Self-assessment in the early educational attainment process

Self-assessment in the early educational attainment process*

N E I L J . MACKINNON

PAUL ANISEF 1 York UniversiQ

University of Guelph

Ce travail reexamine la nature psycho-sociologique du modele d’acquisition de situation dans le Wisconsin dont une analyse recente de Wilson et Portes tend a prouver qu’elle est en grande partie erronnee. Elle met particulierement en question l’hypothese formulee, et non prouvee, de Sewell et Compagnie que I’auro-evaluarion intervient dans les effets des rksulrars scoluires concernant les aspirations a une situation et les variables de I’acquisition. Base sur un large echantillonnage d’eleves de 12e annee de I’Ontario tire d’une recente etude en profondeur, nos resultats vont a I’encontre de ceux de Wilson et Portes, reaffirmant dans leur ensemble la nature psycho-sociologique du processus d’aqcuisition de situation et en particulier le r6le critique joue par des processus reflexifs tels que I’auto-evaluation dans ce cadre.

This paper reexamines the social-psychological nature of the Wisconsin status attainment model which a recent analysis by Wilson and Portes purports to have largely disconfirmed. In particular, it puts to test the hypothesis formulated, but not tested, by Sewell and associates that self assessment mediates the effects of ucodemic performance on status aspirations and attainment variables. Based on a large sample of Ontario grade 12 students drawn from a recent longitudinal study, our results contradict those of Wilson and Portes, reaffirming in general the social- psychological nature of the status attainment process and in particular the critical role played by such reflexive processes as self-assessment in it.

A recent analysis by Wilson and Portes (1975) calls into question the general applicability of the now classical Wisconsin status-attainment model and the interactionist interpretation which underlies it (Sewell et al., 1969; 1970). Very briefly, Sewell and associates (196939- 90) had interpreted their findings as substan- tiating the mediating role such social psychological constructs as significant others’ influence and status aspirations play in translating an- terior factors like mental ability and socioeconomic status into subsequent educational and occupational attainments. In con-

trast, in their analysis of an American nationally representative sample of adolescent boys (Bachman, 1970; Bachman et al., 1967; 1971), Wilson and Portes found that such variables as educational aspiration and significant others’ influence failed to mediate sizable portions of the effects of performance and social structural variables on educational attainment. They interpreted these findings as suggesting “a lesser role for the subjective or social psychological intervening processes linked with social influence and the formation of status aspirations” and pointing to “the greater importance

Research sponsored by the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, Province of Ontario. Opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position, policy, or endorsement of the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. The authors are indebted to Sid Gilbert, Bruce Eckland, and Gene F. Summers for their valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and to Johanna Faber-Vanderspeck for her assistance in the early analysis of the data. The authors, of course, assume full responsibility for any errors or omissions that may yet remain.

306 / Neil J. MacKinnon and Paul Anisef

of mediate and more objective factors: socioeconomic background, recorded ability, and school performance” (1975:354).

Of singular importance in the Wilson and Portes study was the finding that, of all variables in the model, academic performance had the largest direct effect on educational attainment. Sewell et al. had originally hypothesized that academic performance affected subsequent variables in the model only indirectly, through its effect on significant others’ influence, the theoretical rationale being that “the significant others with whom the youth interacts base their expectations for his educational and occupational attainments in part on his demonstrated abilities.” However, their later, refined analysis (1970: 1025) dealt more explicitly with the fact “that academic performance has direct effects on aspirational and attainment variables that are not mediated by significant others’ influence.” While Sewell et al. (1970: 1024) conceded, in light of this finding, that “significant others’ influence is perhaps slightly less important than was previously reported,” they did not interpret the unexpected explanatory power of academic performance as vitiating the general social psychological nature of their model. Instead they suggested that “the data might imply the existence of a mediating factor, such as one’s self-conception qf his abiliry , a factor which could influence both educational aspiration and attainment” (196999; cf. 1970: 1016).’ Unfortunately, Sewell et al. did not have available a measure of self-concept of ability with which to put the existence of this reflexive process t o empirical test.

Wilson and Portes tested the hypothesized effect ofthis “missingconstruct,” as it were, by incorporating a measure of self-assessment into their causal analysis. Their decomposition of correlations of self-assessment with each of the aspiration variables and with educational attainment, however, showed that all correlations were for the most part spurious consequences of their common association with mental ability and academic achievement. This led them to conclude that “self-assessment appears to be only a by-product of the ability variables, in- teresting perhaps in its own right, but not a

systematic part of the causal process of status attainment” (1975:356).

These findings raise a number of critical theoretical and policy issues. The major theoretical issue involves the relative importance of soritil-psyc.hologica1 and institutional theories for explaining such social processes as status attainment. As Wilson and Portes (1975:359) argue:

To the extent that effects of ability and status are totally mediated by subsequent self-assessment, inter-personal influences, and aspirations, it is their social psychological function which is dominant. To the extent that their effects d o not occur via this social psychological intervening sequence, it is their “structural” effects which can be assumed to operate.

Direct effects of academic performance would, in their interpretation, “point to a process of active institutional recruitment and selection” wherein recorded school ability “forms the basis for institutional selection and channeling of individuals independent of what their self- definitions may be,” so that, as a consequence, “what academic performance ‘tells’ to formal institutions of the society about an individual appears to be more important for status attainment than what it tells him or his significant others.”

