Impact of the prior school environment on academic achievement of students at the secondary stage in Punjab (Pakistan)

This study investigates the impact of the prior school environment on academic achievement of students at the secondary stage in Punjab (Pakistan). School environment is a very important school resource input. All the indicators of school environment collectively produce an academic environment that is helpful for the student achievement. The present school environment of a session is the prior school environment for the next session. Therefore, this study used mean of the prior five years results of SSC examination. Population of the study comprised all secondary and higher secondary schools and secondary students in Punjab. Overall, a total of 288 schools, and then 20 students from each school were randomly selected as the sample of the study. The longitudinal data of academic achievement in the form of aggregate marks of the annual examinations of the Classes VI, VII, & VIII as prior achievement and that of the Class X as academic achievement of the same students through “Result Sheet”. The data were summarized at school level and then analyzed collectively. Pearson correlation was used to find out the relationship (association) of the prior school environment with academic achievement. Furthermore, Stepwise Regression analysis with linear function was used to find out the differential impact (causal-relationship) of the prior school environment on academic achievement. The results of the study show that the prior school environment is an important predictor of academic achievement for arts students; however, it has some insignificant positive impact on academic achievement of science students. The insignificant and weak causal-relationship for science students may be improved if the indicators of school environment are properly defined and improved up to the higher standards. Prior school environment is very helpful in producing the present school environment. In this way, both the present and the prior school environments are important. The policy implications of the study are that the prior school environment provides the accelerating or the declining trend of academic achievement of students.