performance standards, student effort on homework, and academic achievement

Performance Standards, Student Effort on Homework, and Academic AchievementAuthor(s): Gary Natriello and Edward L. McDillSource: Sociology of Education, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Jan., 1986), pp. 18-31Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2112483 .

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PERFORMANCE STANDARDS, STUDENT EFFORT ON HOMEWORK, AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

GARY NATRIELLO EDWARD L. MCDILL Teachers College Johns Hopkins University

Columbia University

Sociology of Education 1986, Vol. 59 (January):18-31

Recent reports on the state of American schools have focused on the standards for student performance. Using a sample of 12,146 students from 20 public high schools, we estimate the effects of teachers', parents', and peers' standards on student effort and achievement while controlling for the effects of student background factors. Teachers', parents', and peers' standards each have a positive and significant effect on the time students spend on homework. The effects of performance standards on achievement are mixed. Teachers' and peers' standards have small positive effects, and parents' standards have larger negative effects. We offer interpretations of this pattern and suggestions for testing these interpretations in future studies.

Numerous studies have examined the effects of social background and school-related variables on educational and occupational attainment (e.g., Sewell, Haller, and Portes 1969; Alexander, Eckland, and Griffin 1975; Alexan- der and Eckland 1975; Alexander and Cook 1982), but relatively few studies have measured the effect of the effort students devote to school tasks (Coleman, Hoffer, and Kilgore 1982). This omission is particularly salient in view of the recent spate of reports on the con- dition of schooling in the U.S. (e.g., National Commission on Excellence in Education [NCEE] 1983; Task Force on Education for Economic Growth 1983). An underlying theme in many of these reports is that American students are devoting considerably less effort to schoolwork than students in other countries or students from previous generations. This lack of effort is attributed to the lower standards in American schools, particularly in secondary schools, and is considered to be the cause of the declining performance levels of American students on a range of measures, from the Na- tional Assessment of Educational Progress to the Scholastic Aptitude Test (NCEE 1983). In this paper, we examine the antecedents of performance standards (i.e., students' background, expectations, curriculum placement, and parents' aspirations) and the effects of

these standards on student effort and achievement.

One important indicator of the effort students devote to school tasks is the amount of time they spend on homework. Several recent commission reports (e.g., NCEE 1983; Task Force on Education for Economic Growth 1983) have suggested increasing the amount of homework assigned to students. Unlike time spent on in-school tasks, time spent on homework is unconstrained by the scheduling practices of schools; therefore, it is a relatively clear indicator of student effort. Garner (1978), using reports from a large sample of fifth-, eighth-, and tenth-grade teachers in New York City and Connecticut, found greater variation in the time students spent on homework than in the time they spent on in-school tasks.

Studies have shown that homework has a positive effect on students' academic performance. Coleman et al. (1982, p. 171), using data from the High School and Beyond (HSB) survey, found that differences between public- and private-school students in the amount of time spent on homework accounted for small but consistent differences in their achievement test scores. Using this same data set, Keith (1982) showed that homework time had a direct positive effect on grades, second only to the effect of ability in his causal model. Paschal, Weinstein, and Walberg (1983), in a meta- analysis of 15 empirical studies conducted between 1966 and 1981, concluded that homework has a modest, positive effect on learning.

Homework appears to have positive effects on student performance at all levels of achievement. Keith (1982, p. 251) showed that time spent on homework has compensatory effects: i.e., the low-ability student who spends one to three hours per week on homework gets

We acknowledge the useful suggestions of Karl Alexander, James Fennessey, Aaron Pallas, and two anonymous reviewers on an earlier version of this paper and the assistance of James McPartland with sections of the analysis. We assume full responsibil- ity for any remaining shortcomings. Address all cor- respondence to Professor Gary Natriello, Box 85, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027.

18



STUDENT EFFORT ON HOMEWORK 19

the same grades as the average-ability student who spends no time on homework. Stanley (1980, p. 164), focusing on students in the upper 3 percent of the achievement range in mathematics, found that "the main variable differentiating the successful students, who move ahead at astonishing speeds, from the unsuccessful ones is homework. Those who do it well thrive, and those who do it poorly cannot keep up. The more equal the students in the class are in mathematical aptitude and general intelligence, the more striking the phenomenon becomes."

This study examines the determinants of student effort on homework and, in turn, the contribution of this effort to achievement. Our approach combines two types of antecedent variables from different research traditions: (1) the student background and school characteristics variables used in studies of student achievement and educational attainment (Al- exander, Cook, and McDill 1978) and (2) the measures of performance standards suggested by the recent policy reports and research on the impact of school evaluation processes on student effort (Natriello and Dornbusch 1984).

