A motivational account of achievement differences in mathematics using TIMSS data: an African focus.

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Modiu Olaguro This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4835055/v2 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Abstract The article accounts for achievement differences of eighth graders in three African countries, Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa. Using data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS, 2015), I found that African students struggle to attain the lowest international benchmark across the three countries. Consequently, efforts were made to explain this phenomenon primarily through the motivational factors of self-concept, interest, and usefulness of mathematics. Findings from single-level and multi-level analyses extended common findings especially the synergy between self-concept and achievement and the eroding gender gap. Interesting findings emanated from the multi-level analyses, especially the inverse relationship between achievement and interest of mathematics at the student and school levels respectively. Amidst the poor achievement of students on the continent, the article extends previous findings on the need for African countries to be more attentive to educating its young ones if it is to develop their untapped potential. Interest Mathematics Achievement Motivation Self-concept Usefulness Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Introduction The success of students as operationalized by performance either on teacher-made tests or achievement in high stakes assessments has elicited a rave of conversations over the latent and manifest factors that account for the differences between them (Awofala et al., 2024). Nowhere are these accounts of achievement differences as important as Africa where students have consistently demonstrated lower than expected results in comparative studies. For example, in a ranking of 41 participating countries in TIMSS 2003, Wilkins (2004) found student and country-level achievement gaps of 145 and 144 points between overall scores and those of African eighth graders obtained from South Africa. Occupying the last position, it fell a whopping 241 points below students in Korea (1 st ). In an earlier cycle, achievement gaps were also striking with South Africa giving up the last position for Morocco, pitching them in the 37 th and 38 th place respectively (Shen, 2002). A similar pattern is observed in the most recent TIMSS data, with Egypt (53 rd ), South Africa (57 th ), and Morrocco (58 th ) trailing Singapore (1 st ) by 203, 227, and 228 points. Lodged within this is an understanding that being agentic individuals as well as members of classrooms, schools, and citizens of distinct countries, student achievement in mathematics is contingent upon influences located within as well as without. Owing to this, researchers have put this understanding to use, informing a multitude of variables that have been enlisted to explain the criterion and normative categorizations of students by achievement results. To this end, salient themes have emanated and put into factors that are either domiciled within the student (e.g., Kirkham & Chapman, 2022), teacher (e.g., Bofah & Hannula, 2015), school (e.g., Shin et al., 2009), or nature of instructional resource/intervention (Olaguro et al., 2019). Especially with reports on international assessments, these accounts have found convincing reasons to believe in the potential of students’ achievement to be influenced both by the structures and cultures of the immediate and wider community (e.g., Stankov, 2010), acting, indicating, and interacting reflexively with one another. Such factors within the students have been stated to include gender (Kirkham & Chapman, 2022; Mejía-Rodríguez et al., 2021), age (Wilkins, 2004), socioeconomic status (Ersan & Rodriguez, 2020), study expectations (Winberg & Palm, 2021), achievement history (Ma, 1996) and a commitment to further studies which was particularly found to have the most influence on achievement in Ghana, Botswana, South Africa, Egypt, and Morocco (Bofah & Hannula, 2015). Researchers have also relied on findings from school characteristics to explain the rationale for differences in student achievement. In one of those studies, Lee and Chen (2019) found bullying and sense of belonging as holding varying relationships with achievement in Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa. Other factors outside of the students’ control include the school’s socio-economic status, readiness, and quality of instruction (Ersan & Rodriguez, 2020), school location (Webster & Fisher, 2000), curricula coherence (Linn et al., 2000), teachers’ responsiveness (Bofah & Hannula, 2015) and expressing belief in student’s ability (Winberg & Palm, 2021). This line of research has also reinforced the place of the home environment in the achievement profiles of students, touching on learning resources (Winberg & Palm, 2021), parents’ education and involvement (Bofah & Hannula, 2015), attitudes and expectations (Mejía-Rodríguez et al., 2021). While not discounting the value in identifying and quantifying the