Wilson and Portes point to the more “sociological” (institutional) nature of the model that emerges from their data, and suggest (albeit cautiously, in view of the admitted limi- tations in their data), a possible future shift of interpretation in status attainment studies from a social psychological to an institutional one. This stands in sharp contrast to attempts by sociologists in the late sixties and early seventies to bring institutional level analysis in closer contact with underlying fundamental social processes, as manifested in such theoretical works as Blau (1964) and Buckley (1967) and in the accelerated development within sociology of social-psychology itself. The late seventies, if one were to take Wilson and Portes seriously, might witness a return to structural analysis of the Durkheimian genre.* Besides the important theoretical implica-

1 The influence of symbolic interaction theory is evident in these speculations: the individual develops and revises his aspirations, not only in accordance with the evaluations he receives from significant others, but also on the basis of his own self-assessment of ability which takes into account the more objective information provided by academic performance. 2 In a later analysis of data from the same study, Portes and Wilson (1976) continue their emphasis on

Self-assessment in the early educational attainment process / 307

tions of findings suggesting the relatively greater impact of objective over subjective factors in status attainment processes, their practical implications point to very different strategies for formulating educational policy aimed at ameliorating existing social inequalities. According to Sewell et al. (1968:89-90), the demonstrated influence of significant others’ influence on status attainment “suggests itself as a point a t which external agents might inter- vene to change educational and occupational attainment levels . . . either by inserting themselves or others as new significant others or by changing the expectations existing significant others have for the individual.” (See also Sewell’s ASA presidential address, 19715303- 4.) In contrast, and on a less optimistic note, Wilson and Portes interpret their findings as indicating “that the conduct of significant others-easily the most manipulatable variable in the entire sequence-is of much less importance than the more ‘inelastic’ background and ability factors.” The latter interpretation would imply that ameliorative social policy should address itself to the presumably more difficult task of correcting inequalities in the objective institutional arena in which status attainment occurs.

The importance of the theoretical and practical issues raised by these contradictory studies calls for further analysis with additional data. This paper reexamines the relative importance of subjective and objective factors in the status attainment process with a different sample. In particular, it puts to empirical test, as Wilson and Portes did, the hypothesis that a reflexive process (self-assessment) mediates the effect of objectively measured academic performance on status aspirations and attainment.

In keeping with the speculation of Sewell et al., it is hypothesized that the major antecedent of self-concept of ability is academic performance. Brookover et al. (1967:109-11) found evidence for the hypothesis that “change in students’ perceptions of the evaluations of their academic ability by others (parents, friends, and teachers) are associated with parallel changes in self-concepts of ability.” Grades, as formal evaluations by teachers must certainly affect student self-assessments of ability. (For recent demonstrations of the converse path, see Gilbert [I9771 and Singh [19771.) As explained below, academic performance was measured before self-assessment of ability and thus the asymmetric causal ordering of these variables in our model parallels their temporal occur- rence in the data. In all probability, however, academic performance and self-assessment of ability interact in such a way as to produce mutual causation over time. Pugh’s (1976) cross-sectional analysis provides empirical evidence of such reciprocal effects.

Besides assessing the objective evidence provided by academic performance, individuals take less tangible cues from salient others (parents, teachers, peers) in assigning attitudes to self. Thus, in line with this symbolic interactionist dictum, we hypothesize that significant others’ influence will prove to be a second important antecedent of self-concept of ability, mediating some of the effects of academic performance and social class on self-assessment.

In terms of its consequences, self-concept of ability is hypothesized to have direct effects on levels of occupational and educational aspirations, “the more favorable the student’s self- conceptions, the higher his aspirations” (Gor- don, 1971:8). While not verified by at least one

institutional versus social-psychological explanations of status attainment processes, though stated in less dramatic form than in their earlier article (1975). While their further analysis still revealed that educational attainment for whites was influenced by structural and performance variables, they found that, for blacks, educational attainment was influenced by the social-psychological variables, self-esteem, and educational aspirations. However, they downplay the significance of the apparently greater effect of mediating social-psychological processes for black students, maintaining that “the reason for the stronger path coefficients from these subjective variables in the black model is that there are no other strong effects present, such as from academic performance, to ‘soak up’ the variance in educational attainment explained by them” (1976:429), because grades conferred in all black schools carry much less weight as criteria of selection for higher education. They report that this interpretation is substantiated by a n analysis of a subsample of blacks in integrated schools wherein results approximate those among whites, including an overall expanded role for structural and performance variables. These considerations lead them to conclude that “whites, while being able to use this same channel for mobility, have at their disposal an additional set of institutional machinery which can, in effect, carry them along to higher levels of attainment, net of positive subjective orientations” ( 1976:430). Thus, it is clear that the authors do not relinquish their institutional interpretation of status attainment in this later article.

308 / Neil J . MacKinnon and Paul Anisef

study (Pugh, 1976), this hypothesis does receive support from both Canadian (Gilbert, 1977; Forcese, 1975:71) and American (Brookover et al., 1962:76) data. Following Sewell et at. (1970: 1016), we expect that self-assessment may also have a direct, albeit moderate, effect on educational attainment apart from that which is mediated by level of educational aspiration itself.

As regards discussion of the various other paths presumed to exist in the Wisconsin model, this article focuses primarily on the relation between self-assessment and academic ability and thus, with respect to other features of the Wisconsin model, we will not go into theoretical detail here. However, Sewell et al. (1969: 1970), Sewell and Hauser (1972), and Haller and Portes (1973) review the relevant literature, and the brief resume offered earlier should suffice for the purposes of the present analysis.

