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Methodology for Multilevel Modeling in Educational Research pp 255–270Cite as

Family Meals and Academic Performance: A Multilevel Analysis for Spain

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Abstract

Students’ eating habits have been frequently studied in previous literature as determinants of children and adolescents’ academic performance from a health and nutrition point of view. The objective of this chapter is to analyze additional benefits related to student meals by understanding the importance of the family mealtime. Specifically, the aim is to analyze whether the frequency of shared family meals is related to the academic performance of adolescents. To do so, we analyze the data for Spain in PISA 2015. In order to perform a rigorous analysis of the data, we estimate multilevel models that consider the hierarchical PISA data structure: (1) first, public and private schools are randomly selected; and (2) then fifteen-year-old students from the selected schools are selected. The results show that there is a positive relationship between the frequency with which parents eat the main meal with their children and academic performance in reading comprehension as measured by PISA test scores. The positive association is of similar magnitude irrespective of gender and socio-economic and cultural status of the student.

Keywords

  • Mealtime
  • Family
  • PISA
  • Multilevel

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain

    Nerea Gómez-Fernández

  2. Centro Universitario EDEM-Escuela de Empresarios, Valencia, Spain

    Nerea Gómez-Fernández

  3. Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain

    Juan-Francisco Albert

Authors
  1. Nerea Gómez-Fernández
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  2. Juan-Francisco Albert
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nerea Gómez-Fernández .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia

    Prof. Myint Swe Khine

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Gómez-Fernández, N., Albert, JF. (2022). Family Meals and Academic Performance: A Multilevel Analysis for Spain. In: Khine, M.S. (eds) Methodology for Multilevel Modeling in Educational Research. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-9142-3_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-9142-3_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-16-9141-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-16-9142-3

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