Family Socioeconomic and Educational-Emotional Characteristics as Predictors of School Achievement

Home, socioeconomic, and process characteristics obtained from a single interview with mothers of high, average, and low achieving third grade children accounted for a large percentage of the variance of scores for both reading comprehension and arithmetic computation, ranging from 22 percent for arithmetic in the high achieving sample to 68 percent for arithmetic in the low achieving sample. The home, educational, and emotional process characteristics accounted for a significant proportion of the variance of scores independent of socioeconomic variables, ranging from 28 percent for reading in the high achieving sample to 54 percent for arithmetic in the low achieving sample.