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Factors influencing students' decisions about post-year 10 education
Citation
Beswick, K and Hay, I and Watson, J and Allen, J and Cranston, N, Factors influencing students' decisions about post-year 10 education, Proceedings of the 2012 Australian Association for Research in Education Conference, 2-6 December 2012, University of Sydney, Australia, pp. 1-8. ISSN 1324-9320 (2012) [Refereed Conference Paper]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2012 the Authors
Official URL: http://www.aare.edu.au/publications-database.php
Abstract
This paper reports pilot data from an instrument devised as part of a large ARC funded
project that aims, among other things, to investigate factors that influence the decisions of
students in rural and/or disadvantaged areas to continue their schooling beyond Year 10.
One section of the pilot student questionnaire comprised 42 items designed to reflect
dimensions believed to influence these decisions. Participants responded on 5-point Likert
scales indicating the extent of their agreement from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree
with each of the items. We were interested in the extent to which the data supported the
theoretical structure that underpinned the structure of the questionnaire and in testing the
appropriateness of the language used. The large scale data collection will survey students
from Years 5 to 11 with as few adaptations for differences in literacy levels across that
range as possible. To this end, the pilot questionnaire was administered to Year 5 (n = 44)
and Year 9/10 students (n = 50) with identical wording for both grade levels. A factor
analysis of the complete data set (n = 94) provided initial evidence that being happy at
school; having family support to continue with education, and appropriate curriculum
options and extra-curricular activities, perceiving oneself as a high achiever both in general
and in relation to mathematics, having teacher and peer support to continue, being positive
about English, planning to be an apprentice, and having a job type in mind are dimensions
worthy of further exploration in the larger study.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Conference Paper |
|---|---|
| Research Division: | Education |
| Research Group: | Education Systems |
| Research Field: | Secondary Education |
| Objective Division: | Education and Training |
| Objective Group: | School/Institution |
| Objective Field: | School/Institution not elsewhere classified |
| Author: | Beswick, K (Professor Kim Beswick) |
| Author: | Hay, I (Professor Ian Hay) |
| Author: | Watson, J (Professor Jane Watson) |
| Author: | Allen, J (Dr Jeanne Allen) |
| Author: | Cranston, N (Professor Neil Cranston) |
| ID Code: | 82770 |
| Year Published: | 2012 |
| Deposited By: | Education |
| Deposited On: | 2013-02-18 |
| Last Modified: | 2018-03-20 |
| Downloads: | 263 View Download Statistics |
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