Social Capital and Student Achievement: An Intervention-Based Test of Theory

Social capital is widely cited as benefiting children’s school performance, but close inspection of existing research yields inconsistent findings. Focusing on intergenerational closure among parents of children in the same school, this article draws from a field experiment to test the effects of social capital on children’s achievement in reading and mathematics. When children were in first grade, their schools were randomly assigned to an after-school family-based intervention that boosts social capital. A total of 52 schools in Phoenix, Arizona, and San Antonio, Texas, containing over 3,000 first graders, participated in the study, with half the schools in each city assigned to the treatment group and half serving as no-treatment controls. Two years later, no differences in third-grade achievement were evident between children who had been in treatment schools versus control schools. By contrast, nonexperimental analyses of survey-based measures of social capital suggest positive effects on achievement, indicating that naïve estimates based on survey measures may be upwardly biased by unobserved conditions that lead to both stronger ties among parents and higher test scores. This article adds to a growing literature that raises doubts about the effects of this type of social capital for achievement outcomes among young children.

An Analysis of the Views of Parents with Preschool Children in Relation to Science and Preschool Science Activities

Although much is known about children and teachers' attitudes towards science and science activities, considerably less is known about what parents believe about them. Parents' attitudes towards science and science activities are as important as teachers' role in influencing children’s achievement in science. In this study, parents’ views towards science and preschool science activities were investigated as to different variables. In this regard, descriptive research method was used in the study, which was conducted with 442 mothers (383) and fathers (59) with children aged between 3 and 6 years and attending preschool. ‘The Parents' Views about Science and Preschool Science Activities Scale (PaVSPeSAS)’ developed by Sahin, Uludağ, Gedikli, and Karakaya (2018) demographic information form developed by the researcher was used as the data collection tools in the study. Since the data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic process, they were obtained by sharing with parents the scale link prepared on the online platform. The results showed that parents’ gender, age, educational background, the amount of time spent with children for kitchen activities have impacts on parents’ different views regarding science content.

Time to Achieve: Implementing Blended Learning Routines in an Indian Elementary Classroom

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of blended learning on students’ academic achievement, to study teachers’ perception of working in the unconventional blended atmosphere, and finally to infer on its potential in underprivileged elementary classrooms. Since this study was conducted in an unconventional set up with researchers acted as agents of change, design-based research methods were used with 50 children from a fifth standard class in an Indian elementary school. These methods included gathering and analyzing data in two cycles—preblended implantation stage and postblended stage. A mixed-method approach was followed for data collection. Quantitative data were collected through an achievement test and qualitative data were gathered from interviews with the teachers. Findings revealed that there were significant differences in achievement level between the two cycles, in favor of the postblended implantation stage, and this difference was found gender-neutral. Interviews with three teachers were also conducted to collect information about their experiences of introducing and implementing blended learning in their classrooms. The study concludes that blended learning ambiance increases students’ academic achievement levels in elementary classrooms when teachers were supported with necessary policies and proficiencies. Overall, the time spent in blended learning had a positive effect on children’s achievement irrespective of gender and these effects emerged during 10 weeks even in a school with poor technological infrastructure and underprepared yet willing teachers.