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Name of our study:

Austrian lower-secondary students' English reading proficiency in relation to their socio-economic background

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1.) General and special research questions

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1.) General and special research questions

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General research question:
To what extent is there a difference in English L2 reading
skills depending on lower-secondary students' socio-economic background regarding family income and parents' education?

Special research questions:
To what extent is there a difference regarding lower-secondary (6th grade) students' English L2 reading skills depending on their families' income compared with "Brutto-Einkommen in Österreich 2020" (Arbeiterkammer Oberösterreich, 2022, online)?

To what extent is there a difference regarding lower-secondary (6th grade) students' English L2 reading skills depending on their parents' education?

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Population: Austrian lower-secondary students in 6th grade

Sample: four classes in Styria (two AHS and two MS)

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1.) Creation of the survey (for parents) and the English    reading proficiency test (for students)

2.) Contacting schools and giving a first explanation of the research purpose

3.) Sending consent sheets to all participants, i.e. students and parents

4. ) Conducting English reading proficiency reading tests with students during English lessons in school

5.) Parents receive survey via MS Teams, email, etc.;
survey will take approx. 10 minutes;
crucial that survey takes place after students have received their test results;
parents do not know the points achieved but only the category (see point 6)

6) Reading proficiency test results are categorized according to the points the students achieve
e.g. A (100 - 70 p.) / B (70 - 40 p. ) / C (<40 p.)

7) Research team evaluates findings of reading proficiency tests and survey results

8) Correlations to parents' answers and students' reading proficiency tests are drawn

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English reading proficiency test: WORD
(test sheets printed out for students to complete)

Survey: Google Forms

Evaluation of findings: Excel

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⬆️⬆️⬆️ CONSENT FORM adapted by Hanna and Lena ⬆️⬆️⬆️

Two things that have to be mentioned:

1.) All students of a class are consulted.
WHY? - No one should feel excluded. The research team eventually selects for the study relevant families.

2.) Partly anonymous
WHY? - Codes will be used (eg. eye colour, birth month, hair colour -> green04brown, blue07blond).

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- Only two different types of households are investigated: two parent-households and single parent-households

- Income is measured and compared with only one of the following sources:
https://ooe.arbeiterkammer.at/interessenvertretung/verteilungsgerechtigkeit/einkommen/Einkommen_in_Oesterreich.html

https://www.statistik.at/statistiken/bevoelkerung-und-soziales/einkommen-und-soziale-lage/jaehrliche-personeneinkommen

- We still need to do more research on how to efficiently test the students' reading proficiency.
Possible sources: https://journals.sagepub.com/share/TIQ2NPCX6GFB6IWZX62S?target=10.1177/1053451221994806

https://keithmcpherson1blog.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/what-are-content-area-reading-inventory-cari-and-cloze-procedure/

https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/11724_Sejnost_Chapter_1.pdf

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/cloze-test-reading-comprehension/

https://keystoliteracy.com/blog/reading-assessment-basics/

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The Impact of Gender, Socioeconomic Status and Home Language on Primary School Children’s Reading Comprehension in KwaZulu-Natal (Völkel, G. et al. 2015)
-> effects of gender, socioeconomic status and home language on primary school children's reading comprehension in KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa)
-> method: biographical questionnaire to obtain relevant data and Suffolk Reading Scale Level 2 (SRS2) to test reading comprehension, Toulouse Pieron test to test attention, and multiple tests to asses IQ
-> findings: learners from a low SES performed better than those from a high SES (only during first year of testing), those students were usually more used to a high noise level and therefore better at adapting and concentrating

A longitudinal investigation of parental social-economic status (SES) and young students’ learning of English as a foreign language (Butler, Y. et al. 2017)
-> role of parental SES in Chinese middle school students' English learning over time
-> students were observed for three years from 7th to 9th grade (age 12-15)
-> method: students took the ESOL test yearly and filled out surveys regarding their English learning and motivation, parents filled out a survey regarding family background, resources, parenting styles and beliefs
-> findings: SES, parenting styles, parental beliefs and expectations were positively associated with students' English performance (more means to support children financially and with own knowledge)

Making Sense of Reading Comprehension Assessments: Guidance for Evaluating Student Performance (Collins, A. et al. 2021)
Goal: Explain why students score differently depending on assessment characteristics
Step 1: establish students' foundational skills: identifying strengths and weaknesses
Step 2: how to examine a text to make it assessable: text genre, length and level
Step 3: commonly used assessment methods in reading comprehension: response format, reading format and time limit
Step 4: correlation between students' foundational skills and assessment characteristics

Parents' income and wealth matter more for children with low than high academic performance: Evidence from comparisons between and within families in egalitarian Norway (Wiborg, Ø. et al. 2022)
-> research assumes that there parents' economic resources do not affect children's school performances;
to prove this,  Wilborg et al. (2022) examine a sample of egalitarian Norwegian families as smaller differences are expected
-> samples include 1070,493 individuals from 593,439 Norwegian families (=> governmental registers); children were born between 1985 and 2002; focus on their grades at the age of 16
-> methods: quantile regression models;
comparison between families and within families, i.e. siblings who have the same mother;
figured out using a complex equation
-> findings: between and within families, parental income and wealth affect students' grades;
income matters more than wealth:
supports the assumption that parental income and wealth compensate for low performances

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Here you can find a video that we had watched before we decided on our topic. It serves as initial information and tells more about the correlation between children's socio-economic background and their school achievements.

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ISSID 2011: ...socio-economic background and children's school achievement (Spinath, B.)

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Hanna Gottlieb-Zimmermann
hanna.gottlieb-zimmermann@edu.uni-graz.at

Lena Nussbaumer
lena.nussbaumer@edu.uni-graz.at