Before proceeding with our findings, there are several differences between the model tested in this analysis and the Wisconsin model replicated by Wilson and Portes which have to be discussed, To begin with, we do not claim strict comparability of results with either the original analysis of Sewell et al. or with that of Wilson and Portes because of differences in samples and operationalization of theoretical constructs. (Some of these differences are discussed later.) Nonetheless, the present model is sufficiently similar to those developed in past research to make comparisons at the level of general structural features. Thus, while comparisons across studies will not be made in terms of the absolute magnitude of path coefficients, the relative effects subjective and objective factors are shown to have in different analyses will be contrasted.3

A second notable difference from past studies lies in the exclusion of a measure of mental ahilify from our model. The recently formulated policy decision of the Ontario Ministry of Edu- cation has precluded to date our obtaining IQ data, albeit the research was sponsored by the same ministry. Previous studies have shown, however, that ncademic perjormrrnce (of which we do, of course, have a measure) mediates a substantial portion of the effect of mental ability on later variables in status attainment models.

The revised model of Sewell et al. (1970: 1023) reports that the only effect of mental ability on other than academic performance is a weak one on significant others’ influence; and Wilson and Portes (1975:353) report a moderate effect on occupational aspirations and a weak one on educational attainment. In a recent analysis of the American National Longitudinal Study (NLS), Thomas (1977:22;30-3 1 ) found a modest direct effect of mental ability on educational expectations, and only a minimal effect on college attendance, for a somewhat comparable sample of males. On the basis of past research, then, we assume that “intellectual ability per se is less a direct determinant of status aspirations [and attainments] than the individual’s and others’ assessments of that ability through such realistic, tangible results as academic grades” (Haller and Portes, 1973:70).

Besides affecting academic grades, however, mental ability has been shown to have modest (Thomas, 1977:30) to substantial (Wilson and Portes, 1975:356) direct effects on self- assessment of academic ability. Thus, omission of a measure of mental ability from our model will most likely result in an inflation of the estimated effect of academic performance on self-concept of ability, simply because there is one less independent variable to soak up the variance of this dependent variable in a multiple regression equation. However, this will not prove to be a serious problem vis-a-vis the major dependent variables in the model.

Finally, Hauser (1973:262) revises the original Sewell et al. model, regressing mental ability on socioeconomic status, so as to coincide with the biosocial assumptions held by many sociologists regarding the effect of environment on the development of mental ability and to take account of the social-class bias in intelligence tests themselves. Hence, another probable effect of excluding a specific measure of mental ahiliry from our model will be to remove an intervening variable between social class and academic performance. Again, while resulting in an inflated estimated effect of socioeconomic status on academic performance, this will most likely accrue in little loss of explanatory power as far as the major dependent variables are concerned.4 (For another study which purports

3 A stricter comparison across populations would necessitate that unstandardized or metric coefficients be employed (Blalock, 1971: 189-92: Duncan, 1975:51-57), but differences between the metric structure of the scales employed in the two studies would still preclude this. 4 This line of reasoning is corroborated by our finding, discussed elsewhere, of a weak but notable effect between socioeconomic status and academic performance in our model, whereas neither Sewell et al. nor


the omission of a mental ability measure to be relatively minor, see Picou and Carter, 1976: 14.)

METHOD

Data The data collection phase of this study was executed by the Survey Research Center of York University. The longitudinal study in- volved three data collection phases. The first one, in which interviewers from the Survey Research Center supervised the completion of student questionnaires in each high school, took place in the spring of 1973, with follow-up telephone interviews conducted in the fall of 1973 and 1974. Ninety-nine secondary schools were selected across Ontario for the initial survey through the technique of proportionate sampling (Anisef, 1975: Appendix, 13) where the probability of selection of a school was proportional to its size. Of the ninety-nine schools initially selected, only two refused to cooperate leaving a total sample of ninety- seven schools. The sampling procedure netted just over 3000 Ontario grade 12 students (Anisef, 1973:3), 87 per cent of whom completed usable questionnaires in the first survey, yielding a sample of 2,555. Very little attrition occurred in the subsequent stages of the panel survey, so that 84.0 per cent or 2,156 cooper- ated in phase two and 2,163 or 84.7 per cent participated in phase three. Hence, 1987 or 77.8 per cent of all phase one respondents participated in all three phases of the study. The present analysis employs the 973 males only from this sample, to control for sex and to enable comparisons to be drawn with the males-only samples of previous studies. Analysis of the female sample is in progress.

Variable measurement A description of the way in which each construct employed in this study was opera- tionalized follows. As with Wilson and Portes, there was not a sufficient lapse of time between the initial (spring 1973) and most recent (fall 1974) phases of our study to obtain a meaningful measure of occupational attainment. (An additional follow-up study to do so is at present in progress.) However, a sufficient period of time had elapsed to obtain an early assessment of educational attainment, the major dependent variable in our model.

