In-School and Out-of-School Factors That Build Student Achievement

Students' Total Weekly Out-of-School Learning Time and Activities

Two key hypotheses are pertinent here. The first is that high-achieving students spend more time engaged in academic lessons in the classroom than low-achieving students, and they spend more time engaged in structured literacy-enhancing activities out of school. Second, and conversely, low-achieving students spend less total time engaged in structured learning activities (which include combined in-school and out-of-school time).

The data in Exhibit 4 show that at the elementary and high school levels, high achievers spent more time in out-of-school, high-yield learning activities than low achievers. High-yield, out-of-school learning includes such diverse activities as leisure reading, writing, studying, getting tutored, participating in community and school youth clubs and programs, working on the computer, watching educational television, volunteering, doing hobbies, and playing organized youth sports.³ The time students spent in these activities is an indicator of the extent of their learning opportunities outside of school.

Exhibit 4 Weekly Out-of-School Learning Time, by Achievement Level * n.s. ** p<.01

In particular, better readers spent more out-of-school time involved in powerful, high-impact (high-yield), language-enriched activities that promote successful acquisition and expansion of developmentally appropriate reading skills. These activities included:

• Weekly time dialoguing with adults, youth club enrichment activities, hobby and volunteer activities, organized sports, and educational television.



• Regular study/homework routines, often with adult or peer monitoring and support.



• Reading and writing practices in the home, sometimes including composing text on the computer.

In the Nashville elementary school sample, high-achieving students spent an average of 7 hours and 56 minutes per week engaged in out-of-school learning activities, while low-achieving students spent only 7 hours per week engaged in out-of-school learning activities. This difference was not statistically significant. For the first- through sixth-grade students, certain out-of-school learning activities had independently positive relationships with achievement. The amount of time students spent doing reading and writing activities outside of school was significantly correlated with achievement. High-achieving students spent more time involved in reading and writing activities outside of school than low-achieving students did. A higher proportion of high-achieving students spent time reading and writing than low-achieving students (34 percent vs. 24 percent).

Similar group differences were found in the sample of eleventh-grade high school students in Long Beach, California. Twenty high school students were classified as high achievers, and 30 were classified as lower achievers, based on scores on a district-approved writing test. The high achievers were using more of their out-of-school time in learning activities than the low achievers were. High-achieving high school juniors spent 15 hours and 14 minutes per week doing learning activities outside of school. Their low-achieving counterparts spent much less time, 8 hours and 49 minutes per week, doing these activities. (The difference between the two groups was 6 hours and 25 minutes.)

The second hypothesis is that low-achieving students spend less total time engaged in structured learning activities than do high-achieving students. Unstructured leisure activities include, but are not limited to, hanging out and playing, talking on the phone, playing video games, using the computer for fun, playing board games, watching television or movies, listening to music, attending sports events, resting, or relaxing. Data from the Nashville elementary school sample support the hypothesis. In this sample, time spent in leisure activities was negatively correlated with achievement. That is, high-achieving students spent less time than low-achieving students engaged in unstructured leisure activities. High-achieving students spent an average of 27 hours and 13 minutes per week in unstructured activities. Low-achieving students spent 28 hours and 45 minutes per week in these activities.