Trends in the SES differences in Student’s Educational Expectation: Evidence from TIMSS 1995-2019

• In Event: Exploring Assessment Practices and Educational Equity in Diverse Contexts

Proposal

Introduction
Educational inequality exists in the forms of achievement gaps between different groups of students, such as students with different family socioeconomic background, racial background or immigration history. Among these, SES achievement gap has been a key indicator of educational inequality while the trend in the SES achievement gap between groups over time reflects how well a society manages its inequality (Broer, Bai & Fonseca, 2019; Hanushek et al., 2020; Reardon, 2011). There is, however, another way to measure educational inequality by examining the perspectives of how students from different family background view their opportunities in the future differently (Johnson & Reynolds, 2012). Given that higher education is one of the most important ladder for social mobility (Haveman & Smeeding, 2006), it is critical to examine the difference in student’s expectations towards college due to their family background in the context of international comparison and longitudinal tracking. Therefore, this study aims to answer two research questions:
1. Is there a gap in educational expectation between students from high- and low-SES families? If so, how does the gap differ across societies?
2. To which extent the gap has changed over time (1995-2019) within each society?

Literature Review
Substantial research indicates that student’s educational belief and future expectation play a critical role in their academic success (Sanders, Field & Diego, 2001). Educational expectation reveals how students view their opportunities and themselves (Alexander，Bozick & Entwisle, 2008). Studies found that students from higher SES background are more likely to sustain their expectations to complete college degrees than students from lower SES background (Johnson & Reynolds, 2012; Bozick et al., 2010; Trusty, 1998). There is, however, relatively few research making comparisons across societies and more importantly tracking how it changes over time within each society. Based on the literature and the Wisconsin model of status attainment, we have the following hypothesis:
1. The association between student’s family background and college degree expectations (hereafter, the association) is positive and statistically significant in all studied societies.
2. The association is stronger in societies with fewer opportunities to college.
3. The association becomes smaller if the opportunity to college increases over time.

Data and Methods
Data. This study uses public available data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and collects relevant macro-level data. TIMSS provides timely trend data on student’s academic achievement across countries and survey data from grade 4 and grade 8 students every 4 years since 1995. This study limits analysis to nine countries that have participated in every assessment cycle between 1995 and 2019, which includes Australia, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iran, Korea, Lithuania, Russia, Singapore, and Untied States. To conduct trend analysis, we make sure our analytical sample to be comparable over time. For example, for 1995 data, we only include students at grade 8 to be meaningful for comparison with later cycles given the change of target population in TIMSS since 1999.
Methods. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression are used in the analysis. The dependent variable is derived from student’s report of how far they really think they will go in school. The responses were regrouped into two options (0=below college; 1=college or beyond). The independent variable is a summative socioeconomic (SES) index of four components that are available in every cycle of TIMSS: (1) highest level of parental education (0=less than lower secondary education; 1= completed lower secondary education; 2=completed upper secondary educaiton; 3=post-secondary, non-tertiary education; 4=completed university or higher); (2) home possessions of computer/tablet and/or study desk (0=None; 1=1 home possession; 2=2 home possessions); (3) number of books at home (0=0-10 books; 1=11-25 books; 2=26-100 books; 3=101-200 books; 4=more than 200 books). By assigning numerical values to each category, this index ranges from 0 to 10 points. To examine if the change between 1995 and 2019 is statistically significant, we add the interaction term between year and family SES to the logistic regression model.
In addition, we will collect country-level indicators in the educational systems (e.g. Post-secondary enrollment rate) and the macroeconomic context (e.g. wealth inequality). Complex weights were applied in the analysis and multiple imputation using chained equations (MICE) were used to address missing data issue.

Results. For preliminary analysis, we examined the trend for the United States between 1995 and 2019. We will expand the analysis to other countries and add macro-level investigation (Hypothesis 3) in the final paper.
Figure 1 shows that there is a large gap between high- and low-SES student’s expectation towards college in both 1995 and 2015 in the United States. In 1995, 38 percent of low-SES students reported college or above as their expectation, compared to 70 percent of high-SES students. With the expansion of higher education in the Untied States over the last 25 years, more and more students obtained opportunities to go to college in the country. Student’s expectation towards college increased largely, regardless of their family SES background. In 2019, 60 percent of low-SES students and 94 percent of high-SES students expected to go to college or above, both of which are significantly higher than their counterparts in 1995.
In summary, the findings suggest that today’s students in the United States have significantly higher expectations towards college compared to their counterparts a few decades ago. However, there is still a significant gap between low- and high-SES students in the country in 2019, meaning more can be done to reduce the gap.

Figure 1. Bachelor degree’s expectation, by SES and year, United States (graph wont copy over)

Significance of the study. The significance of this study is that it investigates the association between family SES and student-reported expectations towards college across countries and examines if the association becomes weaker or stronger over time in each society. The components of international comparison and trend comparison help us understand to which extent students perceive their future differently as their family background differ and in which society the inequality in educational expectation was reduced over time.

Authors

• Yifan Bai, American Institutes for Research

• Markus Broer, American Institutes for Research