented. Most of the calculations were carried out by means of the computer at Memorial University. -- The major finding of this study revealed that when variables were combined in multiple correlation the socio-economic variables explained a much larger proportion of the variance in reading achievement than did the combined group of educational input variables. Furthermore, of the sociological variables considered, two - father's occupation and mother's education - predicted achievement in reading almost as well as the whole group combined. One other sociological factor, size of family, contributed slightly to the multiple correlation coefficient when reading comprehension ...