Factors of educational success

Educational success, also called student and academic achievement, refers to the extent to which educational aims are reached, for example, the amount of knowledge and abilities that students acquire. For practical purposes, it is often measured primarily in terms of official exam scores, but there are many additional indicators, such as attendance rates, graduation rates, dropout rates, student attitudes, and post-school indicators like later income and incarceration rates.Several factors influence educational achievement, including psychological factors, which concern the student as an individual, and sociological factors, which pertain to the student's social environment. Further factors are access to educational technology, teacher quality, and parent involvement. Many of these factors overlap and influence each other.

Psychological

On a psychological level, relevant factors include motivation, intelligence, and personality.Motivation is the internal force propelling people to engage in learning.Motivated students are more likely to interact with the content to be learned by participating in classroom activities like discussions, which often results in a deeper understanding of the subject. Motivation can also help students overcome difficulties and setbacks. An important distinction is between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsically motivated students are driven by an interest in the subject and the learning experience itself. Extrinsically motivated students seek external rewards like good grades and recognition from peers. Intrinsic motivation tends to be more beneficial by leading to increased creativity and engagement as well as long-term commitment.Educational psychologists try to discover how to increase motivation. This can be achieved, for instance, by encouraging some competition among students while ensuring a balance of positive and negative feedback in the form of praise and criticism.

Intelligence influences how people respond to education. It is a mental quality linked to the ability to learn from experience, to understand, and to employ knowledge and skills to solve problems. Those who have higher scores in intelligence metrics tend to perform better at school and go on to higher levels of education.Intelligence is often primarily associated with the so-called IQ, a standardized numerical metric for assessing intelligence by focusing on mathematical-logical and verbal skills. However, it has been argued that there are more types of intelligence. According to the psychologist Howard Gardner, there are distinct forms of intelligence belonging to fields like mathematics, logic, spatial cognition, language, and music. Further types affect how a person interacts with other people and with themselves. These types of intelligence are largely independent of each other, meaning that someone may excel at one type while scoring low on another.

According to proponents of learning style theory, the preferred method of acquiring knowledge and skills is another factor. They hold that students with an auditory learning style find it easy to comprehend spoken lectures and discussions, whereas visual learners benefit from information presented visually, such as in diagrams and videos. To facilitate efficient learning, it may be advantageous to incorporate a wide variety of learning modalities.[110] Learning styles have been criticized for ambiguous empirical evidence of student benefits and unreliability of student learning style assessment by teachers.[111] The learner's personality may also influence educational achievement. For instance, characteristics such as conscientiousness and openness to experience, identified in the Big Five personality traits, are associated with academic success.[112] Other mental factors include self-efficacy, self-esteem, and metacognitive abilities.[113]

Sociological

Sociological factors focus not on psychological attributes of learners but on their environment and position in society. They include socioeconomic status, ethnicity, cultural background, and gender. They are of interest to researchers since they are associated with inequality and discrimination. For this reason, they play a key role in policy-making in attempts to mitigate their effects.[114]

Socioeconomic status depends on income but includes other factors, such as financial security, social status, social class, and quality of life attributes. Low socioeconomic status affects educational success in various ways. It is linked to slower cognitive developments in language and memory and higher dropout rates. Poor families may not have enough money to meet basic the nutritional needs of their children, causing poor development. They may also lack the means to invest in educational resources like stimulating toys, books, and computers. Additionally, they may be unable to afford tuition at prestigious schools and are more likely to attend schools in poorer areas. Such schools tend to offer lower standards of teaching because of teacher shortages or because they lack educational materials and facilities, like libraries. Poor parents may also be unable to afford private lessons if their children fall behind. In some cases, students from an economically disadvantaged background are forced to dropout from school to provide income to their families. They also have less access to information on higher education and may face additional difficulties in securing and repaying student loans. Low socioeconomic status also has many indirect negative effects by being linked to lower physical and mental health. Due to these factors, social inequalities on the level of the parents are often reproduced in the children.[115]

Ethnic background is linked to cultural differences and language barriers, which make it more difficult for students to adapt to the school environment and follow classes. Additional factors are explicit and implicit biases and discrimination toward ethnic minorities. This may affect the students' self-esteem and motivation as well as their access to educational opportunities. For example, teachers may hold stereotypical views even if they are not overtly racist, which can lead them to grade comparable performances differently based on the child's ethnicity.[116]

Historically, gender has been a central factor in education since the roles of men and women were defined differently in many societies. Education tended to strongly favor men, who were expected to provide for the family. Women, by contrast, were expected to manage the household and rear children, which barred most educational opportunities available to them. While these inequalities have improved in most modern societies, there are still gender differences in education. Among other things, this concerns biases and stereotypes linked to the role of gender in education. They affect subjects like science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, which are often presented as male fields. This discourages female students from following them.[117] In various cases, discrimination based on gender and social factors happens openly as part of official educational policy, such as the severe restrictions on female education instituted by the Taliban in Afghanistan[118] and the school segregation of migrants and locals in urban China under the hukou system.[119]

One aspect of many social factors is given by the expectations associated with stereotypes. They work both on an external level, based on how other people react to a person belonging to a certain group, and on an internal level, based on how the person internalizes them and acts accordingly. In this sense, the expectations may turn into self-fulfilling prophecies by causing the educational outcomes they anticipate. This can happen both for positive and negative stereotypes.[120]

Technology and others

See also: Computers in the classroom

Technology plays another significant role in educational success. Educational technology is commonly associated with the use of modern digital devices, like computers. But understood in the broadest sense, it involves a wide range of resources and tools for learning, including basic aids that do not involve the use of machines, like regular books and worksheets.[121]

Photo of a group of children being introduced to a laptop

A One Laptop per Child device being introduced to children in Haiti

Educational technology can benefit learning in various ways. In the form of media, it often takes the role of the primary supplier of information in the classroom. This means that the teacher can focus their time and energy on other tasks, like planning the lesson and guiding students as well as assessing educational performance.[122] Educational technology can also make information easier to understand by presenting it using graphics, audio, and video rather than through mere text. In this regard, interactive elements may be used to make the learning experience more engaging in the form of educational games. Technology can be employed to make educational materials accessible to many people, like when using online resources. It additionally facilitates collaboration between students and communication with teachers.[123] The use of artificial intelligence in education holds various potentials, such as providing new learning experiences to students and assisting teachers in their work, but also poses new risks associated with data privacy, false information, and manipulation.[124] Various organizations promote student access to educational technologies, such as the One Laptop per Child initiative, the African Library Project, and Pratham.[125]

School infrastructure also influences educational success. It includes physical aspects of the school, like its location and size as well as the available school facilities and equipment. A healthy and safe environment, well-maintained classrooms, and suitable classroom furniture as well as the availability of a library and a canteen tend to contribute to educational success.[126] The quality of the teacher also has an important impact on student achievement. Skilled teachers know how to motivate and inspire students and are able to adjust their instructions to the students' abilities and needs. Important in this regard are the teacher's own education and training as well as their past teaching experience.[127] A meta-analysis by Engin Karadağ et al. concludes that, compared to other influences, factors related to the school and the teacher have the biggest impact on educational success.[128]

Parent involvement also boosts achievement and can make children more motivated and invested if they are aware that their parents care about their educational efforts. This tends to lead to increased self-esteem, better attendance rates, and more constructive behavior at school. Parent involvement also includes communication with teachers and other school staff to make other parties aware of current issues and how they may be resolved.[129] Further relevant factors sometimes discussed in the academic literature include historical, political, demographic, religious, and legal aspects.[130]