X i SES: Socioeconomic status background was measured as a factor score on a principal component derived from five indicators: ( 1 ) father’s occupation coded according to the Blishen (1967) socioeconomic scale; (2) mother’s occupation (when working part or full- time outside the home) coded according to the Blishen scale; (3) father’s level of education coded on a seven-point ordinal scale ranging from 0 (no schooling) to 7 (university graduate); (4) mother’s level of education coded in the same fashion; and ( 5 ) total parental income. The Blishen socioeconomic index was constructed by a method similar to the one Duncan (1961) used in assigning North-Hatt scores to US occupational titles, and can be expected to corre- late very highly with the US index (Blishen, 1967:50-51). Our use of a single composite measure for socioeconomic status is supported by Hauser’s (1973) disaggregation of the Wisconsin c0mposite.j

X z AP: Academic performance for the school year last completed (grade eleven), as self- reported by the student, was measured on a five-point ordinal scale: ( 1 ) mostly under 50 per cent; (2) mostly 50 to 59 per cent; (3) mostly 60 to 69 per cent; (4) mostly 70 to 79 per cent; ( 5 )

Wilson and Portes found this effect, presumably because it disappears when mental ability is added to the model. 5 In testing the overidentifying restrictions implicit in the construction of the socioeconomic status composite employed by Sewell et al. (1970), Hauser (1973:262-65) discovered a close proportionality of effects among its four components, concluding that “the data offer little support for the argument that the achievement process is dominated by a single aspect of social inequality.” Four of our indicators of socioeconomic status correspond to those of the Wisconsin composite. Our inclusion of an additional one (mother’s occupation outside the home) can be justified on the grounds that in recent times increasingly more women have been entering the work world (full or part-time), two-income families becoming more the rule than the exception. To take into account the often sporadic participation in the labour force by married women, the question asked respondents to state their mother’s occupation “if she is working, or ever worked outside the home either part-time or full-time.. . .” Principal component scores were computed for students who provided data on most of the five indicators, a procedure which derives some of its justification from the proportionality of effects reported in Hauser’s disaggregation as well as from our own trials with composites built from fewer than five indicators, which operated in almost exactly the same way in the model as our more comprehensive measure.


mostly 80 per cent and over. The validity of self-reported grades receives support from other studies (Hanna, Bligh, and Lenke, 1970; Jung and Moore, 19701, cited also by Wilson and Portes (1975:349) to justify their use of self-reported academic performance.

X 3 NFAM: Nonfamily encouragement towards higher education, the first of two measures of significant others’ influence, was measured as factor scores on one of two orthogonally rotated principal components derived from an inventory of potentially significant others (mother, father, sisters and/or brothers, other relatives, friends in universities or colleges of applied arts and technology, other friends, teachers, and guidance counsellors). For each significant other, the student reported on a seven-point scale his perception of the amount of encouragement he had received. From the list of significant others, all nonfamily ones (other relatives, university/college friends, other friends, teachers, and counsellors) loaded on the same principal component, which was accordingly labelled “nonfamily encouragement” (NFAM).

X4 FAM: Family encouragement towards higher education was measured as factor scores on a second orthogonally rotated principal component derived from the inventory of po-

tentially significant others already described. In this case, mother’s, father’s, and siblings’ influence loaded heavily on the same principal component, which was appropriately labelled “family encouragement” (FAM).

Our employment of two measures of significant others’ influence is supported both by the principal components analysis of our inventory of significant others’ (wherein two significant components were derived and easily interpreted) and by Hauser’s ( 1973) disaggregation of the composite employed by Sewell et al. ( 1970).6 However, since our nonfamily encouragement measure ( X 3 ) comprises both peer and adult significant others, and since it takes no account of the educational plans of peers, our treatment of significant others’ influence skirts the issue of whether peer influence is of a qualitatively different type (viz., “model” influence) than adult influence (viz., “definer” influence). (See Picou and Carter, 1976: 12-13; Woelfel and Haller, 1971.)

X 5 SCA: Self-concept of ability was measured on a scale adapted from Brookover’s general self-concept of ability scale (Brookover e t al., 1962:16, 17).7 Six of our items were similar to ones employed by Brookover et al. While the Brookover index did not distinguish among types of colleges, we added a seventh item

6 Hauser’s disaggregation revealed a rough proportionality of effects for the Wisconsin composite’s three components (teachers’ encouragement, parental encouragment, and friends’ plans) on variables later in the model, but revealed a nonproportionality of effects for variables predetermined relative to these three components, calling into question the validity of the factor model on the basis of which the composite was constructed (1973:279-80). More specifically, Hauser showed that the effects of socioeconomic status on parental encouragement and friends’ plans were much larger than its effects on teachers’ encouragement, and that the latter depended more heavily on grades than the other two components. Furthermore, the rough proportionality of effects notwithstanding, Hauser discovered that the perceived expectations of teachers have much less impact on aspirations and attainment than that of expectations of parents and friends. Thus, our employment of two composites allows for the nonproportionality of both antecedents and effects with respect to the influence from home (FAM) versus that received outside the home (NFAM). This does not, of course, hold for the set of indicators comprised by each of NFAM and FAM, but we have disaggregated each of the two sets of indicators in turn and found rough proportionality of effects for both predetermined and subsequent variables in the model. There were some differences, of course. (For example, in terms of untrcedents, parents’ encouragement was somewhat more influenced by socioeconomic status than siblings’ encouragement, and teachers and counsellors were more influenced by academic achievement than some of the other significant others comprised by the same composite; in terms of con.seqrrence~, father’s encouragment had a somewhat larger effect on aspiration variables than mother’s encouragement.) However, none of these was considered of sufficient magnitude to preclude our employment of composite measures, particularly when two were constructed. Finally, that Sewell et al. (1970:1017) obtained a single principal component for significant others’ influence may have resulted from their analysis of only three items (as compared to our nine), in light of which the greater factorial complexity among our set of indicators is not surprising. 7 The items employed in our measure of self-concept of ability were: (1 ) How do you rate yourself in school ability compared with your close friends? (2) How d o you rate yourself in school ability compared with those in most of your classes at school? (3) Where do you think you rank in your year in high school? (4) Do you think you have the academic ability to graduate from a university? ( 5 ) Some jobs or careers require study

Self-assessment in the early educational attainment process I 31 1

which did- to reflect the important difference between the academically oriented universities and the vocationally oriented community colleges. The coefficient of reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) was .83 for our measure. In terms of the causal ordering of variables in our model, the reader should note that this measure refers to the student’s self-concept of ability at the time the first phase of the study was conducted (grade 121, while our measure of academic performance refers to the last year of school completed (grade 1 1 ) .

