Peer-mentoring of students in rural and low ses schools

5Methods

In order to investigate the postulated relationships, exploratory analyses using cross-tabulations were undertaken, followed by regression modelling. Sample weights are used to account for sampling design and survey attrition (Lim 2011).

6Results

We are interested mainly in differences in participation in tertiary study by location and socioeconomic status. We report on other relationships where they impinge upon the progression of rural and low-SES students to tertiary study.

In addition to the main interests of the study, the current data confirm findings from previous research: that many other factors influence transitions from school to post-school destinations. For example, attitudes towards school and achievement at school influence Year 12 completion, and Year 12 completion influences post-school destinations (Curtis & McMillan 2008).

Our main findings are:

There is a difference in the highest level of tertiary education participation between metropolitan and rural students in tertiary education, specifically:

44.0% of metropolitan youth had completed or were studying at degree level compared with 34.2% of rural young people.

35.3% of metropolitan youth had completed or were undertaking a VET program compared with 43.1% of rural young people.

79.3% of metropolitan youth had completed or were undertaking some tertiary study (either VET or higher education) compared with 77.3% of rural young people.

There is a difference in the highest level of tertiary education participation by socioeconomic status, specifically:

Low-SES students make up 15.2% of university enrolments, while high-SES students constitute 40.1% of those enrolments.

Demographic characteristics

Rural and metropolitan students differ on several demographic variables that are also associated with differences in achievement and attainment.

The socioeconomic status of rural students is slightly lower than that of metropolitan students, with there being 22% low-SES students in metropolitan locations compared with 33% in rural ones, and 27% high-SES students in metropolitan locations compared with 17% in rural areas.

There are fewer individuals from non-English speaking backgrounds in rural locations (1.5%) than in metropolitan areas (12.0%).

Rural locations have fewer young people from immigrant backgrounds (6.6%) than do metropolitan areas (30.7%).

Past research (for example, Curtis 2008) has shown that young people of immigrant backgrounds are more likely than those of Australian heritage to pursue higher education, while low-SES students are less likely to pursue that level of study. We need to know whether rural students’ low participation in higher education is attributable to location or to other characteristics, such as socioeconomic status and cultural heritage, correlated with location, and we investigate this matter through regression modelling, outlined briefly below.

Demographic characteristics, attitude, intention, aspiration and achievement

Low-SES students have significantly less favourable attitudes towards school than do their high-SES peers (r = 0.206, p<0.001). Students who were born overseas have slightly more favourable attitudes towards school than do other students, but this effect is small. On other variables, such as sex and location, there were no significant differences in attitude towards school.

Students’ intentions and aspirations for completing school, for post-school education and for careers do vary by location and socioeconomic status.

Fewer rural than metropolitan students indicate that they plan to complete Year 12 at school, although this difference in intention is small (88.8% of rural compared with 92.0% of metropolitan students).

More rural than metropolitan students nominate Year 12 as the end of their education (30.3% cf. 20.2%). Correspondingly, fewer rural than metropolitan students indicate an intention to pursue a university degree (55.4% cf. 67.2%).

Occupational aspirations follow post-school educational intentions closely. Fewer rural than metropolitan students expect to have a white-collar high-skill job by age 30 (55.3% cf. 64.4%).

A strong relationship exists between socioeconomic status and intention to complete Year 12, with the following percentages of students in successive SES quartiles (from low to high) indicating an intention to complete Year 12: 86.2%, 91.8%, 90.9% and 97.8%.

A similar but stronger relationship exists between socioeconomic status and intention for post-school study. The following proportions of students in successive SES quartiles intend to undertake degree-level study: 44.3%, 58.0%, 67.0% and 83.9%.

Expectations for occupations are closely allied with tertiary study intentions, with the following proportions of students, by SES quartile, expecting to have a white-collar high-skill (professional) job by age 30: 47.6%, 61.5%, 64.2%, 74.7%.

According to the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen 1999), intentions are powerful predictors of actions, so we now consider the influences of demographic and attitudinal variables on attainment and tertiary participation.

Influences on school attainment

In order to investigate the complex set of relationships between demographic characteristics, school attitude and achievement variables and school attainment, we develop a series of regression models.

First, we examine influences on school attainment as an intermediate stage in developing a model of tertiary participation. We focus on whether students complete Year 12 and whether they report an ATAR as outcome variables. We believe that achieving an ATAR is a more informative measure of school success than others because of the assessment and associated processes used to calculate it. As this is a dichotomous variable, we undertake logistic regression modelling. We specify the model in stages, first including only demographic characteristics, then adding attitude, achievement and finally intention variables. We present summary results here only.

Year 12 completion is weakly related to location, with rural students slightly less likely than metropolitan ones to complete Year 12. The factors that are strongly related to Year 12 completion are intention to complete it (see, for example, Khoo & Ainley 2005) and socioeconomic status, with low-SES much less likely than high-SES students to express this intention.

Quite surprisingly, location does not exert a net influence on gaining an ATAR (p = 0.228). It is apparent that other demographic variables that are correlates of location, such as socioeconomic status and home background, do predict this outcome. The variables that do account for having an ATAR and which are correlated with location are socioeconomic status, immigrant background and language other than English background. Socioeconomic status is a particularly strong predictor of gaining an ATAR: a student who is just in the highest SES quartile is more than twice as likely to report an ATAR as a student of average socioeconomic status. Immigrant-background students, despite having slightly lower achievement results at age 15 years, are significantly more likely than students from an Australian background to report achieving an ATAR.

Other variables, which are not related to location, such as sex, family structure and the number of siblings, also explain some of the variation in gaining an ATAR.

In predicting school completion, when attitude towards school and intention to complete Year 12 are added as predictors, the predictive power of the model improves. Location remains non-significant, but socioeconomic status remains a very strong predictor. When academic achievement at age 15 years is added to the model, it becomes the strongest predictor, but others such as intention and socioeconomic status, remain strong predictors.

Influences on tertiary participation

We note above that tertiary participation is lower for rural than metropolitan youth and lower for low-SES compared with young people with a higher socioeconomic status.

We now turn to an examination of influences on participation in post-school education. We do this by using two outcome variables; namely, enrolment in university study or participation in any form of VET.

Despite the headline difference in higher education participation between metropolitan and rural young people (44.0% cf. 34.2%), when other factors are included in models of university study, location is not a significant predictor.

Factors that do predict university study are achievement at age 15 years, sex, socioeconomic status, intention to pursue a degree and attitude towards school. Females, high-SES individuals, students with an intention to undertake university study and immigrant-background young people are more likely to undertake university study.

It is worth noting that rural students tend to have lower socioeconomic status than metropolitan youth and that there are fewer young people of immigrant background in rural locations. Thus, while there is no doubt that rural students do face cost barriers to university study, it would appear that the lower level of participation of rural students in this level of study can be attributed to the associated factors of socioeconomic status, cultural heritage and intention. It is distinctly possible that the lower intention for university study of rural students reflects the barriers they perceive to participation. (This speculation is borne out in the mentoring study reported below).

Quite a different set of predictors is found for participation in vocational education and training (VET) programs.

Although there is a difference in VET participation (35.3% metropolitan cf. 43.1% rural young people), we find no effect for location when other variables such as socioeconomic status, gender and country of birth are included in the model; metropolitan and rural students are equally likely, net of other influences, to pursue VET study.

Low-SES young people are slightly more likely than high-SES youth to pursue VET, but this effect is much weaker than that favouring high-SES young people in higher education.

In contrast to the situation for higher education, males are more likely than females and Australian background youth more likely than those of immigrant backgrounds to undertake post-school VET study.