basis for achievement differences, many of these variables are either not within the students’ spheres of influence, or the reach of the individuals (e.g., teacher) and institutions (e.g., school) with direct touch on both short- and long-term students’ success. Against the backdrop that the affect drives the intellect (Schoenfeld, 1983), certain noncognitive variables have become prominent in this regard. Consequently, some researchers have sought to explain achievement differences via state-like affective constructs (Middleton et al., 2017) whose malleability offers more pedagogical implications for individuals as well as groups that work closely and make decisions that directly impact students’ outcomes. Prominent among these variables have been attitudes (Kadijevich, 2008; Webster & Fisher, 2000), anxiety (Sengul, 2015; Winberg & Palm, 2021), interest (Lee & Chen, 2019), self-concept (Wilkins, 2004), and usefulness of mathematics (Winberg & Palm, 2021). Although the studies have sought various means of explaining achievement disparities, they have mostly been restricted to western countries or taken a holistic look at the data. The few ones that have focused solely on Africa have not gone beyond establishing correlational relationships between the motivational variables and achievement, leaving out other key findings such as the slopes that convey directions like correlations does, as well as provide their relative contributions within control conditions. For example, in Shen (2002), the negative association between the duo of interest and self-concept and achievement were based on country-level aggregated analyses of the almost 40 participating countries. Similarly, Bofah and Hannula’s (2015) focus was on the psychometric features of the motivational variables within the African population viz-z-viz the direction and strengths of relationships among, and with achievement. With many of these studies returning significant relationships, it becomes a matter of interest to want to know the precise magnitude of the self-concept, usefulness, and interest parameters relative to achievement at different units of analyses. Theoretical Background Motivation and Students’ Achievement The prominence of research on students’ mathematical achievement within the motivational lens owes to the latter’s conception as a measure of the degree an individual intends to engage in quantitative situations (Jones, 2018). Following the multitude of factors underlying achievement both within and outside of an individual (Siegler et al., 2012), accounting for students’ achievement within the motivational framework maps into a parallel understanding of motivation as driven by forces within and without (Ryan & Deci, 2020), influencing cognitive outcomes through the intentionality that underpins students’ choice, latency, and persistence in mathematics (Graham, 2020). To this end, a near-consensus exists in the literature that motivation plays crucial roles in students’ achievement (Middleton & Spanias, 1999). This has informed a plethora of studies that have found justifications for explaining achievement differences based on variations in students’ levels of motivation (Wilkins, 2004; Winberg & Palm, 2021). In implementing this, researchers have masked motivation within finer-grained constructs that capture the foundational principle determining an intent to engage with mathematics, returning findings that have placed such motivational proxies like engagement (Awofala et al., 2024), enjoyment (Živković et al., 2023), self-efficacy (Schöber et al., 2018), and the self-determination taxonomies of amotivation, extrinsic, and intrinsic (Taylor et al., 2014) at influential roles for cognitive outcomes. For example, Ozen’s (2017) meta-analysis study of 205 published works on the motivation-achievement relation over a 6-year period found low to medium effect of motivation on students’ achievement across individual and collectivist societies. Suggestive of the affinity between them, motivation played a greater role in students’ achievement in mathematics than in reading, science, and the aggregate academic measure. In another study, Schöber et al. (2018) affirmed the findings of Ozen in all but the strength of association relative to English/language, informing their conclusion that a stronger motivation-achievement relationship in mathematics owes to perceived difficulty of the subject. More recently, Živković et al. (2023) parsed motivation into enjoyment and self-efficacy returning significant positive associations with achievement. The overwhelming evidence for the role of motivation in accounting for achievement differences in mathematics owes to the proclivity of motivated students to engage in effortful situations requiring significant intellectual capital (Froiland & Worrell, 2016) and perform personalized, self-assessments in relation to set goals (Middleton & Spanias, 1999) that underscore making informed attributions on achievement outcomes (Graham, 2020). Achievement within the Motivation Triad Although motivational variables are not solely responsible for students’ achievement, they are arguably the most influential. Informed by the need to make lasting