Quantitative RESEARCH ARTICLE CRITIQUE 4 pages

  

Attached you can find the article that I want you to work on it and the rubric.Critiques should be double-spaced, with 12 point font, and 1 inch margins on all sides. Do NOT use a cover sheet. Organize your paper into paragraphs using the subsections and headings listed below. Total length of the critique should not be longer than 4 pages. SPECIFIC DIRECTIONS and SCORING CRITERIA (1) Identify the research article using the APA reference format (2 points) (2) Summarize BRIEFLY (no more than ¾ page) (10 points) Research problem Research design Sample Instruments Method of analysis Conclusion Critique: (3) Introduction and Literature Review (4 points) Use the criteria to evaluate the article. Prepare a written critique according to the criteria set. You do not need to answer each specific question. Summarize and cover the relevant points. Criteria Is the general purpose of the study clear? Is the study significant? Will it make a practical or theoretical contribution? Is the introduction well organized and clear? Is the review comprehensive? Is the review up to date? Is there an emphasis on primary sources? Is there a critical review or summary of findings? Is the review well organized? Does it contain extraneous information? Does the review clearly relate previous studies to the current research problem? Does the review help establish the importance of the research? (4) Research Problem, Question, or Hypothesis (2 points) Is the problem or hypothesis clear and concise? If there is a hypothesis, is it consistent with review of literature? Does the problem or hypothesis communicate the variables, type of research, and population? Methodology: Sampling (4 points) Is the population described adequately? Is the sample clearly described? Is the method of selecting the sample clear? Could the method of selection affect the results? Are subjects likely to be motivated to give biased responses? If the study is comparative or ex-post facto, are the groups comparable? If the study is experimental, was there random assignment to groups? Methodology: Measures (5 points) For each measure used in the study consider the following: Is evidence for validity clearly presented and adequate? Is there a clear description of the instrument and how it was used? Is there a clear description if how the instrument was administered? Is it likely that subjects would fake their responses? Are interviewers and observers trained? If appropriate, how were standards of performance established? Design (8 points) Are there any clear weaknesses in the design of the study? Are the procedures for collecting information described fully? Is it likely that the researcher is biased? Results (5 points) Are the findings presented clearly? Identify any statistical tests use to analyze the data. Identify how the statistical tests were used in the study (ex. ANOVA was used to compare grade levels on aptitude). Is there appropriate use of tables, charts, and figures? Is the number of subjects taken into consideration when presenting the results? Is there sufficient descriptive information to interpret the results? Are the results presented in relation to the research question, or does it seem more like a “fishing expedition” to find something, anything, that is “statistically significant?” Discussion (7 points) Is the discussion based on the research problem and results, or is there a tendency to discuss unrelated material or ideas? Is there an adequate interpretation of the findings? Is the interpretation separate from the results? Are the results discussed in relation to previous studies? Are limitations due to methodology included in the discussion? Are the conclusions clearly stated and based on the results and discussion? Are the conclusions reasonable? Did they go beyond the interpretation of the findings? What is the external validity of the study? What factors would affect the external validity? The last 3 points are from the overall writing quality (grammar, spelling, etc.).
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P. N’Dri Konan et al.: Cultural
Social
Diversity
Psychology
and©2010;
Academic
2010 Vol.
Hogrefe
41(4):230–237
Performance
Publishing
Original Article
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Cultural Diversity in the Classroom
and its Effects on Academic
Performance
A Cross-National Perspective
Paul N’Dri Konan, Armand Chatard, Leila Selimbegovi1, and Gabriel Mugny
University of Geneva, Switzerland
Abstract. Drawing on data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Program for International Student
Assessment (OECD/PISA), we examined the relationship between the percentage of immigrant students and the reading and mathematics
performances of native and immigrant students across nations. In line with research on cultural diversity, results indicated performance
benefits as the percentage of immigrant students increased across nations. Interestingly, these effects remained significant for both native
and immigrant students, once several other predictors of test performance at the national, school, and individual levels were controlled
for. These findings challenge the assumption that the increasing presence of immigrant students in educational institutions represents a
threat to native students’ academic performance. Potential mechanisms are proposed and discussed, offering new avenues for research.
