Understanding Factors Affecting Student Outcomes and Learning Behaviour

Abstract

On the basis of discussion in earlier chapters, we have understood the importance of improving the quality of secondary education in India, due to its socio-economic implications impacting society and individual as a whole. But the main question arises on how to improve the quality of secondary education? Although at the macro level we have identified various deficiencies in Chaps. 8 and 9 that need to be relooked in order to improve the system, it is equally important to identify various obstacles at the micro level, that is, at school, by student or teacher to achieve overall improvement in the quality of education. It is equally important to understand their perspective as well to bring this change. But before looking at various factors that determine the quality of education, it is important to understand the way in which we can measure and try to improve the quality of education. It is pertinent to mention that by the expression ‘improving the quality of education’, we mean improving the performance and achievements of students by providing them best learning and growing environments. Hence, this study will measure the quality of secondary education in terms of student performances, their achievements, and overall satisfaction level. Available literature shows that schools, family environment, and teachers do play an important role here, but to measure the exact impact, a detailed analysis is required. To locate the determinants of student outcomes and performances, this study has conducted a survey to capture student perspectives on school environments, family culture, types of resources and infrastructural facilities available, and exposure to mass media. It also covers information on teacher’s background and teaching methods and practices adopted, the findings of which are discussed in this chapter. In addition to this, the perceptions of students on their self-performance, development, schooling, teaching quality, and self-evaluation are also discussed here. The chapter further elaborates the factors which are affecting the performance and learning outcomes of students and thereby act as major obstacles in achieving quality education at secondary level. The first section of this chapter describes various characteristics related to schools, family and other background of students that may have possible impact on learning outcomes and achievement of students. The perceptions of students on different issues have been covered in the second section. The third section presents the exploratory model for identifying the factors affecting performance of students. The findings of this chapter have been summarized in the last section.