improvements in students’ achievement, these variables, more than any, have been reckoned to lend themselves to influential tendencies. In pursuit of this, Ersan and Rodriguez included malleable factors (e.g., interest) into their model even as they found that “SES at both student and school levels is a dominant factor related to mathematics achievement and a much stronger predictor at the school level” (2020, p. 1). Relatedly, Winberg and Palm’s (2021) study of 300 variables that were hypothesized to account for achievement differences magnified the fundamental roles of students’ self-concept, interest, and usefulness. Perhaps a consequence of their multicollinear nature, they found that these variables better function as a collective rather than isolated predictors of achievement. In particular, the affinity between interest and usefulness owes to the commonality that exists between them as value-laden constructs, differing but marginally (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020). The theoretical basis for self-concept in the explication of achievement differences owes to its potential to foster “engagement, goal-setting, task choice, persistence and effort, intrinsic motivation, strategy use, performance and achievement, and even career selection” (Bong & Skaalvik, 2002, p. 7), a reality that has found strong footing in empirical studies both in isolation and within a set of competing influences across the motivational, social, and economic spectra. In his study of attitudes as a composite of self-concept, interest, and usefulness of mathematics, Kadijevich (2008) found that self-concept holds a positive relationship with achievement in all the countries at a range of magnitude between 25% in Belgium to 61% in Korea. Results from the African representation was captured at 33% and 44% for Morocco and Tunisia respectively. While this pattern is retained in most studies (e.g., Lee & Chen, 2019; Wilkins, 2004), within-country analyses offer valuable insights into the nature of this relationship. A case in point is Wilkins (2004) and Lee and Chen (2019) whose analyses confirmed between-country variations in self-concept but found parallels in the strengths of their associations by achievement scores. Like them, Bofah and Hannula (2015), restricting their analyses to African countries also communicated similar findings. An affirmation of the big-fish-little-pond effect (Marsh et al., 1987), both studies found the strength of association between self-concept and achievement as a function of relative position. Surprisingly, this not only occurred at the global level where vivid achievement differences existed, but within low achieving countries. As recorded, global high achievers like Asian countries (e.g., Korea; r = .46) and least achievers (e.g., South Africa; r = .00) had strong and weak associations between self-concept and achievement respectively. Within Africa, the top achieving nation, Tunisia and the least, South Africa also had the strongest and weakest self-concept-achievement relationship. Although interest does not contribute as much as self-concept in explaining achievement differences among learners at different units of analyses, it nevertheless has proven to have a formidable influence especially given how inextricable it is with self-concept. Advancing this point, Bong and Skaalvik wrote that “there exist different views among researchers regarding whether academic self-concept also includes emotional reactions to the tasks such as interest, enjoyment, and satisfaction. Some regard these as part of self-concept, whereas others consider them a distinct construct” (2002, p. 7). In what could be a demonstration of the former, a host of researchers have found affinity between findings involving both variables. For example, amidst country-level variations between self-concept, interest, usefulness, teacher responsiveness, and parental involvement, Bofah and Hannula (2015) found the strongest correlation between the first pair across five African nations although achievement correlated with interest less than it did with self-concept and usefulness. Like self-concept, interest of mathematics (1.5) was the only predictor of achievement above the mean (1.1), with students’ interest of biology, physics, and chemistry predicting their achievement by 1.0, 0.9, and 0.9 points respectively (Winberg & Palm, 2021). Offering more specificity in the relationship, Ersan and Rodriguez (2020) found that students’ interest of mathematics positively influenced their achievement by at least 13 points. With engagement playing a mediating role, such predictive tendency of the positive kind was also recorded by Froiland and Worrell (2016) in their study of African American and Latino high school students. But students that like mathematics have also been found to perform below their counterparts that do not. As reported by Kadijevich (2008), such relationship was found in 30 out of 33 countries enrolled in TIMSS (2003), with many of those having positive associations occupying magnitudes close to zero (e.g., Macedonia, 0.05; Chile, 0.10). The dislike of mathematics by African students may also be a pointer to their low achievement. As