Probing a model of educational productivity in high school science with national assessment samples.

Tested a psychological theory of educational productivity and explored the usefulness of the National Assessment of Educational Progress data for secondary analysis for policy purposes. The science achievement scores of 3,049 17-yr-old students were regressed on indexes of their socioeconomic status, motivation, quality (of instruction), class (social psychological environment), homework, and home conditions. Findings indicate that all measures of these productivity factors are significant in ordinary multiple regression equations when controlled for one another and race and gender, and the equation coefficients conform closely in sign and magnitude to theoretical values derived from C. W. Cobb and P. H. Douglas's (1928) theory of national economic productivity. Under a stringent causal probe, however, class and didactic quality of instruction appear to be the only unequivocal and potentially manipulable causes of science learning in the data. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)