Rather than simply consider the impact of student background on effort and achievement, we follow the lead of recent studies of the effects of schooling by considering school processes (Barr and Dreeben 1983; S0rensen and Hallinan 1977). Thus, performance standards are considered key mediating variables between students' social origins and educational achievement. Our analysis focuses on both the standards presented to students with different background characteristics and the impact of these standards on student effort on homework and academic achievement. Student background characteristics are treated as antecedent variables, and student effort and achievement are treated as consequent variables.

We use data from a 1964-65 study of students in 20 American high schools (McDill, Rigsby, and Meyers 1969; McDill and Rigsby 1973; Alexander and McDill 1976). This data set provides several unique advantages for our study. First, it is perhaps the only large-scale survey that contains items tapping both the student background characteristics and the performance standards to which students are subjected. ' Second, the data were collected in the post-Sputnik era, which many educational observers consider to be the golden age of

American secondary education (NCEE 1983). The data set thus provides a glimpse of the promise of American high schools for promoting student effort under relatively positive cir- cumstances.

A MODEL OF THE DETERMINANTS OF STUDENT EFFORT

Figure 1 shows the major categories of variables included in the model. The first two sections of the model contain variables typically found in input-output (Astin 1970; Averch et al. 1972) or school-process models, which are used "extensively to estimate both social- psychological and school-organizational influences upon educational outcomes" (Alexan- der, Pallas, and Cook 1981, p. 619). Initial student background factors are shown in the leftmost column of the figure. These variables represent the basic input characteristics of students and their families. The second section of the model includes fathers' and mothers' aspirations for the educational attainment of the students, the students' expectations for their own educational attainment, and the curricula in which the students are enrolled. This vector of variables represents some of the^more important social-psychological and school- organizational influences included in the Wis- consin model of educational and occupational attainment (Sewell, Haller, and Portes 1969; Sewell and Hauser 1980). The last three sections of the model contain variables typically used to study the impact of organizational evaluation processes on performer effort and achievement (Dornbusch and Scott 1975; Nat- riello and Dornbusch 1984). The third section contains variables representing the standards to which students are exposed: i.e., the standards of teachers, parents, and peers.

Since the model is fully recursive, we assume that the variables in each section of the model affect all those in subsequent sections. Thus, we assume that initial background factors influence parents' aspirations, students' expectations, and curriculum enrollment, and that both of these classes of variables affect performance standards, and so on. In this analysis we make no assumptions about the causal relationships among parents' aspirations, students' expectations, and curriculum. Since we focus on the effects of these student background variables on subsequent variables in the model, this simplifying assumption will not influence our interpretations of the effects of primary interest in the current presentation.2 I More contemporary data sources such as the

HSB survey, used by Coleman et al. (1982), and Goodlad's (1984) study of schooling do not contain measures of both performance standards and achievement.

2 Longitudinal data such as that used by Alexan- der et al. (1978) would enable us to examine the pattern of effects of parents' aspirations, student expectations, and track. It should be reemphasized that



20 NATRIELLO AND McDILL

Father's education

Mother's education

Father's Father's Teachers' occupation aspirations standards

Sex Mother's Parents' Homework English aspirations standards GPA

Ability Student's Peers'

Number of expectations standards siblings

Track Number of books Sophomore Senior

Initial Aspirations, Background Expectations, Performance Factors and Curriculum Standards Effort Achievement

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Figure 1. A Model of the Determinants of Student Effort and Achievement.

Analyses involving the first three sections of the model address our first major concern: the effects of student background and school characteristics on the standards set by teachers, parents, and peers. Our decision to consider the student background and school characteristics variables traditionally used in studies of educational attainment as potential determinants of performance standards is consistent with studies of teacher behavior over the past thirty years. These studies show that teachers' attitudes and behavior toward students are affected by the students' social class (Becker 1952; Miller et al. 1968; Leacock 1969; Rist 1970), sex (Stevenson et al. 1976; Clift and Sexton 1979; Meyer and Thompson 1956; Good, Sikes, and Brophy 1973; Jackson and Lahaderne 1967; Dweck 1975; Brophy and Evertson 1981), ability (Laosa, Swartz, and Witzke 1975; DeGroat and Thompson 1949; Brophy and Good 1970; Brophy and Evertson 1981; Natriello and Dornbusch 1984), grade level (Brophy and Evertson 1976, 1981), expectations (Sewell and Hauser 1980), curriculum enrollment (Natriello and Dornbusch 1984), and parents' aspirations (Hyman 1953, p. 438; Rist 1970; Boocock 1972, p. 37). Williams (1976), however, found that teachers'

expectations are based on students' achievement, not on their ascribed characteristics; and Natriello and Dornbusch (1983, 1984) note that the effects of students' ascribed characteristics and school achievement and behavior histories on teachers' standards disappear when current student behavior is controlled. Nevertheless, since these different studies indicate that a variety of both ascribed and achieved attributes of students affect teachers', parents', and peers' behavior toward students, we expect that the variables in the first two sections of our model will affect the measures of performance standards in the third section.

