Testing models of school learning: Effects of quality of instruction, motivation, academic coursework, and homework on academic achievement.

Tested the influence of ability, time, quality of instruction, motivation, and academic coursework on high school students' achievement, also controlling for relevant background variables. Structural equation models were analyzed with longitudinal data from a national sample. Intellectual ability and academic coursework had powerful direct effects on achievement, and homework had a smaller direct effect. The indirect effects of quality of instruction and motivation were stronger than their direct effects; quality affected motivation, which affected coursework. Supplemental analyses were very consistent with the initial findings. Results support these variables as influences on school learning, a finding which also supports the theories from which the variables were derived. School learning theory and research are relevant for school psychologists who seek interventions for children with learning problems. Public and professional concern about the quality of American education highlights the need for a better understanding of the important influences on school learning. Theories of school learning (e.g., those of Bloom, 1976; Carroll, 1963, 1989; Cooley & Leinhardt, 1975; Walberg, 1981; and Wiley & Harnischfeger, 1974; see Walberg, 1986, for a comparison of these and other theories), would seem to offer little help in this search for important influences because they appear to focus on entirely different aspects of learning. Walberg (1981), for