The Adolescent, Academic Achievement, and College Plans

Community Opportunity, Perceptions of Opportunity, and the Odds of an Adolescent Birth

“…High levels of family resources provide teens with positive options for adulthood and protection from outside threats to their well-being and from the worst consequences of their own risky behavior. Teens from two-parent families have higher grade point averages (GPAs), higher educational expectations, greater likelihood of graduating from high school, and later age at first sex (Crockett, Bingham, Chopak, & Vicary, 1996;Lauritsen, 1994;McCartin & Meyer, 1988;Trent, 1994b;Young, Jensen, Olsen, & Cundick, 1991). Parental education, particularly maternal education, is also associated with higher expectations, older age at first sex, and a lower risk of nonmarital teen pregnancy and birth (Billy & Moore, 1992;Hayward, Grady, & Billy, 1992;Miller & Sneesby, 1988;Plotnick, 1992;Trent, 1994a).…”

Making the Grade: Predicting Retention in Undergraduate Teacher Education

“…Predictor variables of beginning teacher candidates' later GPRs in descending order are SAT-V, SAT-M, high school GPR, father's educational level, and score on Quadrant 2 (thinking/reflecting) of the LTM. The fact that SAT-V, SAT-M, high school GPR, and father's education are significant predictor variables is not surprising as their effectiveness is documented in the literature (Alwin & Thornton, 1984;College Board, 1997;McCartin & Meyer, 1988;Pattnayak & Todorov, 1992). Scores on both mathematics and verbal sections of the SAT are positively correlated with degree of parental education for most ethnic and racial groups in the United States (Hawkins, 1993).…”

“…Moreover, educational level of the parents also correlates with measures of students' verbal ability (Alwin & Thornton, 1984). In addition, father's occupation has been associated with significant differences in both verbal and quantitative Scholastic Aptitude Test scores (Belz & Geary, 1984), and the occupations of both mother and father have been correlated to grade point average (McCartin & Meyer, 1988). Finally, the validity of using scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and high school grade point average to predict college GPR is well demonstrated (College Board, 1997), although socioeconomic background is significantly related to differences in SAT scores within racial and ethnic groups (Hawkins, 1993).…”

“…Relations exist between level of parental occupation and measures of academic achievement (e.g., GPR and scores on tests of scholastic aptitude). Level of education of the mother (Farmer & Chung, 1995;Lang, Dunham, & Alpert, 1988), the father (Pattnayak & Todorov, 1992), and both parents (Alwin & Thornton, 1984;McCartin & Meyer, 1988) significantly predicts academic achievement as measured by GPR. Moreover, educational level of the parents also correlates with measures of students' verbal ability (Alwin & Thornton, 1984).…”

“…It should be noted that ipsative scales enable detection of intra-individual patterns (Messick, 1994) but are inappropriate for making comparisons among individuals (Cornwell & Manfredo, 1994). A technical manual by McCarthy and St. Germain (1996) documents evidence about the validity and reliability of the LTM. The manual reports Cronbach alpha coefficients for the four learning type quadrants ranging from 0.767 to 0.885 and a test-retest statistic of .71.…”