Relationship between Ethnic Backgrounds and Students Performances
Abstract
There have been perceptions that there exists a difference in the way students perform based on their ethnic backgrounds. Cwikla (2002) conducted a study and came up with a conclusion that there was a relationship between the ethnic background of a student and their Mathematics performance. The aim of this project is to establish whether actually there is an existence of a relationship between the ethnic background of the student and their performance in academics. This will be useful in the provision of insights to education professionals when they are designing ways for the evaluation of the performance of the students. The project was carried out in one of the high school in the neighborhood.
The research question was whether there is any relationship between the performance of the students and their ethnic background. The project evaluated three backgrounds; Hispanics, whites and blacks. This was taken to be the independent variable with the performance been the dependent variable. The performance was based on the latest standardized test scores in Mathematics, reading and social studies.
Data was collected using cluster sampling and analyzed using SPSS a statistical package. This helped us to arrive at the conclusion. (Athabasca University 2010) The significance level for this study was set to be 5%.
Purpose of the project
The purpose of the project was to establish whether there was a relationship in the way the students performed and their ethnic background. I considered doing this study because of some of the historical activities that have been observed from the past. This is evident in learning institutions where the teachers are tasked to evaluate different students but they have not being considering whether the way they perform is effected by where they come from.
Over the time many students have been punished because of their performance in certain subjects. This has been done without digging down to check what causes the poor performance in different students. We set out on a mission to help out in such situation and make sure students that when the students are been evaluated their background is considered if at all it has any relationship.
Population
This study evaluated a population of students from a neighborhood. In collaboration with the management, we identified students from different backgrounds and collected data from them so as to identify whether the performance was in the stated subjects was different or it was the same in different students from different backgrounds. The school was selected because it had diversity of students and from the three backgrounds. Due to this it was seen to be a good representative of the required data.
Hypothesis
In this research we set out the objective which was to be used to guide us during the study. The objective was to establish whether there existed a relationship in the background of the students and their performance in the specified subjects. Using this objective a research hypothesis which had a relation with it was formulated. The hypotheses to be tested in the study were as stated below:
Null hypothesis
This is the hypothesis of independence or of no relation. It indicates that there was no dependence between the performance of the students and their backgrounds. It is denoted by H0 as shown below:
H0: There is no relationship between the background of the student and their academic performance.
Alternative hypothesis
This is a hypothesis which shows an existence of relationship between the variables under consideration. In our case it will indicate an existence of relationship between the performance of the students which is the dependent variable and the background of such student which is the independent variable. It is denoted by H1 as shown below. Our alternative hypothesis for the study will be:
H1: There is a relationship between the performance of the students and their background.
Variables
The study contained varied variable whose aim was to aid us in achieving the test results. The independent variable was the background of the students. This was a nominal variable because the students could only lie in one of these categories: White, black and the Hispanic. The dependent variables were performance and this in different subjects because we had three subjects namely, Mathematics, Reading and Social studies. These were ordinal variables.
Methodology
This part explains the modalities used to obtain data and the procedures used to analyze it so as to come up with the required conclusion.
Data collection
Data was collected using questionnaires. A sample of students who were to participate in the study was selected by use of cluster sampling. This method of data collection was used because we had different students in different classes so as to get the correct output. The identification of the students to be interviewed was completely randomized to avoid biasness. The sample size was 40 students to ensure that they data were normal.
Data analysis
Data analysis for the different variables was done using Statistical Package for Social Scientist (SPSS). Both descriptive and inferential and
Descriptive statistics
It was represented using graphs and tables to indicate clearly the frequency for the variables in the research study. It will also show different numbers of the variables and their distribution.
Inferential statistics
This involves a study that was done to show whether there is relationship between variables. This will analysis type is the one to assist in arriving at our conclusions.
Results
After conducting tests on the data it was realized that there were more whites in the school, followed by the Hispanic and then the least number were the blacks. The whites performed well in reading with a mean of 80. They were followed closely by the Hispanics with a mean of 75. The blacks performed poorly in this subject with a mean of 50.
The performance in Mathematics was best among the blacks. They obtained a mean of 75. They were followed by the Hispanics with a mean of 65. The performance of whites was the poorest in this subject because they had a mean of 50. The performance in the social studies was almost the same in the three backgrounds. The blacks performed best with mean of 75 followed closely by the Hispanic with the mean of 74 and the whites had a mean of 71.
On conducting a Chi-square test on the data it was obtained the p-value obtained was less than the preset value of 0.05 in Mathematics and reading performance. It was actually 0.04 for mathematics and 0.0075 in the reading. This showed that there was a relationship between the performance of the students in Mathematics and Reading with the background of the students.
The blacks performed well in Mathematics than the whites and the Hispanics. In the Reading the whites were the overall best followed by the Hispanics and lastly the blacks. Performance in the social studies was established to be independent with the backgrounds. The P-value obtained for this cross tabulation examination was 0.6867 which is greater than the preset value of 0.05.
Conclusion
From the results obtained we conclude that there is a relation between the performance of the students in mathematics and the Reading subjects in comparison with the background of the students. Blacks are most likely to perform the best in this subject with the whites performing poorly. When we check at the performance in reading the whites are most likely to perform the best in this subject as compared to the blacks. The Hispanics are average in both the subjects.
In the performance of the social studies it does not seem to be dependent with the background of the student at 5% level of significance. I propose that more research to be conducted in future to establish other factors that affect the performance of the students in different subject. This study should be wider and consider more subjects and from different locations.
References
AthabascaUniversity (2010). Research Methods and Statistics. May 11, 2011 Available at http://psych.athabascau.ca/html/aupr/tools.shtml#Research_Methods
Cwikla J. (2002). Differential Mathematics Performance on the TIMSS-R across Delaware Students of Color. Delaware Science Coalition. May 11, 2011. Available at http://www.triangle-coalition.org/pdf/rq1.pdf
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