Bofah and Hannula (2015) indicated, not only did all five African countries performed below the international benchmarks, but they were also unanimous in their dislike of mathematics and their view of it as having little use. Usefulness pertains to the relevance of mathematics. Although this understanding is obvious given the prioritization of mathematics within school subjects and across professional training programs, it should not be surprising that such perception may not be so obvious to young learners who are for the most part unsure of how well mathematics “fits into an individual’s present or future plans” (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020, p. 5). Unsurprisingly, the utility value of mathematics was mostly predicted by the extent learning is related to students’ lives (Winberg & Palm, 2021). Kadijevich (2008) followed this in relation to achievement, returning with positive associations in 12% of participating countries, implying that achievement differences alternate between a lack or negative influence in majority of countries. Although usefulness appears to hold zero relationship with achievement in many global studies, such trend is largely reversed within the African continent especially in non-Arab countries where achievement correlated more strongly with students’ perception of mathematics as a useful endeavor than self-concept (Bofah & Hannula, 2015). The basis for students’ perception of self-concept, interest, and usefulness sits at the intersection of the demonstrated potential of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to influence cognitive outcomes (Ryan & Deci, 2020), offering justifications for making causal inferences across academic and non-academic fields of study. The Current Study The purpose of this study is to investigate the achievement of African eighth grade students as a unit relative to the influences of motivational and control factors. These motivational influences include their interest, self-concept, and the extent they find mathematics useful. Given the evidence from literature that motivational factors drive achievement, the study hypothesizes that all three variables would be positively associated with achievement. A similar expectation will be made for the relationship between SES and achievement. I also hypothesize that gender differences will exist by region in favor of the males in North Africa and females in South Africa. In brief, the study hopes to find answers to these research questions: What accounts for the variance that exists in achievement? What is the relationship between achievement and interest, self-concept, and usefulness of mathematics at the (i) student (ii) school levels? Does (i) gender (ii) School SES and (iii) country effect exist across the motivational variables and achievement? Method Data The data from this study were drawn from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS, 2019). Although several countries participated in the study across fourth and eighth grades, this research is focused on eighth grade students in the three participating countries in Africa: Egypt, Morrocco, and South Africa. A total of 36, 441 students nested in 945 schools participated in the study. Among them were 52.6% females and 47.4% males. South Africa had the most representation with 20, 786 students nested within 520 schools followed by Morocco with 8, 456 students in 251; and Egypt who had 7, 199 students in 174 schools. Although several data were obtained from the participants, this study is restricted to three motivational variables (self-concept, interest, usefulness), gender, socioeconomic status, and achievement. Measures Level-1 Self-concept: the average of nine items made up this construct (e.g., I usually do well in mathematics ). Usefulness: the average of nine items made up the usefulness construct (e.g., I think learning mathematics will help me in my daily life ). Interest: the average of nine items made up the interest construct (e.g., I enjoy learning mathematics ). Responses from all three motivational items were measured via a 4-point Likert scale on this range: 4 (agree a lot), 3 (agree a little), 2 (disagree a little), to 1(disagree a lot). Negative items were also re-coded so that higher position on the scale reflected positive level of agreement. Gender: dummy variables 0 and 1 represent male and female respectively. Achievement: achievement was based on the average of five separate computations per plausible value as recommended by Fishbein et al. (2021). The items whose aggregate scores comprised the achievement measure cover four content areas (number, algebra, geometry, and data/probability) and three cognitive domains (knowing, applying, and reasoning). Level-2 Mean Interest: created by averaging the interest within each school. Mean Self-concept: created by averaging the self-concept within each school. Mean Usefulness: created by averaging the usefulness within each school. School SES: this measure was based upon the three-point school composition by socio-economic background scale ranging from more affluent (1) to more disadvantaged (3). The scale was reverse coded so that higher values reflected more