Analyses involving the last three sections of the model address our second concern: the impact of performance standards on student effort and achievement. Studies in several different traditions of school-effects research suggest that more rigorous academic standards may lead to greater student effort and achievement. In an extensive review of studies that examined teachers' expectations and classroom behavior, Brophy and Evertson (1981) concluded that when teacher behavior indicates high expectations of students, students respond with greater effort and achievement. In studies of high school students, Nat- riello and Dornbusch (1984) found that when academic standards are high, students devote more effort and perform somewhat better than when standards are extremely low. Moreover, a higher demand level is associated with greater student effort even when the ability

by grouping these variables into a single block, we have simplified the representation of the schooling process. This simplification has no effect on our estimates of the major parameters-i.e., the determinants and effects of academic standards.




level of the students is controlled. Students respond to the higher academic standards by working harder on school tasks. Other studies have indicated that the standards of parents (Epperson 1964; Musgrove 1964; McDill and Rigsby 1973) and peers (Coleman 1961; Becker et al. 1961; McDill and Rigsby 1973) also affect student effort and performance. Higher standards have potentially negative effects on the effort and performance of certain groups of students (McDill, Natriello, and Pallas 1985). But in general, higher standards of teachers, parents, and peers should lead students to spend more time on homework, which should lead to higher achievement.

Our approach parallels a social-psychological approach adopted by school- process researchers in their search for interpersonal and reference-group processes that mediate school-organizational influences on educational outcomes (Alexander et al. 1978; McDill and Rigsby 1973; Sewell, Haller, and Ohlendorf 1970; Woelfel and Haller 1971). The theoretical underpinnings for this body of empirical literature are provided by several related theories in social psychology-e.g., Heider's (1958) balance theory, Newcomb's (1966) theory of the acquaintance process, and Homans's (1961) social exchange theory-all of which focus on how social interaction processes at the proximate level influence the behavior, values, and interests of the individual.

METHOD

Sample Data for the present analyses are drawn from

a survey conducted in 20 public coeducational secondary schools in 1964 and 1965 (McDill and Rigsby 1973). The schools were selected in a purposive manner, which resulted in consid- erable variation in educational and social climates, demographic and social compositions, geographic location, and educational outcomes (e.g., the educational and occupational aspirations of the students). Despite this diversity, the schools were somewhat atypical in two re- spects. First, their students scored higher than the nationally representative Project Talent sample (Dailey and Shaycoft 1961) on a standardized aptitude test and on a standardized achievement test used in this analysis. Second, all 20 schools were predominantly white: More than 98 percent of the students who completed the data-gathering instruments for the study were identified as white, and the largest black enrollment in any of the 20 schools was only 6 percent. These two restrictions of the sample notwithstanding, we reemphasize that these 20 schools varied substantially on important characteristics, such as size, SES and ability com-

position, and geographic location. Prior research has established that these sociodemo- graphic variables are relevant to the relationship between the quality of schooling and students' academic performance and ambition (Alexan- der et al. 1981; Sewell and Hauser 1980). De- tailed information on the selection and characteristics of the full sample is presented in McDill and Rigsby (1973).

Several types of data were collected in the survey, including data from questionnaires administered to the students and scores on a standardized test of abstract reasoning. The sample used in this analysis consists of all sophomores, juniors, and seniors from the 20 schools for whom all relevant data were available. Freshmen were excluded because 12 of the 20 schools had no ninth grade. The final sample contains 12,146 of the 18,630 sophomores, juniors, and seniors in these schools. Extensive checks revealed that this 34.8 percent loss of cases did not create any important biases in our analyses.3

VARIABLE MEASURES

Initial Background Factors Father's education and mother's education

were ascertained from students' responses to two items on the questionnaire. Each item included seven precoded responses, ranging from "some grade school" to "attended graduate or professional school after college."

Father's occupational status was ascertained from students' response to an item on the questionnaire. The 17 responses included in the item were collapsed into the following eight occupational categories, which corre- spond to the conventional census classification developed by Edwards (1943): (1) unskilled workers, (2) semiskilled workers, (3) skilled workers, (4) clerical or sales workers, (5) pro- prietors, (6) managers or officials, (7) technical workers, and (8) professionals.

Sex is a dummy variable coded 1 if the respondent was male, 2 if the respondent was female.

Ability was measured with a 15-item, multiple-choice, abstract-reasoning test de- signed to assess the students' ability to determine inductively the logical relationships among patterns of diagrams (Dailey and Shaycoft 1961, pp. 40-42).

