Assessment of Student Achievement Through Educational Quality, Academ-ic Engagement, Peer-Assisted Learning and Academic Motivation: (A Study at Two Levels of Student and Teacher)

The main objective of this study was to find out the role of student-level and teacher-level on academic achievement. Research population included students and teachers of Tehran’s vocational and technical schools. 10 regions from 5 Tehran’s educational districts and 2 schools from each region were selected, with a total of 906 third-grade students (girls and boys) from these schools and from 39 classes using multi-stage sampling. 123 teachers from the same classes and schools were also chosen for this study. Standard AMS and MSLQ questionnaires were used for academic motivation and academic engagement, respectively, as well as researcher-made questionnaires for knowledge and professional skills of teachers and professional- contextual characteristics questionnair, peer-assisted learning and quality of education. Reliability and validity of the questionnaires were assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient, content and construct validity (exploratory factor analysis). Academic achievement was calculated using the average of three grades including GPA (grade point average) of the previous year, GPA of three core courses and GPA of practical courses. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation matrix, confirmatory factor analysis, and multi-level analysis. Results of multilevel analysis showed the average academic achievement of students in different classes (i.e. different teachers) was significantly different. In addition, the effect of experience, gender and education level of teachers on students’ academic achievement were insignificant. However, there was a positive and significant effect of quality of education on the academic achievement. At the whole classroom model, 7.27%, and 22.28% (nearly30%) of the variance for academic achievement were related to the student-level and teacher-level, respectively. Findings of the research show the importance of teacher level factors -at higher level- influencing other variables in predicting academic. achievement.