X 6 LOA: Level of occupational aspiration was measured by the question: “Everyone does not end up doing the job he or she likes. Consid- ering your ability, marks, ambitions, and family finances, whatjob d o you think you will actually end up doing?” Responses were coded on the Blishen SES scale. In comparison to other measures of occupational aspirations (cf. Sewell et al., 1970: 1017; Wilson and Portes, 1975:348), it would appear that our measure is based on a question which encourages the respondent to purify his aspirations of fantasy. It was hoped that a measure of realistically grounded aspirations would enhance the predictability of the model with respect to educational attainment.

X7 LEA: Level of educational aspiration was measured by the question: “Which statement best describes what you plan to do in the fall of 1974?” A set of seven response categories were recoded into three: (0) full-time job or other activity; (1) college of applied arts and technology (CAAT), including nursing school; ( 2 ) university, providing an ordinal measure which was almost identical to the Sewell e t al. one (1970: 1017).

Xs EDATT: Our measure of educational attainment was derived from phase three (fall, 1974) of the study. From a series of questions pertaining to the respondent’s current ac- tivities, a three-point ordinal measure of educational attainment was derived, coded in an identical way toX7 (LEA): (0) full-time job or other activity; (1) college of applied arts and technology, including nursing school; ( 2 ) university.

Testing the model Our theoretical model was tested in two steps. Considering the model initially as a just- identified system, effects were estimated for all possible paths between earlier and later variables. Albeit we expected notable effects only for those paths we had theorized to be substantial or for those which previous studies have shown to be important, we desired that the model be open to revision in the event of serendipitous findings. In the second step, paths corresponding to negligibles coefficients were deleted, thereby trimming the model and enhancing its parsimony (Heise, 1969:59), and regression analysis was reapplied to the resulting overidentified model.

To enable us to attack the issue raised by Wilson and Portes regarding the relative causal importance of subjective versus objective factors in the status attainment process, correlations between major dependent variables and predetermined ones were decomposed into causal direct, causal indirect, unanalysed, and spurious effects owing to association with common antecedents. It is on the basis of such decompositions that Wilson and Portes base their interpretation of the causal priority of

beyond the bachelor degree level a t university. How likely d o you think it is that you would complete advanced study of that kind? ( 6 ) Forget for a moment how others grade your work. In your opinion, how good do you think your work is? (7) Do you think you have the academic ability to graduate from a college of applied arts and technology’? 8 It has become quite conventional to employ some absolute value-often .I5 (e .g . , Sewell e t al., 1970)- a s a criterion for the deletion of small coefficients in lieu of a statistical one, owing to the acceptance of ridiculously small effects in instances of large sample size that would accrue from the latter criterion. Since with large samples even very small paths cannot be attributed to chance fluctuations from population values, Hauser (1973:280-81) questions the convention of employing an absolute value, arguing that i t is more reasonable under these circumstances “to pose the question of which paths to delete in terms of the ability of the model to account for the effects of variables whose direct effects might be deleted.” Given that we were as interested in testing the overidentifying restrictions created by deleting paths as in the absolute size of paths themselves, and in view of the fact that the “slack” created by deletion of paths has to be taken up by effects that survive the trimming procedure if discrepancies between observed and reproduced correlations are to be of negligible magnitude, we decided to retain paths only if their corresponding coefficients were equal to or greater than twice their standard errors (Duncan, 1975:49). Thus, a s a minimal criterion, coefficients had to be significant at roughly the .05 level to be retained in the model. This method resulted in the retention of paths that were at least about . I0 in magnitude.

3 12 / Neil J . MacKinnon and Paul Anisef

objective over subjective factors, and this procedure has become rather standard practice in the reporting of path analytic studies. Our decomposition of effects are reported here according to the convention suggested by Alwin and Hauser (1975), however, wherein the effects of predetermined variables have been decomposed into their direct and indirect components by successive computation of reduced form equations. Since by this method, the proportion of a predetermined variable’s total effect that is mediated by a particular intervening variable is obtained without specification of the various mechanisms through which it has been induced, correlations were decomposed using Wright’s rule as well. Besides enabling us to estimate spurious effects and reproduce observed correlations to test the fit of model to data, this allowed u s to examine in more detail the various mechanisms through which indirect effects occur. Considerations of space, however, pre- cludes reporting all the intricacies of this latter analysis here.

FINDINGS

The means and standard deviations of all variables, along with their intercorrelations are reported in Appendix A. Because they are of secondary importance in the presentation of results, path coefficients for the just-identified version of the model have been relegated to an appendix (B) as well. Their counterparts in the overidentified model are reported in Table 1 as “direct effects,” and are illustrated in Figure 1.