Keywords: racial diversity, native and immigrant students, performance benefits
In Europe, the presence of immigrant students in educational institutions generates considerable debate and controversy. For example, in Germany and Switzerland, some
politicians emphasize the high proportion of immigrant students in their nation as one reason of the poor results of
native students on international comparative standardized
tests, such as PISA 2000 (Ammermüller, 2007). Along a
similar line, representative surveys indicate that 52% of
Europeans believe that the higher the percentage of immigrant students in a school, the lower the quality of education (Thalhammer, Zucha, Enzenhofer, Salfinger, & Orgis,
2001). In sum, at least in Europe, people seem to hold a
negative belief about the presence of immigrant students in
educational institutions. But is there really a relationship
between the relative proportion of immigrant students and
the performance of native and immigrant students across
nations? The present study sets out to answer this question.
Several studies have attempted to examine the effects of
cultural diversity on performance. In their review of the
literature, Moreland, Levine, and Wingert (1996) argued
that diversity is associated with both positive and negative
outcomes. On the one hand, negative impacts of diversity
concern group cohesion and conflict (see De Dreu & Weingart, 2003); on the other hand, the positive impact of diversity relates to superior group performance (Sommers,
Warp, & Mahoney, 2008). To illustrate, an experiment by
Social Psychology 2010; Vol. 41(4):230–237
DOI: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000031
Antonio et al. (2004) indicated that racial diversity has positive effects on “complex thinking.” Similarly, McLeod,
Lobel, and Cox (1996) found that racially diverse groups
performed better on an idea-generation task than did racially homogeneous groups. Recently, Sommers et al. (2008)
also found that White students who expected to discuss
something with a racially diverse group exhibited better
reading comprehension than did Whites assigned to allWhite groups.
These effects suggest that cultural diversity has positive
effects on performance. The existing evidence, however, is
largely restricted to a single cultural context (i.e., the United States). Moreover, very few studies have examined the
effects of cultural diversity on performance using standardized tests. Therefore, little is known to date about how the
relative proportion of immigrants in a nation relates to the
performance of native and immigrant students on standardized tests. For instance, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Program for International
Student Assessment (OECD/PISA, 2006) found a negative
correlation between the percentage of immigrant students
overall (first-generation and second-generation) within
each country and the performance gaps between these students and their native counterparts (correlation rate = –.56).
That is, performance gaps between immigrant and native
students tend to be smaller in countries with a relatively
© 2010 Hogrefe Publishing
P. N’Dri Konan et al.: Cultural Diversity and Academic Performance
231
Table 1. Performance scores as predicted from the percentage of immigrant students in PISA 2000, 2003, and 2006
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Correlation with relative proportion of immigrant students in each country
Performance scores
2000
2003
2006
Native students in mathematics
.38* (31)
.50** (22)
.33** (57)
Native students in reading
.39* (31)
.30 + (22)
.36** (57)
Native students (combined score of mathematics and reading)
.38* (31)
.45* (22)
.35** (57)
Immigrant students in mathematics
.45* (18)
.68** (22)
.45** (35)
Immigrant students in reading
.34 + (18)
.49* (22)
.37* (35)
Immigrant students (combined score of mathematics and reading) .39* (18)
.62** (22)
.48** (35)
Note. Entries are Spearman (rho) correlation coefficients. Sample sizes appear in parentheses. Because the sample size of countries was small
and the directions of hypothesized effects were specified on the basis of preexisting theory, we used one-tailed tests to assess the significance
of correlational results. +p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. Note that the sample size of countries differs between natives and immigrants because data for the latter group are not available for all countries participating in each PISA survey. Table 2. Native and immigrant students’ performance as predicted from the percentage of immigrant students in PISA 2003 after controlling country, school, and individual level variables Predictors Native students B GDP index Immigrant students t p< B t p< 94.84 1.08 .32 570.47 2.63 Education index 838.19 5.43 .01 372.03 .77 .48 School resources index 690.34 13.33 .0001 220.78 7.73 .001 Socioeconomic status index 135.24 6.24 .001 83.05 7.71 .001 Parents’ level of education 34.67 17.64 .0001 Attitude toward school 34.38 4.94 Age at arrival Proportion of immigrant students in each country – 3.90 higher proportion of immigrant students. However, this correlation does not tell us much about the relationship between the percentage of immigrant students and the performance of both native and immigrant students, taken independently. In addition, the relationship is reported without attempting to provide any psychological reasons why the performance gaps between immigrant and native students is smaller in countries with a higher percentage of immigrants. Drawing on previous efforts – and using cross-national data from OECD/PISA – we sought to shed more light on this important issue. There are several theoretical reasons to predict that the relative proportion of immigrant students in a nation would affect the performance of native and immigrant students. In fact, cultural diversity may affect the