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An international comparison investigating the relationship between national culture and student achievement

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the connections between national culture and student achievement. Using Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions and the two dimensions from the World Values survey, we conducted multiple regressions to determine the most significant predictors of student achievement as measured by the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment in reading, mathematics, and science. Our analyses found that the most significant predictors of student achievement on all three student outcome included the following cultural dimensions based on two different frameworks: (1) a culture’s focus on fostering long-term orientation to include emphasis on perseverance to achieve future-oriented results and (2) a culture’s focus on secular-rational values vs. traditional values. In addition, findings indicate that when mapped geographically, similar patterns emerge among the two cultural dimensions.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Inglehart and Welzel (2005) who originally used the map approach in their publication which also involved the WVS data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education Sciences, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, People’s Republic of China

    Zheng Fang

  2. School of Education, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, USA

    Leslie W. Grant, Xianxuan Xu, James H. Stronge & Thomas J. Ward

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Correspondence to Zheng Fang.

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Fang, Z., Grant, L.W., Xu, X. et al. An international comparison investigating the relationship between national culture and student achievement. Educ Asse Eval Acc 25, 159–177 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-013-9171-0

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