Gaining Ground: Values and High School Success

Abstract

In this paper, we use the nationally representative “High School and Beyond” (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 1983) data to examine the relationship between a wide range of values that stress the notion of responsibility and high school students’ achievement test scores, grades, discipline problems, and dropout status. We also examine the extent to which students’ behaviors outside of school (e.g., watching television, doing homework, reading, and working for pay) mediate the relationship between values and high school outcomes. Two structural equation models—one using attainment levels as outcomes and one using change scores as outcomes—are analyzed. Results from both models show that when students, their parents, and their peers believe in values and accompanying behaviors that stress responsibility, students have a better chance of achieving success in high school. Values are found to have both direct effects on school outcomes and indirect effects through out-of-school behaviors. The effect of values as a whole is consistently larger than the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) when predicting both level of student performance and changes in student performance.