The reader is cautioned to read Table 1 from left to right since intervening variables have been added successively, in order of causal priority, the indirect effects of later variables remaining latent, as it were, in earlier ones. Where blocked variables (X3 NFAM and X4

FAM; X6 LOA and X7 LEA) both appear as intervening variables in a structural equation, they were entered in the same step in regression equations, and indirect effects via these variables have been jointly interpreted and represented as such in the columns of Table 1. As predetermined variables, however, these variables have effects on later variables independent of one another, and are thus represented individually in the rows of Table I .

Examining Figure 1, it can be seen that the structure of our model is quite similar t o the Wisconsin model (Sewell e t al., 1970: 1023). Be- sides the absence of a measure of mental ability in our model, the only other important differences in model specification involve our additional social-psychological variable (X5 SCA) and our employment of two measures of significant others’ influence (X3 NFAM and X4

FAM), the correlation between which we have left unanalysed. Derived as orthogonal, and hence uncorrelated, components, however, the unanalysed correlation between their residuals turns out to be essentially zero as well (represented as abroken , curved, two-headed arrow since its magnitude is negligible). Like most earlier analyses, we have also left the relation between occupational and educational aspirations (Xci LOA and X7 LEA respectively) unanalysed, since there is equal theoretical support for a path in either direction (Hauser, 1973:268), and the focus of this paper is not on their i n t e r r e l a t i ~ n . ~

Examining the causal structure of the model, socioeconomic status (Xi ) has a significant effect on one of our measures of significant others’ influence (X4, family encouragement), while academic performance (Xz) has notable effects on both. Hence, our two-fold measure of significant others’ influence results in discover- ing that socioeconomic status has effects on family different from those on school/peer influences. These findings are similar to those of Hauser (1973:265-66; 278-79) whose disaggregation of the Wisconsin significant others’ influence variable revealed that parental encouragement depends more on socioeconomic status than does teacher’s encouragement, which in turn is affected more by academic performance than is parental encouragement. Hauser concludes from these results that the perceived expectations of teachers may be an egalitarian force in the achievement process as they depend more on performance than ascrip- tive factors, while those of parents are a more conservative force because they reflect socioeconomic background more than academic performance.

Congruent with the results of previous studies, we find that significant others’ influence, in turn, affects levels of educational

9 Having different sets of predetermined variables in each case, correlations between residuals were estimated from the basic theorem of path analysis, rather than partial correlation analysis wherein all predetermined variables are controlled (Duncan, 1966: 10).

TABLE I

Path Coefficients and Their Decomposition, Reproduced Correlations. and Coefficients of Determination for Status Attainment Model

Dependent variables+

Xs EDA'IT

X7 LEA

X6 LOA

Xs SCA

Pre-

variables determined Total

XI SES .255 X2 AP .404 X5 SCA .327 X6 LOA .I01 X7 LEA .459

Xz AP .385 X3NFAM .I30 X4 FAM .253 X5 SCA .372

XI SES .266 X4 FAM . I84 X5 SCA ,438

XI SES .241 X2 AP .613 X 3 N F A M .119

Via XS

.054

.200

~

-

- -

.224

.043

.05 1 -

,092 ,077 -

- - -

-

.053 ,097

.058 ,146

.232 .095 - ,101 - .459

- .I13 - .086 - .202 - .372

- ,140 - ,107 - ,438

- ,147 - .586 - ,119 - ,112

rii r . .* Spurious Causal Reproduced Observed r + i r r i i

ununalysed - correlation correlation

Other components

,022 -

.I50 -

.I18 ,208

. I 0 4 .045

.Ooo -

.042 -

.042 -

.I31 -

.23 1

.426

.477

.427 ,609

,385 .I71 .295 SO3

.267

.227

.495

.244

.633 ,193

.255 ,024 ,430 ,003 .492 .015 .432 .005 .628 .019

.385 .Ooo

.I71 .Ooo

.2% .Ooo ,504 .Ooo

.266 .001

.227 .Ooo

.495 .Ooo

.241 .002

.634 .Ooo

. I 90 ,003 .213 .214 .005

R2

,466

.306

,278

-454 X4 FAM .I12 ~

*The variables are: (XI) socioeconomic status; (Xz) academic performance; (X3) nonfamily encouragement; (X4) family encouragement; (X5) self-concept of ability; (Xs) level of occupational aspiration; (X7) level of educational aspiration; (XE) educational attainment.

c E.

2

c1

5 rn

. w w -


and occupational aspirations. In our model, family influence (X4) has just over twice the effect that nonfamily influence ( X 3 ) has on educational aspirations (X7), and only family influence significantly affects occupational aspirations ( X 6 ) . In his disaggregation of the Wis- consin composite, Hauser ( 1973:265-66; 278- 79) also found that the perceived expectations of teachers have much less impact on aspirations than that exercised by parents. Neither of our measures of significant others’ influence directly affects educational attainment ( X s ) directly, however, contrary to the findings of other studies.

Our results are in accord with those of Wilson and Portes regarding the decidedly weaker role of significant others’ influence in the status attainment process than that reported by Sewell et al. In contrast to the Wilson and Portes study, however, our analysis indicates that this partly results from our interposing self-concept of ability between significant others’ influence and aspirationlenactment variables, while the effects of significant others’ influence remained relatively constant when self-assessment was added to the Wilson and Portes model. From Table 1 it can be seen that self-concept of ability (X5) mediates 42 per cent (.077/. 184) of the total causal effect of family encouragement (X4) on occupational expectations ( X 6 ) ; 33 per cent (.043/. 130) of the total effect of nonfamily influence ( X 3 ) , and 20 per cent (.051/.253) of family influence (X4) on educational aspirations (X7); and, along with educational(X7) and occupational aspirations ( X 6 ) , the total effect of significant others’ influence on educational attainment ( X s ) , neither of our measures of significant others’ influence having a direct effect on this variable.

