Are Homeschooled Children Smarter? (Video)

[robbyjo]

I just drop the video here for your enjoyment:

Edit: If you're interested to just the results, skip to 14:05

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/AGp4KFLuQNc&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/AGp4KFLuQNc&rel=1</a>

[PokerDad]

Thanks for posting. Looks like the results lined up precisely how I thought. Since you didn't divulge, I won't spoil it. I was a bit disappointed in the sample size though; she probably needed more money to recruit participants

[robbyjo]

Though the sample size mentioned in the interview is small (n=12), her follow up study has a much bigger sample (n=74) and the conclusion stays the same.

[PokerDad]

Do you have a link to the follow-up study? FWIW, the n=12 wasn't the only sample size I didn't like - I didn't like the n=25 either, but 74 seems like it's starting to be significant. The more the better!

[Korrale4kq]

Could anyone provide the name or the search parameters for the video? I really want to watch it. For some reason every time I try to open it here on my iPad the browser app closes. I would like to search for it on YouTube.

Thank you.

[Frukc]

according to video, 12 is not the number of participants; 12 is the number of non-structured learners. Author says that these were harder to find. So I guess that structured learners were much more.

Korrale4kq,
youtube search: Are home-schooled children smarter? Concordia University
the first video

[Korrale4kq]

Thanks frukc. I found it.

[nee1]

Thank you so much, robbyjo, for the video. I've been pondering its conclusions over the past few days.

Pokerdad, I found the link to a free pdf copy of  the entire research article on Google Scholar. The sample size was 74 children: 37 public school children, and 37 homeschooled children. Of the 37 homeschooled children, 25 were structured homeschoolers and 12 were unstructured homeschoolers (or unschoolers).Here is the link to the research article-
www.home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Martin-Chang-Gould-et-Meuse-2011.pdf.  A most interesting read.

My ponderings were as follows:   Do unschoolers know about this study? Would people still unschool if they knew the results of this study? And do unschooled children really catch up later, given that they are far behind the norms in the elementary grades? David Colfax in ``Homeschooling for Excellence'' said something about catching up, but I'm not yet convinced that it would work for all children. Maybe I'm wrong. I wish Sandra Martin-Chang would do another study comparing structured homeschoolers, schooled children, and unschooled children in high school.

In the article, she said:

`Our data suggest that this group [the unschooling group] is being outperformed on academic tests both by the traditionally schooledand the structured homeschooled groups. This pattern of results fits nicely with Ray’s (2010) report, where three variables of interest were positively associated with student achievement on academic tests: greater structure in the program, more funds spent on educational materials (e.g., textbooks, tutoring), and more time spent in “structured learning time” (defined as “time during which the child is engaged in learning activities planned by the parent; it is a time during which the child is not free to do whatever he or she chooses,” Ray, 2010, p. 19).''

This excerpt made me smile:

``These parents [unschoolers] identified more with the pedagogical view that education is gained via the natural consequences of the child’s day-to-day activities (Taylor- Hough, 2010). For example, “. . . having classical CDs playing in the background gets listed as ‘fine arts,’ watching an episode of Little House on the Prairie counts as history, and figuring out how much they can buy with $2.00 at the gift shop qualifies as the day’s math lesson” (Kunzman, 2009, p. 320).''

I agree with the emphasis on real-life learning, but...will the children not take advantage of the freedom and opt for video games and TV rather than studying? I still remember this  ABC news video -  http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/video/extreme-parenting-radical-unschooling-10413158.

Thanks again, robbyjo.  Lots of food for thought.

Thoughts, anyone?

[robbyjo]

I almost forgot I made this post. Yes, that's the paper of the follow up study. Thanks and you're welcome, nee1. Sorry I didn't do it fast enough.

If you all like this kind of article / video, I can share a lot more later.

[Korrale4kq]

My concern is the sample. Would homeschoolers participate if their children were struggling? I would love go see a large scale study take place. But the logistics are tricky.

I ultimately do believe that homeschooling has the best education benefit that public school could never replicate. Homeschooling has the ability to give a student one on one direct, catered education. Not just a short tutoring session either. But a full on education.

I envision schools of the future being different, more technology driven. Children can learn an amazing amount being "self taught" via apps, videos, reading. But the teachers role changes. They become less of an instructor and more of a mentor. They can help the students who are struggling. Sit one on one with them, or in small groups. Or they can pair students together to help others. 

I was In an experimental class when I was in 5th grade. It was a 5/6/7 composite class with about 6 students from each grade. I was paired with a 7th grade student who was to instruct me in math and writing. I remember many hours sitting on the floor comfortably doing school work. I have no recollection of my teacher actively teaching us in the class as a whole.  We taught each other most of the time. For geography we were split into groups of 1 student from each grade. We all studied several countries. And then each group had to teach the class. We did presentations and wrote quizzes and worksheets.  I remember more about the countries that we studied that year in school that any other geography lesson throughout my years of schooling.
By the end of 5th grade I was working on 7th grade work. All the kids in the class actually covered 2 years of schooling. Sadly the program was nixed and we all went back to our respective grades the follow year. And we basically did a repeat year. I was not impressed. That was the year my opinion of school diminished.

