Thursday Online Presentation Session 4

Interdisciplinary Education

Session Chair: Yiming Hao

14:25-14:50

69028 | The Mechanisms of How Familial SES Predict Academic Progress via the Mediation of Parental Expectations for Lower Secondary School Students

Yiming Hao, University of Durham, United Kingdom

Despite the fairly extensive literature on the developmental influence of family background and parental expectations, little empirical evidence is known to the public about the effects on lower secondary school pupils in China, in comparison with children who are reportedly developing in pertinent literature. In the present study, we examined student academic progress during the early years of secondary school using a largescale longitudinal dataset from which we selected an approximate random sample of 9449 Chinese Grade 7 students from 112 schools across China. It was predicted that familial SES would be linked indirectly to academic achievement progress, which in turn would be mediated by parental expectations. Using Multilevel Structural Equation Modelling techniques (ML-SEM), this prediction was confirmed in certain aspects of familial SES indicators. Overall, for three core subjects, the indirect effects on parental educational level via parental expectations are the most statistically significant, whereas that of subjective income is less significant, and the occupational ranking of parents is the least distinctive. The mechanisms responsible for how familial SES manifest indicators can project academic development and the methodological significance of the approach adopted in the study were also discussed, along with implications for research and pragmatic practice.

14:50-15:15

67617 | The Influence of Financial Assistance on Student’s Academic Achievement: A Case-Based Research Study

Fatima Shaikh, Sukkur IBA University, Pakistan

Khalil Channa, Sukkur IBA University, Pakistan

Gul Afshan, Sukkur IBA University, Pakistan

Murk Memon, Sukkur IBA University, Pakistan

Purpose: The motive of this inductive research study was to explore the influence of financial assistance in form of scholarship and to identify the factors that affect the academic achievement of university students. This study also aims to compare the academic achievement of scholarship and non-scholarship students.

Methodology: 26 Semi-structured interviews and purposive sampling techniques were used to collect data from scholarship and non-scholarship undergraduate students of the university.

Findings: Analysis of the data elicited that both scholarship and non-scholarship students work hard to improve their academic achievement. Students consider the scholarship as motivation and achievement. However, there were certain factors such as; financial, psychological, emotional stress, anxiety, and language barriers affect the academic achievement of scholarship students. Finance was a significant problem for scholarship-seeking students. It was also explored that scholarship-holding students remain less participative in other academic activities, such as sports events, social societies, music art, and drama society as compared to non-scholarship-holding students.

Research Implication: University should design flexible criteria for availing scholarships. Universities should plan strategies to overcome the financial and emotional stress and anxiety of students. More attention should be paid to students who belong to remote areas to overcome the language barrier and improve academic achievement. Another foresight was that the proposed model should be tested empirically. Future research should be done on how to overcome those factors that cause low academic achievement among university students.

15:15-15:40

68674 | Perspectives and Uses of Mobiles in the Educational Process Fawzia Alali, University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

The research topic is summarized in the importance of studying the uses of smart tablets in the educational process. This study is considered as one of the descriptive studies, which aim at collecting data relevant to the usage of university students – sample of study – for the smart tablets and their attitudes towards using them in the educational process, as well as studying some variables related to usage; such as gender, social status, educational stage etc. This study depends on the survey approach that is used for obtaining information or, subject matter. The study concluded that the sample of study agreed on the necessity of enabling Arab universities to encourage students to use more techniques in classrooms and teaching curricula by using smart tablets since this will help in developing the communicational skills of university students. Moreover, they agreed on teaching most of the media curricula through social media.