85
Private school 30.73** 30.17** 29.37**
(7.696) (7.273) (6.525)
Teacher shortage -1.704 -1.187 -0.952
(1.522) (1.755) (1.545)
STR -1.049* -1.754** -1.225**
(0.502) (0.418) (0.411)
School size 0.0111 0.0155 0.0144
(0.00893) (0.0110) (0.01000)
Average disciplinary climate in school 31.37** 33.43** 35.24**
(7.847) (8.444) (7.791)
Parent’s education: upper secondary 13.44** 11.07** 11.62*
(4.200) (4.091) (4.639)
Parent’s education: Tertiary 27.51** 29.19** 32.89**
(4.499) (4.262) (4.644)
Constant 87.18 132.7* 79.09
(67.02) (55.68) (63.71)
Note: All regressions control for clustering of standard errors. *, ** and + indicate 1%, 5% and
10% level of significance. Estimation method is ordinary least square regressions allowing for
multiple plausible values.
Table 3.1.2 presents ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates of the student achievement
function for Malaysia in Reading, Math, and Science in PISA 2012 data where achievement is
examined in relation to individual, family and school factors. As explained earlier, our model
accounts for multiple plausible values of the dependent variable. Among household-specific
factors, family wealth has a modest effect. While the coefficient on third and fourth quartile are
significant, the size is small, particularly when compared to the influence of family wealth in
student achievement in other OIC countries such as Malaysia or across OIC countries in general.
This is regardless of math, reading and science test scores. Equally, children of educated parents
perform significantly better compared -- parental education (particularly university educated
parents) seem to matter significantly for student achievement.
Second, while there in Malaysia we found no advantage to attending a private school, this is not
true for Jordan. Private school attendance is systematically associated with a higher level of test
scores across all test subjects. The coefficient size implies nearly 30 points gain in PISA
assessment. Equally, the experience of pre-school attendance is significantly associated with
higher performance in all PISA subjects. The effect size is comparable to that of private school
attendance.
Among individual level factors, one notable finding is the female advantage in science and
language and the absence of any gender gap in mathematics in Malaysia. In other words,
compared to many other parts of the world where girls lag behind boys in educational
achievement, they excel in all domains of learning in Malaysia. However, the girl-boy gap very
high not just in Reading, but also Science.
Among school-specific factors, variables such as school size, teacher shortage and proportion of
certified teachers are not significantly associated with student performance. STR has a negative
and statistically significant influence in case of all test subjects though the coefficient is small in
size. Average disciplinary climate in the school is positively and significantly correlated with