[robbyjo]

I think the future of school will be something like this:

https://www.khanacademy.org/coach-res/reference-for-coaches/lasd/v/los-altos

[Korrale4kq]

Yes I meant to mention that it was like what Khan proposes.

[nee1]

If you all like this kind of article / video, I can share a lot more later.

Yes, please. Share a lot more. I've learnt a lot from this one and I've made alterations to  the way I do school.  Thanks again.

And please, if possible, kindly give links to the entire articles (not just the abstracts). And their corresponding videos, if possible.
In cases where the entire articles are not available online, I'll still be happy to read the abstracts. Thanks again.

[nee1]

In Sandra Martin-Chang's article above, she cited a piece of research done by Barwagen et. al (2004). She said the following about that research:

Barwegen et al. (2004) have recently narrowed the focus to ask why the scores of homeschooled children might differ from those in public school. Following the recent trend of examining the positive impact parental involvement plays on children’s educational success (Feuerstein, 2001; Heymann & Earle, 2000; Hill & Craft, 2003; Hill & Taylor, 2004; Lee & Bowen, 2006), Barwegen et al. (2004) proposed that the elevated test scores of homeschooled children in previous research may have reflected greater parental involvement rather than general educational superiority. To examine this possibility, they circulated questionnaires measuring perceived parental involvement to 127 public high school seniors.

Results showed that students with high perceived parental involvement (e.g., having high expectations, input into course selection, etc.) had significantly higher standardized scores than students with low perceived parental involvement. In addition, the scores of traditionally schooled teenagers with highly involved parents did not differ significantly from those reported from homeschooled students.

The conclusions drawn by Barwegen et al. (2004) are intriguing.  However, these authors were unable to compare the amount of perceived parental support between the homeschooled and public school groups because they did not administer any questionnaires to children who were homeschooled. Therefore, it is not possible to make direct comparisons between the two groups of students.

Furthermore, they did not administer the tests of academic achievement themselves. Like Rudner (1999) and Ray (2010), Barwegen and colleagues used data obtained from private companies. Thus, the self-selective nature of the homeschooled sample and the uniformity of the testing situations remain problematic in the Barwegen et al. work.

I had to search out that Barwegen et al. paper. I found a pdf of the entire article here - http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ794828.pdf

I've been mulling over its contents all day long. I also especially found interesting the table on page 17 of the Bawegan paper that showed which survey items had a statistically significant impact on student achievement, and which items that did not have an impact. Survey items like: ``My parents believed school was important for my future'' or ``My parents attended school functions'' did not indicate statistical significance to school achievement compared to survey items like ``My parents expected me to maintain a 3.0 GPA''.

On page 10, it says :

The survey items where parent involvement was not found to have an impact upon academic achievement were: helping with school work, listening to students about school work, encouraging students regarding school work, attending teacher conferences, attending school functions, reviewing student report cards, teachers contacting parents about school, teachers sending information home, teachers notifying parents about school occurrences, and teachers effectively communicating with parents. All survey items showed either higher academic achievement by students perceiving higher levels of parent
involvement or no difference at all.

   

Thoughts on the Barwegan et al. article?

[robbyjo]

Oh wow. What to say about Barwegen, et al. (B&al, for short) article? I agree with Sandra Martin-Chang, et al. that B&al's article is an invalid comparison between homeschooled vs. regular-schooled children due to many problems plaguing the evidently landmark paper.

First major problem: B&al did not send any questionnaires to the homeschooled students and the data that they used to compare homeschooled vs. regular-schooled children are data supposedly reported on ACT Enrollment Information Service (ACT EIS) for 2002, which were obtained thorough personal communication with C. Parmaly (page 49). Data obtained through personal communication is a huge red flag in science. Moreover, B&al. did not even bother to describe the demographics of ACT EIS data, which is very crucial to see if that data is comparable to the population they sent their questionnaires to. On top of that, the questionnaire reported in ACT EIS---a crucial element they themselves elaborated in the Review section: Do the questions really matter? What is/are the questions? Are they comparable to the questionnaires they are studying? There is also a major statistical problem in that part of the methodology (one-sample t-test; Really? Why? Shouldn't it be at least a paired t-test stratified with income, race, and other confounding factors?).

Second major problem: B&al. did not even bother to validate the questionnaire. They should at least show their Cronbach's alpha figure to show some internal consistency. Firstly, I really was dumbfounded to see how different the parents' and the students' responses are in Table 3. Secondly, because there are huge disparities in the number of samples between students (n=127) vs. parents (n=23). Thirdly, how else did the authors ascertain that the answers are really valid? The complete questionnaire is not even available as an appendix.

So, given all these problems, the section "Comparisons of Public School Students and Homeschool Students" (pages 49-50 and 52-53) should be struck down as invalid. Since their (B&al's) conclusion #3 (pages 54-55) depends on this section, it's also invalid. All this paper does is confirming that high parental participation is associated with better academic performance, with some finer elements detailing the kinds of participation that matters.

Regarding some of the good points raised up in the paper (the kinds of participation that matters): We should take them with some grain of salt. From experience, I know that self-rating is notoriously unreliable. Though there is some utility (see their "Study Limitations" in page 45), I wouldn't completely trust it, even more so since B&al. didn't even bother to validate their questionnaires.

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