3 For example, the average differences in variable means and standard deviations between the total sample and the full-data sample used here were only .134 and .061, respectively. The average difference between the pairwise-present and full-data inter-item correlations for 153 comparisons was .032 (the differences ranged from .000 to .176).




Number of siblings4 and number of books in the home were ascertained from questionnaire responses.

Year in school is represented by two dummy variables, one indicating whether or not the respondent was a sophomore, the other indicating whether or not the respondent was a senior.5

Aspirations, Expectations, and Curriculum

Father's educational aspirations and mother's educational aspirations for the student were ascertained from the students' response to two items on the questionnaire. Each item included four precoded responses: "does not want me to go [to college]" (coded 1), "does not care one way or the other" (coded 2), "wants me to go but has not strongly encouraged me" (coded 3), "strongly encouraged me to go" (coded 4).

Students' educational expectations were ascertained from their response to an item on the questionnaire. The item included six precoded responses: "not going to college" (coded 0), "plan to attend a two-year college" (coded 1), "plan to get a bachelor's degree" (coded 2), "plan to do one year of graduate study (mas- ter's degree)" (coded 3), "plan to obtain a professional degree (M.D., LL.B., D.D.S., etc.)" (coded 4), "plan to obtain a doctorate degree" (coded 5).

Track was coded 2 if the respondent was in a college preparatory track, 1 if the respondent was in any other track.

Performance Standards

Teachers' standards was coded 2 if the respondent indicated that his/her teachers required students to work at home on problems they could not solve in class, 1 if the respondent indicated that teachers did not require students to work at home.

Parents' standards was coded 1 if the respondent indicated that his/her parents had established rules regarding the amount of time to be spent on homework, 0 if the respondent indicated that they had no rules regarding homework.

Peers standards was coded 1 if the respondent indicated that to be popular among his/her peers it was important to get good grades, 0 if the respondent indicated that it was not important.

Effort

Time spent on homework was ascertained from students' responses to an item on the questionnaire. The item included six responses that were precoded to indicate proportions of an hour: "none or almost none" (coded 0), "less than 1/2 hour a day" (coded .25), "about 1/2 hour a day" (coded .5), "about 1 and 1/2 hours a day" (coded 1.5), "about 2 hours a day" (coded 2), "3 or more hours a day" (coded 3).

Academic Achievement

English GPA was each student's cumulative grade point average in English during his/her tenure in high school converted to a mean using the following scale: 4.0 = A, 3.0 = B, 2.0 = C, 1.0 = D, and .09 or less = F.6

ANALYSIS

The parameters of the fully recursive model presented above will be estimated through path analysis. Although the focus of this analysis is on the effects of students' background and school characteristics on the standards teachers, parents, and peers set for them, and the effects of these standards on the students' effort and achievement, the parameter estimates for the entire model will be presented.

LIMITATIONS

The data set used in this analysis is perhaps unique in that it contains measures of student background, school characteristics, and performance standards. However, it is limited in a number of ways. First, the questionnaire tapped students' general school experiences and

4 Number of siblings is included in the model as one indicator of family environment. A large body of literature asserts that family size has a significant effect on the cognitive development of children (Page and Grandon 1979).

5 The analysis controls for year in school because recent research (Coleman et al. 1982) has shown that seniors become less responsive to the school evaluation system as they become more oriented toward postsecondary-school educational and career demands.

6 We chose English GPA as the measure of academic achievement for two reasons. First, a majority of the 20 schools calculated cumulative GPAs only for seniors. Second, even if such data were available for all students, within-school and between-school comparisons of students enrolled in college preparatory curricula with those enrolled in business or general curricula would be tenuous. The one subject that all 20 schools required their students to take each year was English. Although there was some homogeneous grouping of students in English courses in each school, this was the one subject that came closest to providing a basis for comparing academic performance.




performance. Thus, their perceptions of the standards for individual classes and the time they spent on homework for each of these classes cannot be ascertained. The attempt to capture a variety of experiences and perfor- mances in a single response should attenuate the relationships among the variables in the last three sections of the model.

Second, the items tapping performance standards were originally constructed for other purposes; therefore, they do not completely capture the notions embodied in our model. The measure of teachers' standards indicates whether or not teachers require students to work at home on problems they cannot solve in class; it does not indicate whether or not teachers assign homework that does not stem directly from classwork. The measure of parents' standards indicates only the existence of specific rules regarding time to be spent on homework, not general parental standards. The measure of peers' standards indicates the importance of obtaining good grades, not the importance of actual effort (i.e., time spent on homework).

Third, the only measure of student effort we use is time spent on homework. Though the amount of time spent on homework provides an easily identifiable measure of student effort, it represents but one facet of student effort on school tasks. Students may substitute effort in other areas for effort on homework.

