Students’ Self-reported Background SES Measures in TIMSS in Relation to Register SES Measures When Analysing Students’ Achievements in Sweden

Figures & data

Table 1. To the left are valid cases, number of students (n), and proportion (%) of students who had each home possession among the valid cases. To the right are valid cases and the number of students who were considered to be immigrated (Imm) or native both in TIMSS 2015 and in the register data.

Home possession	Valid	N	%	Immigration	Valid	Imm	Native
Tablet own	4048	3644	90	TIMSS
Tablet share	4037	2917	72	Parents	4022	1249	2773
Study desk	4050	3860	95	Student	4036	483	3553
Own room	4050	3780	93	Mother	4037	945	3092
Internet	4046	4001	99	Father	3991	952	3079
Own mobile	4050	4010	99	Register
Gaming system	4050	3950	98	Parents/Student	4019	814	3205
Earth globe	4026	1469	36	Parents		361
Piano	4011	1380	34	Students		453
Music instrument	4038	2741	68

Notes: Valid = Number of students with a record or answer among the sampled 4090 students. Tablet = Computer tablet, Internet = Internet connection at home, Imm = Not born in country. Native = Born in country, Parents = If either of the parents have an immigration background, Student = Student’s immigration background, Mother = Student’s mother immigration background, Father = Student’s father immigration background. Parents/Student: If either of the parents or the student had an immigration background.

Table 2. Valid cases, missing cases (Miss) and correlations between SES measures and TIMSS and Swedish national achievement measures (G9, NT9, G6 and NT6).

SES measure	Valid	Miss	TIMSS	G9	NT9	G6	NT6
TIMSS
Number of home possessions	3938	152	.27	.25	.25	.21	.21
Number of books at home	4026	64	.41	.37	.36	.33	.34
HER index	4030	60	.42	.38	.37	.34	.35
Parents highest education	2460	1630	.24	.27	.26	.23	.25
Mother’s highest education	2228	1862	.27	.29	.28	.25	.26
Father’s highest education	2135	1955	.25	.29	.28	.21	.23
How far student expect to go	3879	211	.30	.38	.33	.28	.29
Immigration	4022	78	−.19	−.10	−.11	−.14	−.11
Register
Parents highest education	4013	77	.39	.39	.37	.34	.34
Mother’s highest education	3943	147	.38	.36	.34	.32	.32
Father’s highest education	3830	260	.37	.38	.36	.31	.31
Immigration	4019	71	−.22	−.11	−.13	−.15	−.12

Notes: G9 = Grades in school year 9, NT9 = Grades on national test in school year 9, G6 = Grades in school year 6, NT6 = Grades on national test in school year 6. HER index = Home educational resources index

Table 4. Linear regression coefficients with TIMSS mathematics achievement as the dependent variable. Independent variables were students’ SES variables from either TIMSS (second column) or registers (third and fourth column) or both (fifth and sixth column) and the students’ grades and national test results from school year 6 in mathematics. The “SSES” columns (columns 2, 3, and 5) show the results when only students’ SES measures were used, and the “All” columns (columns 4 and 6) show the results when students’ SES home background variables, students’ grades, and students’ national test results were used. The standard errors are in parentheses, and the number of cases used (N) and the explained variance (R²) are given.

	TIMSS	Register		TIMSS & Register
Regression variables	SSES	SSES	All	SSES	All
Intercept	333.4 (12.8)	468.9 (3.3)	347.2 (5.2)	340.4 (13.4)	343.9 (5.2)
Grades
G6			5.2 (.6)		4.7 (.7)
NT6			4.8 (.6)		4.9 (.7)
Register
Medu		28.8 (3.1)	8.9 (2.6)	14.3 (3.2)
Fedu		33.1 (2.8)	16.3 (2.3)	19.5 (2.9)	13.2 (2.3)
Imm		−26.3 (5.8)	−19.8 (4.5)	−23.0 (5.6)	−21.1 (4.7)
TIMSS
Fedu	21.9 (2.9)
Imm	−19.1 (4.3)
Expect	29.6 (3.4)			29.5 (3.3)	16.4 (2.4)
Book					15.4 (2.2)
HER	12.8 (1.2)			11.3 (1.3)
R^2	.23	.14	.51	.24	.54
N	3537	3703	3538	3517	3370

Notes: TIMSS = TIMSS variables. Register = Register variables. Grades = Register variables about students’ school achievements. G6 = Students’ grades from school year 6, NT6 = National test score grade from school year 6. Expect = 1 if student expects to go further than high school education, 0 otherwise. Medu = 1 if student’s mother has a higher education than high school education, 0 otherwise. Fedu = 1 if student’s father has a higher education than high school education, Imm = 1 if student or student’s parents is not born in Sweden. Book = 1 if student’s home has more than 100 books, 0 otherwise. HER = Student’s home educational resource index from TIMSS. R²= Proportion variance explained. N = Number of students used in the regression.

Table 3. Average mathematics achievement (first row) and a number of cases (second row) depending on the category (columns 1–7) within the different students’ home background measures. The lowest level for each measure is 1, and 5, 6, or 7 is the highest level depending on which measure of students’ home background is used.

	Level of students’ home background
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
TIMSS variables
PeduO	470.0	471.4	490.5	509.1	526.1
N = 2460	45	101	402	589	1323
MeduO	449.0	471.2	494.6	507.4	516.2	525.6	534.2
N = 2228	59	104	418	198	392	650	407
FeduO	480.6	480.2	501.4	506.8	514.8	531.5	532.9
N = 2135	54	186	492	208	316	445	434
ExpectO	404.4	472.2	479.3	503.0	517.7	521.9
N = 3879	63	657	282	733	1227	917
BookO	451.0	479.6	504.7	527.8	539.4
N = 4026	580	839	1116	737	754
HERC	449.0	459.5	492.9	515.1	543.3
N = 4030	133	625	1554	720	998
Register variables
PedcO	416.0	443.4	471.3	486.5	508.0	527.4	559.8
N = 4013	85	98	627	873	744	1478	108
MedcO	432.6	457.5	483.0	494.3	515.3	531.5	574.5
N = 3943	152	212	818	885	619	1213	44
FeduO	433.3	469.7	487.7	502.5	522.3	538.8	560.9
N = 3830	125	343	1228	640	650	762	82

Notes: PeduO = Parents highest educational level, original coding, MeduO = Mothers’ highest educational level, original coding, FeduO = Fathers’ highest educational level, original coding ExpectO = Student expectations of how far they will go in the educational system, original coding. BookO = Number of books at home, original coding, HERC = categorized HER index.