performance of native and immigrant students through similar or different mechanisms. For instance, experimental studies on minority influence indicate that the presence of a few group members who hold opinions that are different from those of the majority leads to increased reasoning and creativity (e.g., Butera, Mugny, Legrenzi, & Pérez, 1996; De Dreu & De Vries, 2001; Nemeth, 1992, 1995; McLeod et al., 1996; Triandis, Hall, & Ewen, 1965). In this respect, it is generally assumed in the literature that heterogeneity of individuals involves heterogeneity of ideas (Doise & Mugny, 1984; Mannix & Neale, 2005). Thus, cultural diversity © 2010 Hogrefe Publishing .01 – – 11.86 .001 .06 5.76 2.98 .05 200.34 9.31 .001 17.48 5.03 .01 1.97 2.14 .08 might improve performance of both majority and minority group members through the same mechanism, by promoting divergent thinking in all students (see Antonio et al., 2004, for a similar reasoning). However, cultural diversity might also affect the performance of native and immigrant students through processes that are entirely different. Research suggests, for instance, that immigrant students may suffer less from the negative effects of solo status (Saenz, 1994) and from threatening ingroup stereotypes (Steele & Aronson, 1995) as the relative proportion of immigrant students increases in the classroom (see Sekaquaptewa & Thompson, 2002, 2003). Indeed, minority group members may feel less visible, more competent, and more confident in culturally diverse educational environments than in more homogeneous environments. In the same way, immigrant students may cooperate with other immigrant students on school tasks in culturally diverse environments. Thus, the performance of immigrant students may increase as their relative proportion in the classroom increases. At the same time, the increase of the percentage of immigrant students may boost the performance of native students by making group-relevant factors salient in the evaluative context (Danso & Esses, 2001; Sommers et al., 2008; Walton & Cohen, 2003). For instance, Sommers et al. (2008) found that race-related thought activation mediSocial Psychology 2010; Vol. 41(4):230–237 232 P. N’Dri Konan et al.: Cultural Diversity and Academic Performance This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Figure 1. Rank of the performance of immigrant students in PISA 2006, as predicted by the percentage of immigrant students in 35 nations. Figure 2. Rank of the performance of native students in PISA 2006, as predicted by the percentage of immigrant students in 55 nations. ated the positive effect of racial diversity on Whites’ performance. Also, native students may perform better in racially diverse environments because such environments foster motivations to maintain the ingroup in a dominant position. Previous research provided support for this interpretation. For instance, Danso and Esses (2001) showed that the desire to maintain hierarchical relations among social groups (i.e., social dominance, Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994) was positively associated with the Social Psychology 2010; Vol. 41(4):230–237 performance of Whites in the presence of a Black – but not in the presence of a White experimenter (see also Chatard, Selimbegovi1, & Konan, 2008; Chatard, Selimbegovi1, Konan, & Mugny, 2008). In sum, several lines of work suggest that the performance of both native and immigrant students should increase as the relative proportion of immigrant students increases. Such a finding is of interest, inasmuch as it may extend and generalize to performance on standardized © 2010 Hogrefe Publishing This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. P. N’Dri Konan et al.: Cultural Diversity and Academic Performance scores, as assessed in nationally comparative examinations. Therefore, the present study tests whether the percentage of immigrants in a country predicts the performance of both immigrant and native students. Moreover, we also examine whether this relation remains significant once the relative weight of other known determinants of test performance of both immigrant and native students is controlled for. Indeed, previous research showed that the performance of both groups of students is associated to their family and own characteristics on the one hand, and to the characteristics of schools they attend on the other. At the family and individual levels, numerous studies have pointed out that the performance of both immigrant and native students is affected by the socioeconomic and educational backgrounds of their parents (Ammermüller, 2007; Bauer & Riphahn, 2004; Gang & Zimmerman, 2000; Marks, 2005; OECD/PISA, 2006; Schnepf, 2007). A second category of studies emphasizes the role of cultural factors such as students’ attitudes toward school and education (Kao & Thompson, 2003; Sullivan, 2001), although results seem to be mixed in this regard (Driessen, 2001). Third, yet another line of research pointed toward the age of arrival of immigrants in the host country as an important determinant of their academic achievement and school performance (Chiswick & DebBurman, 2004; Cortes, 2006; Gonzales, 2003). At the school level, it has been shown that the quality of school infrastructures and educational resources plays an important role in students’ performances (OECD-PISA, 2001, 2006, 2007). Finally, it seems that the overall economic and educational levels of countries play a significant role in students’ performances on international tests (OECD/PISA, 2001, 2006, 2007). The present study examines the relationship between the percentage of immigrant students in various countries and the performance of immigrant and native students. In line with our theoretical reasoning, we expected a positive relationship between these two variables, one that would also hold after controlling for