Finally, an obvious limitation of the design of the present study is the use of cross- sectional data to study school processes and outcomes. Thus, for example, selectivity bias cannot be ruled out unequivocally and may in part account for what we identify as the effects of standards. Specifically, teachers, parents, and peers may have higher standards for students deemed more capable and more diligent.

Though these limitations should caution us against overinterpreting the results of the analysis, they do not prevent us from using the data to address the two major issues raised at the outset. A student survey such as we use here cannot completely capture the effects of the antecedent variables on performance standards nor the effects of these standards on achievement, but it enables us to examine a complex theoretical and educational policy issue in detail. Such detail cannot be achieved using more recent, nationally representative samples such as the National Longitudinal Study of the Class of 1972 or the HSB survey of 1980.

RESULTS

Table 1 presents the inter-item correlations, means, and standard deviations of the vari-

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The Effects of Student Background on Standards

The first aim of the analysis is to examine the effects of students' background characteristics on the performance standards set by teachers, parents, and peers. An examination of the equations predicting teachers' standards in Table 2 reveals that several of these characteristics have small but statistically significant effects.7 Girls are more likely to report teachers' standards than boys. Students with high ability are more likely to report teachers' standards than those less able. The effects of socioeconomic factors (father's education, mother's education, father's occupation) and other background factors (number of siblings, number of books in the home) are small and insignificant, though the use of multiple measures of social background may diminish the apparent impact of these individual variables (Gordon 1968). In general, the variables in the first two sections of the model explain very little of the variation in teachers' standards. Specifically, the equation containing all an-

7 Since the measures of teachers', parents', and peers' standards are dichotomous, we used logistic regression in addition to ordinary least squares to estimate the equations in which these were the dependent variables. The results of the logistic regression equations predicting teachers', parents', and peers' standards are as follows: father's education (.021, .056*, .003), mother's education (-.019, .007, .006), father's occupation (.010, -.030*, .004), sex (.310*, -.453*, .239*), ability (.025*, .086*, -.007), number of siblings (-.026, .042*, -.009), number of books (.017, .010, .107*), sophomore (-.068, .257*, .142*), senior (-.043, .262*, -.047), father's aspirations (.055, .179*, .001), mother's aspirations (-.081, .210*, - .013), student expectations (.018, - .059*, .140*), track (.101*, -.141*, .323*). The logistic R2s for the three equations are .007, .032, and .021. There are no significant differences between the parameter estimates generated by logistic regression and ordinary least squares.

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tecedent variables explains less than 1 percent of the variance in teachers' standards for homework.

The equations predicting parents' standards reveal a quite different pattern of effects. The effects of fathers' occupation, students' sex, and ability are all significant but negative. Thus, male students, low-ability students, and students whose fathers have low-status jobs are more likely to report parents' standards for homework than are female students, high- ability students, and students whose fathers have high-status jobs. This pattern of negative effects extends to the expectations and track variables. Students with low educational expectations and those not enrolled in college preparatory tracks are more likely to report parents' standards for homework.

This pattern of negative relationships may be the result of the wording of the survey question on parents' standards. Students were asked whether or not their parents had established specific rules regarding the amount of time to be spent on homework. They were not asked if their parents maintained less explicit standards for effort and achievement. As Galbraith (1973) points out, rules are established only when a great deal of undesired behavior occurs. Boys, low-ability students, students with low educational expectations, and students not enrolled in a college preparatory track are less likely to devote sufficient effort to school tasks; therefore, their parents are more likely to establish minimum requirements for homework. Since specific rules are more likely to be imposed when compliance in general is problematic, specific rules for homework may indicate parents' need to police their children's behavior, in addition to their desire to establish academic standards.

This interpretation receives some indirect support from the fact that seniors are less likely to report parental rules for homework than juniors, and juniors are less likely to report parental rules for homework than sophomores. Parental rules may be applied less often as students progress through school and become more independent and as parental policing actions become less appropriate. Nevertheless, the positive effects of father's education and parents' aspirations on parents' rules for homework suggest that this measure taps, at least in part, the standard-setting behavior of parents. Clearly, multiple indicators of parental standards should be used in future studies to separate parental actions that define desired school-related behavior from parental reac- tions to student noncompliance with school demands.

Again, the variables in the first two sections of the model explain a minimal amount of the




variation in parents' standards. The equation containing all antecedent variables accounts for less than 4 percent of the variation in parents' standards. Students' general background characteristics, parents' aspirations, and students' expectations have little impact on specific parental standards for effort on homework. This suggests that there may be a breakdown in the translation of general goals and expectations into specific standards.

