Persistent and significant gaps in academic performance and/or educational attainment between white and minority students.

Race Achievement Gap

Persistent and significant gaps in academic performance and/or educational attainment between high- and low-income students.

Income Achievement Gap

Persistent and significant gaps in academic performance and/or educational attainment between non-disabled and disabled students.

Disability Achievement Gap

Persistent and significant gaps in academic performance and/or educational attainment between students with parents with high educational attainment and students with parents with low educational attainment. 

Parent Education Level Achievement Gap

Persistent and significant gaps in academic performance and/or educational attainment between domestic and international students. 

Nationality Achievement Gap

-  1) Which variables should we use in our analysis? Why?
-  2) What types of achievement gap can we study? Why?
-  3) How should we define each type of achievement gap based on the available data and how it's defined in the literature?
-  4) Why does it matter to study the effect of the pandemic on that achievement gap? and what do you hypothesize of the effect of the pandemic on that achievement gap? Why? Please find and cite supporting literature.

Time to Innovate: Discussion and Ideas for the Achievement Gap Research Question

This paper compares students who are considered traditional against nontraditional students in terms of academic success. The summary and results note that nontraditional students tend to struggle with their GPA and completion of college, especially if they represent more aspects that are considered against the norm of the college student population.  

Traditional vs Nontraditional Students

Persistent and significant gaps in academic performance and/or educational attainment between male and female students.

Gender Gap in Education

Difference of students' performances from different culture.

Cultural differences achievement gap

Persistent and significant gaps in academic performance and/or educational attainment between native English-speaking students and ESL/ELL students.

Language Gap in Education

- Discuss  the differences in educational achievement levels between African Americans, Afro-Caribbean, and African students within the USA
- Cultural differences and parental involvement factors as the potential reasons

Cultural, Ethnic Differences, Parental Involvem Differences, and Educational Achievement of African Heritage Students: Towards Employing a Culturally Sensitive Curriculum in K-12 Classrooms,
a Literature Review

- Academics
- Achievement Gap
- Nutritional Health

The Impact of Coronavirus

- Social identity threat is a process that occurs when a person’s view of themselves is at threat due to being a member of a group that is marginalized in the context they find themselves in. The context is key as a group may be marginalized in one context but not in another.
- Demographic composition is especially important for marginalized groups as a low number of members of their group can signal social identity threat.
- Schools are a place where social identity threat is likely to emerge, especially if there is a preconceived notion of race and achievement. 
- Social identity threat has been shown to affect students’ performance as seen through stereotype threat (a subset of social identity threat).

Social Identity Threat in Education

- Race
- Gender
- Income
- Language
- Disability
- Parent Education Level
- Nationality
- Technology
- Traditional
- Cultural differences
- The Impact of Coronavirus

San Jose State University

University of Connecticut

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Stanford University

The achievement gap is a persistent disparity in academic outcomes, such as grades, test scores, and graduation rates, observed among students from different demographic groups. These groups are often defined by ethnicity, race, and, in certain subjects, gender.

Definition of the Achievement Gap in Education

Achievement Gap Definition (2013, Dec. 19). The Glossary of Education Reform. https://www.edglossary.org/achievement-gap/

Achievement Gap Definition

Buenning, M., & Tollefson, N. (1987). The cultural gap hypothesis as an explanation for the achievement patterns of Mexican‐American students. Psychology in the Schools, 24(3), 264-272.

 The Cultural Gap Hypothesis as an Explanation for the Achievement Patterns of Mexican‐American Students. 

A variety of socio-economical variables may not be properly taken into consideration, or accounted for in intervention based studies. More specifically, these variables affect both the teacher, the target student population, and the surrounding/incidental student population. These variables may be:
- Ethnicity
- Gender
- Location

Confounding Effects in Intervention Studies

Käser, T., Hallinen, N. R., &amp; Schwartz, D. L. (2017). Modeling exploration strategies to predict student performance within a learning environment and beyond. Proceedings of the Seventh International Learning Analytics &amp; Knowledge Conference. doi:10.1145/3027385.3027422

Modeling Exploration Strategies to Predict Student
Performance within a Learning Environment and Beyond

This study examined whether having African-American student (seventh to eighth grade), write essays affirming their personal values, improves their academic performance. These subtle interventions would lessen minority students' psychological threat related to being negatively sterotyped in school. 
Ending results show that over 2 years, the grade point average of African Americans was on average, raised by .24 grade points, and those who were low-achieving, benefited the most, improving their average .41 points. 

Recursive Processes in Self-Affirmation: Intervening to Close the Minority Achievement Gap 

This paper looks at the problematic trend of students that come from underrepresented minorities (URM) or are a first-generation college student (FG) who tend to give up on courses of science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM). It then goes on to explain not only the factors that lead to a lack of motivation in succeeding in these classes but potential interventions that could mitigate these problems, leading to success. The research study discussed in this article looks at how these interventions are used in a biology course with students of various backgrounds (minority, majority, first-generation or not, and combinations of both racial and social backgrounds) to see what the results are (in the form of class grades) from using the interventions to address lack of motivation.

Closing Gaps with A Utility-Value Intervention: Disentangling Race and Social Class

- "Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap: A Social-Psychological Intervention" by Geoffrey L Cohen, Nancy Apfel, Julio Garcia, and Allison Master (2006)
- "Modeling Exploration Strategies to Predict Student Performance within a Learning Environment and Beyond" by Käser, T., Hallinen, N. R., & Schwartz, D. L. (2017)
- Matthew Effects in Education and Culture. The Matthew effect: How advantage begets further advantage. by Rigney, D. (2010). 
- "The Achievement Gap and the Discipline Gap: Two Sides of the Same Coin?" by Gregory, Anne & Skiba, Russell & Noguera, Pedro (2010)
- "Latino English Language Learners: Bridging Achievement and Cultural Gaps Between Schools and Families." by Good, M. E., Masewicz, S., & Vogel, L. (2010). 
- "Multicultural Education." Great School Partnership. (2013)
- A diversity ideology intervention: Multiculturalism reduces the racial achievement gap. by Birnbaum, H. J., Stephens, N. M., Townsend, S. S., & Hamedani, M. G. (2020). 
- "Reducing the Gender Achievement Gap in College Science: A Classroom Study of Values Affirmation" by Miyake, A., Kost-Smith, L.E., Finkelstein, N.D., Pollock, S.J., Cohen, G.L.,
- Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
- Outliers by Malcom Gladwell
-  Experiences and Outcomes of First-Generation Students in Community Colleges by Pascarella et. al 
-  Closing the Social-Class Achievement Gap: A Difference-Education Intervention Improves First-Generation Students’ Academic Performance and All Students’ College Transition by Stephens et. al 
-  Speed and Studying: Gendered Pathways to Success by Iman YeckehZaare and Paul Resnick

Achievement Gap References

The goal of this study is to improve minority students' performance and to better understand how psychological threats can undermine self-integrity, leading to poor academic performance. Researchers tested whether psychological threats can be lessened by reaffirming self-integrity, thus improving academic performance amongst negatively stereotyped minority students. 

Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap: A Social-Psychological Intervention- Goals of Study

Doris B. Chin, Kristen P. Blair, Rachel C. Wolf, Luke D. Conlin, Maria Cutumisu, Jay Pfaffman & Daniel L. Schwartz (2019) Educating and Measuring Choice: A Test of the Transfer of Design Thinking in Problem Solving and Learning, Journal of the Learning Sciences, 28:3, 337-380, DOI: 10.1080/10508406.2019.1570933

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