As shown in previous studies, we find further that academic performance affects educational aspirations as well as educational attainment itself. However, these effects are much weaker relative to those ofother variables in our model, and academic performance does not have a notable effect on occupational expectations at all. That this is due in large part to the additional social-psychological variable (self-concept of ability) intervening between academic performance and aspiration attainment variables is evidenced by the decomposition of effects for academic performance. Table 1 reports self- concept of ability ( X 5 ) mediates 58 per cent (.224/.385) of its total effect on educational expectations (X7); 50 per cent (.200/.404) of its

total effect on educational attainment ( X s ) ; and, along with our significant others’ influence measures ( X 3 andX4), its total effect on occupational aspiration ( X s ) , there being no significant path between academic performance and occupational aspiration at all. The functioning of self-assessment in our model bears little re- semblance to its role in the Wilson and Portes model, where the effects of academic performance remain relatively constant when self- assessment is controlled.

Along with Wilson and Portes, we do find the more objective background/performance variables have some direct causal effect on status aspiration and attainment, but this is generally smaller in comparison to that which is mediated by social psychological variables. Referring to Table 1 , the direct effect of socioeconomic status ( X I ) on occupational aspiration(X6)-net of all intervening variables - is about 53 per cent (.140/.266) of its total effect; that of academic performance(X2) on educational aspirations (X7), about 29 per cent (. 113/.385); and that of socioeconomic status (XI) and academic performance ( X z ) on educational attainment ( X s ) , about 38 per cent (.097/.255) and 36 per cent (. 146/.404) respectively.

We also find that it is principally educational as opposed to occupational aspirations which influence educational attainment. In fact, educational aspirations (X7) has the largest single direct effect on educational attainment. In concluding our comparison with other studies, we interpret the path from socioeconomic status (XI) to academic performance ( X z ) as cor- roborating our preceding speculation that the exclusion of mental ability from our analysis might show up in a significant path from socioeconomic status to academic performance where earlier studies detected none.

The fit of our model t o the data is evidenced by the small discrepancies between observed correlations and those reproduced using Wright’s theorem. The largest discrepancy reported in Table 1 is .024, indicating that the overidentifying restrictions created by the deletion of small coefficients are reasonably valid ones. We d o not wish to ascribe as much atten- tion to R2, the proportion of variance explained in our major dependent variables by their re- gressors in the model, as we attach to the repro- ducibility of observed correlations which more clearly reflects the specification of the model (Duncan, 1975:65-66). Nonetheless, given a good fit of model to data, R 2 values are impor-


tant. Our model explains sizable proportions of the variance in major dependent variables: 47 per cent in educational attainment, 31 and 28 per cent respectively in educational and occupational aspirations, and 45 per cent in self- concept of ability. While our model explains a little less variance in major dependent variables than the Wisconsin model (1970), the proportion of variance explained in each major dependent variable is almost identical to that explained by the Wilson and Portes (1975) model.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

In summarizing our findings vis-a-vis those of earlier studies, we find, like Wilson and Portes, that significant others’ influence plays a less critical role in the status attainment process than that initially reported by Sewell et al. We find, however, unlike Wilson and Portes, that the pivotal role initially ascribed to this variable is not transferred to more objective factors like academic performance, but rather to a second social-psychological construct - self-concept of ability. Besides mediating a sizable proportion of the moderate effects exhibited by significant others’ influence variables, self- assessment is shown to mediate a still larger proportion of the effects of academic performance on aspirationlattainment variables. This finding supports the speculation of Sewell et al. concerning the mediating role of self- assessment which they put forward to account for the finding, considered serendipitous in view of the social-psychological nature of their theory, that academic performance manifested direct effects which carried as far as educational attainment itself. On the other hand, it stands in sharp contrast to the Wilson and Portes finding that academic performance is the strongest pre- dictor of educational attainment and that its effects, along with those of mental ability, remain constant after self-assessment is controlled for by its addition to the model.

In view of the dramatic differences between our results and those of Wilson and Portes with respect to the mediating role of self-assessment in the status attainment process, we feel obliged to speculate about possible reasons for these discrepancies. An obvious one lies with differences in sampling between the two studies, the notion that the cultural differences between Canadian and American high school boys are such that in American society, academic per-

formance creates institutional-level effects that operate more independently of self-assessment than they d o in Canada. This hypothesis, however, runs counter to the comparative literature on the two countries, which asserts that Cana- dian society is, in fact, the more conservative and elitist of the two (Lipset, 1967:285-86; 1968; Porter, 1967).

A second sampling possibility lies with the inclusion of high school dropouts in the Wilson and Portes sample as compared to Sewell’s sample and ours where high school seniors only were included, a sampling idiosyncracy which may prove the exception to the Wilson and Portes judgment that “ the fundamental components of the [status attainment] process, . . . should be resilient enough to withstand specific sample and measurement differences” (1975:352-53). Only further research employing samples that include high school dropouts is likely to settle this issue, however.