Several variables from the first two sections of the model have significant effects on the standards of peers. Female students, students with high educational expectations, students with many books in their homes, and students in the college preparatory track are more likely to report that their friends value good grades. Year in school also has some effect on peers' standards. Sophomores are more likely to report that their friends value good grades than are juniors or seniors. Even so, the variables in the model explain only a small amount of the variation in peers' standards. The equation that includes all the antecedent variables accounts for less than 3 percent of the variation.

In sum, this examination of the effects of student background characteristics on the standards set by teachers, parents, and peers reveals a number of important patterns. First, girls are more likely than boys to report standards from teachers and peers, and boys are more likely to report standards from parents. Second, students with high ability are more likely to report teachers' standards than students with low ability, but they are less likely to report parents' standards. Third, students with high educational expectations are more likely to report peers' standards but less likely to report parents' standards. Fourth, students in the college preparatory track are more likely to report standards from teachers and peers but less likely to report standards from parents. Fifth, the socioeconomic background variables-father's education, mother's education, and father's occupation-have no significant effects on teachers' and peers' standards and mixed effects on parents' standards. Sixth, sophomores are more likely to report standards from parents and peers than are juniors or seniors. Finally, the antecedent variables used in the present model explain very little of the total variation in performance standards reported by students.

The Effects of Standards on Student Effort and Achievement

The effects of standards on student effort are assessed by examining the effects of the antecedent variables in the model on the time students spend on homework and on student

achievement. Tables 2 and 3 present the standardized and unstandardized parameter estimates. Again, following the method outlined by Alwin and Hauser (1975), we estimated the total, direct, and indirect effects of the antecedent variables on homework time and on En- glish GPA (see Table 4).

A wide range of antecedent variables has a significant effect on the time students spend on homework. The variable showing the strongest effect is student's sex: Girls devote more time to homework than boys do. The direct effect is even greater than the total effect, since parents' aspirations, student's expectations, and track tend to have a negative effect on this relationship. Other background variables also have significant effects on time spent on homework. Students whose parents have more education and students from smaller families spend more time on homework. Both sophomores and seniors spend less time on homework than juniors. The finding for seniors is consistent with that of Coleman et al. (1982).

Students whose parents have high educational aspirations for them, students who have high educational expectations of themselves, and students in the college preparatory track also spend more time on homework. In each case, the total effect is composed largely of the direct effect, and a small proportion is contrib- uted by the standards variables.

Teachers', parents', and peers' standards all have positive and significant effects on the time students spend on homework, but peers' standards have the largest effect.8 As the unstandardized parameter estimates in Table 3 reveal, when teachers, parents, and peers all have high standards, students spend an additional 30 minutes per night on homework. Higher standards can have a significant and substantively important impact on this form of student effort.

A wide range of variables also has a significant effect on students' English GPAs. Among the initial background factors, mother's education, the student's sex, ability, number of siblings, and year in school have significant effects. Sex and ability have the largest effects: Girls and high-ability students have the highest English GPAs. The direct effects of sex are enhanced by performance standards and the time spent on homework but are attenuated by aspirations, expectations, and curriculum. The direct effects of ability are enhanced by aspira-

8 Cohen (1983), however, has recently pointed out that in the absence of controls for initial similarity, the estimates of the effects of peers' standards are inflated by over 100 percent. Thus, the effects of peers' standards are about the same as the effects of teachers' and parents' standards.




Table 4. Interpretations of Effects in the Model of the Determinants of Student Effort and Achievement

Indirect Effects via

Aspirations, Dependent Predetermined Total Expectations, Direct Variables Variables Effect and Track Standards Homework Effect Homework Father's education .049 .019 .004 .024

Mother's education .055 .019 .000 .036 Father's occupation .032 .015 -.001 - .018 Sex .217 -.028 .005 - .239 Ability .022 .037 -.005 -.009 Number of siblings -.075 -.022 .000 - -.053 Number of books .067 .027 .008 - .033 Sophomore - .025 .000 .007 - - .032 Senior - .020 .008 -.005 -.023 Father's aspirations .023 .003 .020 Mother's aspirations .031 .003 - .028 Student's expectations .126 .012 .115 Track .122 .008 - .113 Teachers' standards .062 .062 Parents' standards .067 .067 Peers' standards .132 .132

English GPA Father's education .042 .023 -.005 .003 .020 Mother's education .048 .023 - .001 .005 .020 Father's occupation .045 .018 .004 .002 .021 Sex .257 - .023 .018 .030 .231 Ability .255 .057 .012 -.001 .187 Number of siblings -.060 -.029 -.004 -.007 -.020 Number of books .030 .034 .003 .004 - .011 Sophomore .011 -.001 -.006 -.004 .021 Senior - .016 .010 .005 - .003 - .028 Father' s aspirations - .001 - .005 .003 .001 Mother's aspirations -.002 -.006 .004 .000 Student's expectations .141 .012 .014 .114 Track .246 .009 .014 .223 Teachers' standards .019 .007 .011 Parents' standards -.138 .008 - .147 Peers' standards .070 .017 .053 Homework .126 .126

tions, expectations, curriculum, and performance standards.