the aforementioned factors related to performance. Method 233 with 29 OECD countries and 25 partners1. In each country, survey organizers collected a representative sample. In doing so, the PISA countries used a two-stage sampling procedure. First, 150 schools in which 15-year-old students were enrolled were randomly selected in each country. In countries in which there were not so many schools, all schools were selected. Second, 35 of the 15-year-old students were randomly selected in each school. As in the case of school selection, when there were less than 35 15-yearold students in the school, they were all selected. With this sampling procedure, more than a quarter of a million students participated in PISA 2000 and PISA 2003, and some 400,000 took part in PISA 2006. Participants completed a set of standardized pencil-andpaper tests. The items included open-ended and multiplechoice questions. In each school, the survey organizers summed up the number of points obtained by each participant as the index of his or her performance. In each country, scores of all participants in each key subject were scaled to have a single mean score for immigrant and native students, respectively. For instance, the performance of immigrant students on mathematic literacy in PISA 2006 ranged from 380 (Qatar) to 530 (Australia), whereas native students was ranged from 380 (Qatar) to 554 (Hong KongChina). After the completion of the main test, participants answered a background questionnaire, which included questions about the socioeconomic and cultural status of their families, their parents’ level of education, and their own attitudes toward education and school. In addition, each school’s principal answered a wide range of questions about the school and about his or her perception of factors potentially impeding instruction at school. Percentage of Immigrants We collected the percentage of first-generation immigrant students within each country included in the PISA database (OECD, 2001, 2006, 2007). First-generation immigrant students were foreign-born as well as both of their parents. Native students had at least one parent born in the country of assessment. Sampling Techniques and Measures Dependent Variables For this study, we used 3-wave data (2001, 2006, and 2007) from the OECD/PISA survey. PISA is a well-known internationally representative program that examines the achievement of 15-year-old students in mathematics, reading, and science in various countries. A total of 32 countries participated in PISA 2000 – 28 OECD countries and 4 partners. PISA 2003 was conducted in 40 countries, which included 29 OECD countries and 11 partners. Finally, 57 countries participated in PISA 2006, Two educational outcomes were examined in this study: reading and mathematics performance. To do this, we collected the mathematics and reading performance of the native and first-generation immigrant students in each country (OECD, 2001, 2006, 2007). 1 The detailed lists of countries for each PISA survey are available from the first author. © 2010 Hogrefe Publishing Social Psychology 2010; Vol. 41(4):230–237 234 P. N’Dri Konan et al.: Cultural Diversity and Academic Performance Controlled Variables This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Country Level Predictors At the country level, we controlled for the gross domestic product (GDP) index and the educational index. GDP is an indicator of a country’s wealth. It is calculated using adjusted GDP per capita (PPP US$). The educational index measures a country’s relative achievement in adult literacy and combined gross enrolment in primary, secondary, and tertiary schools. We collected both measures from the Human Development Report (United Nations Development Program, 2000, 2003, 2006). School Level Predictors At the school level, we controlled for the school resources index, based on school principals’ perceptions of factors potentially impeding instruction at school. School resources were measured by seven items (instructional material, computer for instructions, computer software for instruction, calculators for instructions, library material, audiovisual resources, and science laboratory equipment and materials). School principals indicated their responses using a 4-point scale with the categories not at all, very little, to some extent and a lot. Individual Level Predictors We controlled for predictors of performance at the individual level, described below. All individual predictors are based on students’ self-reports. The index of socioeconomic and cultural background (SES index) was created to capture relatively wide aspects of students’ family and home background, in addition to their parental occupation. Students were asked to report the occupations of their fathers and mothers as well as the educational level attained by each of them. They were also asked to indicate whether they had a desk at home to study, a room of their own, a computer, an Internet connection, their own calculator, books to help with their homework, and a dictionary. Parents’ level of education is indicated by the number of years of schooling. The level of education of the most educated parent is taken as an index of students’ parental educational level in PISA surveys. The attitudes toward school index is derived from students’ self-reported agreement with four statements (“School has done little to prepare me for adult life when I leave school,” “School has been a waste of time,” “School gave me confidence to take decisions,” and “School has taught me things which could be useful in a job.” Participants answered on a 4-point Likert-type scale, where 1 = strongly agree and 4 = strongly disagree. Accordingly, positive values on this index indicate a positive attitude toward school. The age of arrival was taken in consideration only for i ... Purchase answer to see full attachment