The effects of shadow education on high school students’ creative thinking and academic achievement in mathematics: the case of the Republic of Korea

ABSTRACT

This study examined the effects of shadow education on high school students’ creative thinking and academic achievement in mathematics. Data from the Seoul Education Longitudinal Study were used for the analyses, including descriptive statistics, path analyses, and multiple group analyses. The results reveal that shadow education negatively influenced students’ creative thinking in the long term, but positively affected academic achievement in mathematics in the short term. Furthermore, students who increased their hours of participation in the following year were more likely to present stronger effects of shadow education on creative thinking and weaker effects of shadow education on academic achievement. In considering the findings, mathematics educators, parents, and policymakers should not neglect shadow education when developing educational plans.

KEYWORDS:

• Private education
• creativity
• mathematics competency
• academic performance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sunyoung Han

Sunyoung Han is an associate professor at the department of mathematics education, Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea. Her research interests are STEM education, mathematical problem solving, project based learning, teacher education, and quantitative and mixed methods.

Heejoo Suh

Heejoo Suh is an instructor at the department of mathematics education, Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea. Her primary research interest involves mathematics education, curriculum studies, teacher education, and equity.