An even more likely reason for these discrepancies in results lies with critical differences in measurement of the social- psychological construct in question. As a measure of self-assessment, Wilson and Portes employed the mean of three items: self-rating of general school ability, self-rating of intelligence, and self-rating of reading ability. On the basis of the range of intercorrelations among these items (.74-.81) reported by Wilson and Portes, the internal consistency reliability would have to be reasonably high, ruling out the attenuation of correlations through measurement error. In contrast to the items in our measure of self-assessment, however, some of which clearly pertain to perceived ability for higher education, the items in the Wilson and Portes index are worded with no reference to higher studies. Thus, the two measures of self- assessment refer to somewhat different do- mains of content. While judgments of content validity are destined to be subjective ones, it might be cautiously speculated that the Brookover index on which our measure is based might be a more sensitive measure of the theoretical construct in question. (For a reliability and validity study of the Brookover index, see Brookover et al., 1967:151-72.)

At this point in time, it is doubtful that the research literature can throw definitive light on whether this would be a sufficient cause of the differential causal importance ascribed to self- assessment by the two studies. For example, two other studies -one employing a one-item

Self-assessment in the early educational attainment process / 3 17

index of self-assessment which does pertain to higher education (Thomas, 1977:30-3 l ) , the other employing a one-item index which does not (Rosen and Aneshensel, 1978: 177)-report that self-assessment has greater effects on educational expectations than academic performance. While not solving the measurement issue, these studies d o support the Sewell speculation regarding the intervening role self- assessment plays in the status attainment process, though not nearly to the extent that our findings do. On the other hand, a third study (Gilbert, 1977) which also employed the Brookover index found effects for self- assessment on educational and occupational expectations which more nearly approximate our own (cf. Gilbert and McRoberts, 1977).

With respect to the larger theoretical issue at hand - the relative importance of structural versus social-psychological explanations of the status attainment process - it is probably safe to say that the research literature does not generally support the Wilson and Portes instiru- tional versus social-psychological interpretation of the status attainment process. Other replica- tions of the Wisconsin model (Alexander et al., 1975: Gilbert, 1977: Thomas, 1977; Rosen and Aneshensel, 1978) with different data sets, lend support to the social-psychological interpretation of Sewell et al. In view of the relatively weak direct effects - net of intervening variables - of performance and structural background factors on educational outcomes, Thomas (1977:22), for example, concludes from the NLS data “that currently the internal strati-

fication processes, within the schools, coupled with students’ educational goal orientations and to a lesser extent ‘significant others,’ may be more influential in directly affecting various educational outcomes rhnn externtrl societal stratificarion processes” [italics added].

In conclusion, this should not be interpreted to mean that structural factors are less important than social-psychological factors in explanations of the status attainment process. Our study supports the conclusion of most other studies that both subjective and objective factors play significant roles in the status attainment process, and differences between our results and those of Wilson and Portes are of the nature of reassessing their relative causal im- port, rather than pointing to the exclusion of either set of factors as insignificant components of the status attainment process. From a theoretical point of view, Porter (1976:32) sums up nicely the necessity of incorporating both structural and social-psychological constructs into status attainment models:

A purely structural model . . . presents the mobility process as a kind of deus ex machina populated by homunculi. Con- versely, to represent the mobility process as simply or even primarily a social- psychological matter ignores the constraint a social-structural setting places upon an actor, the question of the origin of the actor’s presumed attributes, and the way his attributes articulate with others’ in in- terpersonal and institutional settings.

Variables* X I SES X o AP X 3 NFAM X4 FAM Xs SCA Xs LOA X7 LEA Xs EDATT

APPENDIX A

Means, Standard Deviations, and Zero-Order Correlations For Variables in the Model XiSES XzAP X3NFAM X4FAM XsSCA XsLOA X7LEA XsEDATT

- - - - - - - 1.000 - - - - .126 1.000 - -

- ,003 ,122 1.000 - ,186 .126 ,001 1.000 ,241 ,634 ,190 ,214 1.000 - ,266 ,343 ,150 ,227 ,495 1.000 .195 ,385 ,171 ,296 3 0 4 ,454 1.000 -

,255 ,430 ,125 ,248 ,492 ,432 ,628 I.000

- - - - - - - - - - - -

X -.050 2.741 ,101 -.097 2.489 46.997 ,999 I . 196

SD 1.036 ,803 ,975 ,955 ,633 17.187 ,897 ,913

*The variables are: (XI) socioeconomic status; (Xz) academic performance: (X3) nonfamily encouragement: (X4) family encouragement: (Xs) self-concept of ability: (X6) level of occupational aspiration; (X7) level of

-

educational aspiration: (Xs) educational attainment.


APPENDIX R

Path Coefficients and Coefficients of Determination for Just-Identified Model __ _______ De[~endmr Predrterminrd wirii/dr.s * wiricihlrs * X i S E S XzAP X3NFAM X4FAM XsSCA X6LOA X7LEA R 2

- - - - - - .016 X2 AP ,126 - .018 ,124 - - - - - ,015 X3 NFAM

X4 FAM .173 . I04 - - - - - ,045 X5 SCA ,147 ,586 ,119 ,112 - - - ,454 X6 LOA ,145 ,057 ,070 ,110 ,387 - - ,285 X7 LEA .058 ,116 .089 ,194 ,358 - - ,309 Xs EDATT .093 ,147 -.002 ,037 ,093 ,098 .45 1 ,467

*The variables are: (XI) socioeconomic status: (Xz) academic performance: (X3) nonfamily encouragement: (X4)

family encouragement: (Xs) self-concept of ability: (X6) level of occupational aspiration; (x7) level O f educational aspiration; (Xs) educational attainment.

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Self-assessment in the early educational attainment process

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