Parents' educational aspirations for their children have no effect on English GPA, but both student expectations and track placement have significant positive effects. In both cases, the direct effects are enhanced by the mediating effects of performance standards and time spent on homework.

The effects of performance standards on En- glish GPA are mixed. Teachers' and peers' standards have small positive effects, and parents' standards have larger negative effects. The direct effects of teachers' standards are insignificant when the effects of homework are controlled. The limited impact of teachers' standards should not be surprising in view of the general nature of the item tapping teachers' standards and the course-specific measure of achievement-English GPA. Paradoxically, the effect of parents' standards on English GPA is negative, but the mediating effect of homework is positive. This suggests that al-

though parental rules for homework do not necessarily result in higher achievement, they may have a positive effect when such rules actually generate more effort on homework. The direct negative effect of parental rules for homework on English GPA probably results from the wording of this indicator, which cap- tures parents' attempt to improve their children's academic performance. Consistent with the results of earlier studies noted above, the effects of homework time on GPA are small and positive.

The unstandardized parameter estimates in Table 3 show that an additional hour of homework each night results in an increase in English GPA of 0. 130. Homework is associated with higher grades, but the effects of homework alone are small. This is not surprising, since homework is only one of many indicators of student effort on schoolwork. Once again, because of the general nature of the survey items used in this analysis, this effect is probably attenuated.




High peers' standards result in an increase in English GPA of 0.101, and high teachers' standards result in an increase of only 0.023. Par- ents' standards actually appear to diminish GPA by 0.301. Among the other variables in the model, the largest effects stem from track and sex. Enrollment in the college preparatory track results in an increase of 0.446, and being female results in an increase of 0.424.9

DISCUSSION

The results of this analysis provide tentative answers to the two major questions raised at the outset, but they also raise a number of substantive and methodological issues that must be confronted in further studies of the antecedents and consequences of academic performance standards for students.

The analysis addressing our first question reveals different patterns of effects for evaluators based in the school (teachers and peers) and those based in the home (parents). On the one hand, teachers and peers set higher standards for students who appear to be more able to deal with a challenge-i.e., high-ability students, students with high expectations, and students enrolled in a college preparatory track. On the other hand, parents set higher standards for students who appear to be less able to deal with a challenge-i.e., low-ability students, students with low educational expectations, and students not enrolled in a college preparatory track.

Two interpretations of these results seem plausible. First, and most obvious, the survey item used to indicate parents' standards may measure policing behavior rather than standard-setting behavior. That is, parents may establish rules for homework in response to their children's performance problems.

Second, parents, unlike teachers and peers, are locked into long-term relationships with their children. Thus, they are more aware of the performance histories of their children and are more likely to be affected by the future consequences of their children's academic performance. Teachers and peers can choose to associate only with students who are aca- demically successful. But parents' only option is to promote the academic performance of their children.

The long-term consequences parallel the immediate consequences and reinforce their effects. Teachers and peers and society in general categorize individuals by their levels of competence and assign them to roles appropriate to those levels. Parents, however, must directly confront the competence of their children. Somewhat paradoxically, it may be the particularistic nature of the parent-child relationship, not the universalistic nature of the school-student relationship, that causes parents to set higher standards in response to their children's performance problems (Dreeben 1968). The very different dynamics set in mo- tion by these school-based and home-based evaluators may produce the different patterns observed in this study.

Of course, the only way to determine which of the above interpretations is more accurate is to construct parallel multiple indicators of the standards set by these three classes of significant others and to measure the effects of these standards on specific areas of student academic performance. These more sensitive indicators would enable us to separate standard- setting behavior from policing behavior. Also, the small proportion of the variation in

standards explained by the background and school variables we used suggests that additional antecedent variables should be examined.10 These may include several classes of variables for each of the three types of standards in our model. Teachers' standards may

9 Because students appear to be treated differently according to sex and track placement, we estimated the model separately for each of the four sex-by- track categories. We calculated the total amount of variance explained by the separate estimations with the equation R2 = 1 - (SEEi/SST). Thus, we estimated the impact of all possible interactions of sex and track with other variables in the equations (Tat- suoka 1971, chap. 3). The resulting increments to R2 for the five independent variables are as follows: teachers' standards (.004, n.s.), parents' standards (.006, p < .001), peers' standards (.003, n.s.), homework (.006,p < .001), and English GPA (.005,p < .001). The increments, though statistically significant in some cases because of the very large sample size, are substantively unimportant. As expected, we found no substantively important or statistically significant differences in the parameter estimates between the four subgroups and the full sample. In view of this pattern of results, we elected to present the parameter estimates for the full sample only.

