The Home, the School and Achievement in Mathematics and Science. Home Environment and School Study Report 1974:4.

The purpose of the inquiry described was to examine the ways in which characteristics of the educational environment of the home, the school, and the peer group accounted for change in performance at school over the period of a year, in which the sample of children selected for investigation progressed from primary school to high school. The research paradigm proposed that change in the outcomes of education are a function of the type of environment and the dimensions of the environment in which the individual learns. Therefore, final performance at school and attitudes toward learning are influenced not only by initial performance and attitudes, but also by the classroom, the peer group, and the home in which the child works, plays, and lives. This investigation was restricted to children in the Australian Capital Territory. A simple random sample of 242 was drawn from children who were in their final primary school year in 1968. Information on sociological and demographic characteristics and parental attitudes was obtained from interviews with the mother and the father of each child. Full information was available for 215 of the children in the sample after the testing and interviewing were completed. Data analysis used path models derived from the research paradigm. (Author/JM)