Journal of Elementary Education, Vol 30, No 2 (2020)

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Uncovered Truths of Pupils’ Academic Achievement in Rural Cambodian Primary Schools

Sopha Soeung

Abstract


With attempts to understand the effect of school level and family level on academic achievement as well as to discover factors affecting pupils’ academic achievement, this study employed a 2-level Hierarchy Linear Model (HLM) for its analysis using the data from 1,131 Cambodian fourth graders and their families from 30 rural primary schools. Mathematics test scores was used as an outcome variable. Interview-guided questionnaire was used to collect data from these group of pupils due to limited knowledge to read and understand some concepts of questions. This study revealed that the effect of school was larger than that of the family like previous findings in other developing countries. Firs ever, using home-school book were claimed to have positive relation with the academic achievement. Child labor was found to be one of the determinants decreased the pupils’ test scores. However, if children helped parents with in-home housework showed modestly positive association with improving test scores with a threshold of three hours. However, socioeconomic status had no statistically significant contribution towards predicting the academic achievement in this study. Absenteeism of teachers and school principals had negative association with the test scores. This current study, additionally, recalled for more attention from any educational stakeholders to the rural schools in order to ensure the realization of national curriculum goals and national goals by 2030. 

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