IO Our failure to explain a substantial proportion of the variation in standards using variables typically found in studies of academic achievement and educational attainment may result from the limitations of our data set and model. The potential of longitudinal data for understanding these processes is suggested by a separate analysis involving only the seniors in our sample. For this group, for whom English GPA is seven eighths of prior performance, we treated GPA as a predictor variable for parents' standards. The standardized parameter estimate for English GPA was -.206, and the R2 for the equation was .236. Thus, measures of prior academic performance may have important effects on standards. Future studies examining the antecedents of standards should in- corporate such prior performance in their models.




be determined by the background characteristics of teachers (socioeconomic status, education, and in-service training) and by organizational and administrative arrangements in the school (e.g., supervisory practices, teaching assignments, ability levels of classes). Certainly, the recent reform strategies that emphasize the quality of the teaching corps, teacher evaluation, and teacher accountability assume that such variables are important in determining educational standards and teacher and student performance. Changes in profes- sionally acceptable practices may also have an impact on such standards as the amount of homework assigned to students. Finally, studies of teachers' expectations and classroom behavior (Williams 1976; Natriello and Dornbusch 1983, 1984) suggest that immediate student performance and behavior affect teachers' standards.

Parents' standards may also be determined by factors not included in our model. We have already noted that parents' standards may be shaped by the student's prior performance. If, as we have suggested, the long-term consequences of student performance problems are most likely to be felt by parents, then parents' anticipated relationships with their children as adults may also affect the degree to which they set standards for their children as students. Finally, since parents monitor student performance and behavior in a range of activities beyond those related to schooling, parental values, particularly the relative emphasis on schoolwork as opposed to economic, social, and recreational activities, should have an impact on parents' standards.

Peers' standards are likely to be determined to a greater extent by the social and academic characteristics of the peers (e.g., their socioeconomic background, school performance histories, current educational and occupational aspirations) than by the characteristics of the students in question. Our model, which relies on the characteristics of the students to predict the academic standards of their peers, probably misses a great deal of true peer influence, since a variety of nonacademic interests bring high school students together (Coleman 1961). The conditions under which the students and their peers participate in academic work may also be important in determining the standards set by peers. For example, when students participate in group projects, they set higher standards for each other, since each student's grade depends upon the efforts of the others in the group (Slavin 1982; Natriello 1982).

In addition to these variables, there are more pervasive factors affecting the standards set by particular individuals. The current national

educational reforms and the reforms of the Sputnik era are but two examples. Clearly, a range of factors that we are not able to address in our data may have important effects on the standards set for students.

The analysis addressing our second question shows that performance standards significantly affect student effort and achievement. Earlier studies have documented the substantial effects of antecedent variables such as student's sex and curriculum. Our analysis shows that high standards set by teachers, parents, and peers also generate greater effort on homework. It is important to emphasize that the positive effects of standards on student effort on homework persist when various social background factors, parents' aspirations, students' expectations, and curriculum are controlled. Thus, higher standards appear to generate greater student effort under a wide variety of conditions. "

The effect of high standards on achievement is less consistent. Teachers' and peers' standards have a positive effect on English GPA, but parents' standards have a larger negative effect. While the mediating effect of homework is positive in all three instances, the proportion of the effect that is mediated differs dramat- ically. Only 6 percent of the effect of parents' standards is mediated by time spent on homework, whereas 41 percent of the smaller effect of peers' standards and 37 percent of the much smaller effect of teachers' standards is mediated by time spent on homework. This pattern of effects, in conjunction with the effects of the antecedent variables on standards, suggests that the standards from these three sources are distributed in different ways with different degrees of success. School-based evaluators (teachers and peers) are more likely to set high standards for students able to deal with a challenge, and these standards are more effective in generating effort on homework and higher achievement than the standards set by home-based evaluators (parents), which are more likely to be established for students less able to deal with a challenge. Nonetheless, some very small portion of the increased standards does result in increased effort and achievement.

Exhorting students to do their homework is a

I These positive effects of higher standards may be limited to situations in which standards are ini- tially quite low. Extremely high standards may have negative effects on the performance of high school students and may lead to their alienation from school (Natriello 1984). However, since standards seem to be low in many schools, raising standards is a relatively safe strategy for promoting improved student performance.




straightforward and time-honored technique for establishing performance standards. This technique has been formally revived by recent commission reports. If other techniques for conveying standards can be shown to have similar effects, then the presentation of performance standards may be considered an important school process variable worthy of further attention by both researchers and prac- titioners. Only additional research, particularly longitudinal studies, can more fully reveal the conditions under which such techniques are effective.

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