Overcoming the odds : investigating the moderating role of child attributes in the relationship between socioeconomic status and academic achievement

Although children of low socioeconomic status (SES) tend to perform poorer academically vis-à-vis their high-SES peers, the SES-achievement gap is not definite. Several factors, such as individual adaptive attributes, familial support and community support, were found to interact with SES to mitigat...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Chua, Hong Lin
Other Authors: Ho Moon-Ho Ringo
Format: Final Year Project (FYP)
Language:English
Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148909
_version_ 1811685871501443072
author Chua, Hong Lin
author2 Ho Moon-Ho Ringo
author_facet Ho Moon-Ho Ringo
Chua, Hong Lin
author_sort Chua, Hong Lin
collection NTU
description Although children of low socioeconomic status (SES) tend to perform poorer academically vis-à-vis their high-SES peers, the SES-achievement gap is not definite. Several factors, such as individual adaptive attributes, familial support and community support, were found to interact with SES to mitigate the SES-achievement gap. Since previous research have mostly focused on the role of family and the community, it may be valuable to dive deeper into the role of individual child attributes. Previous studies have hinted at the possibility of effortful control and theory of mind being moderators of the SES-achievement relationship. However, literature in this area remains scant, especially in the Asian context. The current study serves as a preliminary examination of the relationships between SES, academic achievement, effortful control, and theory of mind. Specifically, this study investigated the relationship between SES and children’s academic achievement, and subsequently examined the moderating role of effortful control and theory of mind in the SES-achievement relationship. Tapping on the database of a larger study, robust regression analyses were conducted with a final sample of 404 Primary 1 children. After taking into account the effect of control variables like gender, ethnicity, and prior academic achievement, SES was significantly and positively associated with academic achievement in language, but not mathematics. Furthermore, contrary to our expectations, no significant moderating effects were found for effortful control and theory of mind. The lack of significant findings, together with key implications and limitations of this study, are discussed in this paper.
first_indexed 2024-10-01T04:51:25Z
format Final Year Project (FYP)
id ntu-10356/148909
institution Nanyang Technological University
language English
last_indexed 2024-10-01T04:51:25Z
publishDate 2021
publisher Nanyang Technological University
record_format dspace
spelling ntu-10356/1489092023-03-05T15:43:55Z Overcoming the odds : investigating the moderating role of child attributes in the relationship between socioeconomic status and academic achievement Chua, Hong Lin Ho Moon-Ho Ringo School of Social Sciences Ng Ee Lynn eelynn.ng@nie.edu.sg, HOmh@ntu.edu.sg Social sciences::Psychology Although children of low socioeconomic status (SES) tend to perform poorer academically vis-à-vis their high-SES peers, the SES-achievement gap is not definite. Several factors, such as individual adaptive attributes, familial support and community support, were found to interact with SES to mitigate the SES-achievement gap. Since previous research have mostly focused on the role of family and the community, it may be valuable to dive deeper into the role of individual child attributes. Previous studies have hinted at the possibility of effortful control and theory of mind being moderators of the SES-achievement relationship. However, literature in this area remains scant, especially in the Asian context. The current study serves as a preliminary examination of the relationships between SES, academic achievement, effortful control, and theory of mind. Specifically, this study investigated the relationship between SES and children’s academic achievement, and subsequently examined the moderating role of effortful control and theory of mind in the SES-achievement relationship. Tapping on the database of a larger study, robust regression analyses were conducted with a final sample of 404 Primary 1 children. After taking into account the effect of control variables like gender, ethnicity, and prior academic achievement, SES was significantly and positively associated with academic achievement in language, but not mathematics. Furthermore, contrary to our expectations, no significant moderating effects were found for effortful control and theory of mind. The lack of significant findings, together with key implications and limitations of this study, are discussed in this paper. Bachelor of Arts in Psychology 2021-05-20T08:14:54Z 2021-05-20T08:14:54Z 2021 Final Year Project (FYP) Chua, H. L. (2021). Overcoming the odds : investigating the moderating role of child attributes in the relationship between socioeconomic status and academic achievement. Final Year Project (FYP), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148909 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148909 en application/pdf Nanyang Technological University
spellingShingle Social sciences::Psychology
Chua, Hong Lin
Overcoming the odds : investigating the moderating role of child attributes in the relationship between socioeconomic status and academic achievement
title Overcoming the odds : investigating the moderating role of child attributes in the relationship between socioeconomic status and academic achievement
title_full Overcoming the odds : investigating the moderating role of child attributes in the relationship between socioeconomic status and academic achievement
title_fullStr Overcoming the odds : investigating the moderating role of child attributes in the relationship between socioeconomic status and academic achievement
title_full_unstemmed Overcoming the odds : investigating the moderating role of child attributes in the relationship between socioeconomic status and academic achievement
title_short Overcoming the odds : investigating the moderating role of child attributes in the relationship between socioeconomic status and academic achievement
title_sort overcoming the odds investigating the moderating role of child attributes in the relationship between socioeconomic status and academic achievement
topic Social sciences::Psychology
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148909
work_keys_str_mv AT chuahonglin overcomingtheoddsinvestigatingthemoderatingroleofchildattributesintherelationshipbetweensocioeconomicstatusandacademicachievement