Beyond Nuclear Families: Development of Inclusive Student Socioeconomic Status Survey Questions

Abstract

Social changes have resulted in an increase of students living in households that do not include both a mother and a father, reducing the efficacy of common survey questionnaire approaches to measuring student socioeconomic status (SES). This paper presents two studies conducted to develop and test a new, more inclusive set of student SES items appropriate for students from a range of household types. In the first study, we held group interviews with 57 students in Grades 4, 8, and 12 who lived in four nontraditional household types. The study goal was, first, to understand how students thought about their household members and learn what they knew about the educational background and employment status of their caregivers and, second, to develop draft items based on these findings. In the second study, we held 51 individual cognitive interviews with a similar sample to evaluate draft item clarity and function. We found that although students may live with a broad range of family members and other adults, they understood the term caregiver to refer to a person who provides resources and support. Students found it easier to answer items when the items included the titles of their caregivers. Our results demonstrate that a customizable approach to measuring student SES allows more students to report information about their caregivers than the current standard of asking about mothers and fathers. We provide recommendations for student SES measurement and potential next steps for research on this topic.

Digital location tracking in the parent/caregiver–college student dyad

“…Students reported on key demographics including age, parent/caregiver education as a proxy for socioeconomic status (Whorton et al, 2021; 1 = less than high school to 6 = graduate, medical, or professional school ; the student reported on both of parents/caregivers and the highest education attained was used for analysis; 33.3% had at least one parent/caregiver who had completed at least an undergraduate education), relationship to designated primary parent/caregiver (76.5% biological mother, 12.6% biological father), college attended (77.8% enrolled in 4‐year university), who they live with (32.9% currently living with their parent/caregiver), gender identity (which was dummy coded into male [22.7%] and other [4.1%], with female [70.8%] serving as the reference group), and race/ethnicity (recoded into White [34.2%; reference], Black [32.7%], Latinx [15.2%], and Other [17.6%, including: Asian, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and so on, and biracial students due to small sample size of these groups]). Community college students were more likely to live with their parent/caregiver than 4‐year university students ( χ 2 (1) = 121.65, p < .001); however, there were no other significant differences on any of these demographic variables between community college and 4‐year university students.…”