Effects of student characteristics on grades in compulsory school

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate how different student characteristics such as gender influence grades. In order to answer these questions, multivariate techniques were used. The data derive from The Gothenburg Educational Longitudinal Database (GOLD), and the subjects were 99,070 ninth-grade students born in 1987. The analyses were performed on subject grades and scores on national tests in Swedish, English, and mathematics and on student questionnaire data. The results showed that the greatest part of the variance in grades was due to student achievement in the different subject areas but that grades are additionally influenced by different noncognitive student characteristics, such as motivation and parental engagement. One of the most interesting results concerns the relation between student motivation, gender, and grades.

Keywords:

• compulsory school
• gender
• grades
• grade assignment
• motivation
• national tests
• student characteristics

Acknowledgements

The Swedish Research Council has financially supported the research reported in this paper. The work is a part of the GRAM (Grades and grade assignment: Functions and effects) project.

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