economic advantage. Prop_Female: dummy of 1 represented proportion of females in the school or country. Country: three dummy variables (D_Egypt, D_SA, and D_MAR) represented the individual countries. Mean Achievement: obtained by averaging students’ achievement across separate estimations of the plausible values in each school. Analytic Plan The qualitative differences in the formulated research questions necessitate different analytic pathways. Three models were created to cater for each research question. The first analytic plan is the Unconditional Model (Model 1) to explain variability in the outcome variable (achievement). For this reason, no predictor was included. In addition, three parameters were of relevance in the result of this model: γ 00 which is overall true mean mathematics achievement and the two variance components (σ 2 : individual deviation from school mean/unique effect of student i in school j ; τ 00 : unique effect of school j ). The proportion, τ 00/ τ 00 + σ 2 gave an estimate of the intraclass correlation (correlation of student scores in the same school/percentage of variance in mathematics achievement that lies between schools). Level-1 Model ACHIEVEM ij = β 0j + r ij Level-2 Model β 0j = γ 00 + u 0j Mixed Model ACHIEVEM ij = γ 00 + u 0j + r ij With the Compositional/contextual effects model (Model 2), the three predictor variables and their means were composed at the first and second levels. Through this model, the predictors-outcome relationships were determined. The relevant parameters are: β 1j , change in student achievement by a unit change in interest; β 2j : change in student achievement by a unit change in self-concept; and β 3j : change in student achievement by a unit change in usefulness. The model also quantifies the true student and school-level relationships between the predictor and outcome variables. The six parameters in this regard include γ 10 and γ 01 , between achievement and interest; γ 20 and γ 02 , between achievement and self-concept; and γ 30 and γ 03 , between achievement and usefulness—at the student and school levels respectively. The difference in each pair was used to determine the compositional or contextual effect estimates. Specifically, interest (γ 01 - γ 10 ) , self-concept (γ 02 – γ 20 ), and usefulness (γ 03 – γ 30 ). Finally, the level-1 and level-2 variance parameters were used to quantify the amount of variation due to the predictors at each level. Level-1 Model ACHIEVEM ij = β 0j + β 1j *( INTEREST ij ) + β 2j *( SELF_CON ij ) + β 3j *( USEFULNE ij ) + r ij Level-2 Model β 0j = γ 00 + γ 01 *( INTEREST j ) + γ 02 *( SELF_CON j ) + γ 03 *( USEFULNE j ) + u 0j β 1j = γ 10 β 2j = γ 20 β 3j = γ 30 Model 3 is the Means and slopes as outcome model aimed at ascertaining the effects of gender, school SES, and country on the motivational and achievement variables. The parameters relevant to answer the questions are γ 02 , country effect; γ 04 , gender effect; and γ 05, school SES effect—on achievement. Unique effects of these control variables on the predictors were also included. They are γ 11 (Egypt), γ 12 (South Africa), and γ 13 (Morocco)—country effect; γ 14 , gender effect; and γ 15 , school SES effect on interest. For self-concept, they include γ 21 (Egypt), γ 22 (South Africa), and γ 23 (Morocco)—country effect; γ 24 , gender effect; and γ 25 , school SES effect. Finally, γ 31 (Egypt), γ 32 (South Africa), and γ 33 (Morocco)—represent country, gender ( γ 34 ), and school SES ( γ 35 ) effect on usefulness respectively. The variance components also came handy in determining the amount of achievement variations due to the predictors at the student (R 2 L-1 ) and school (R 2 L-2 ) levels. Level-1 Model ACH ij = β 0j + β 1j *( INTEREST ij ) + β 2j *( SELF_CON ij ) + β 3j *( USEFULNE ij ) + r ij Level-2 Model β 0j = γ 00 + γ 01 *( CONCEPT j ) + γ 02 *( D_COUNTRY j ) + γ 03 *( INTEREST j ) + γ 04 *( PROP_FEM j ) + γ 05 *( SES_SCHO j ) + γ 06 *( USEFULNE j ) + u 0j β 1j = γ 10 + γ 11 *( CONCEPT j ) + γ 12 *( D_COUNTRY j ) + γ 13 *( INTEREST j ) + γ 14 *( PROP_FEM j ) + γ 15 *( SES_SCHO j ) + γ 16 *( USEFULNE j ) + u 1j β 2j = γ 20 + γ 21 *( CONCEPT j ) + γ 22 *( D_COUNTRY j ) + γ 23 *( INTEREST j ) + γ 24 *( PROP_FEM j ) + γ 25 *( SES_SCHO j ) + γ 26 *( USEFULNE j ) + u 2j β 3j = γ 30 + γ 31 *( CONCEPT j ) + γ 32 *( D_COUNTRY j ) + γ 33 *( INTEREST j ) + γ 34 *( PROP_FEM j ) + γ 35 *( SES_SCHO j ) + γ 36 *( USEFULNE j ) + u 3j Results Single-level Analyses The single level analyses feature both descriptive and inferential statistics with graphical accompaniments. Given that this study was inspired by the achievement differences that exist among students of different countries, the first table presents the percentage of students in Morocco, South Africa, and Egypt that met the four benchmarking cutoffs. As is shown in Table 2, across all countries, less than 1% of students reached the advanced level. Except for Egypt, more than half of them failed to meet the lowest cutoff point. Aggregating the results over the three countries indicate that the continent of Africa struggles to attain even the least benchmark. Table 2: Within-country achievement by international benchmarks Benchmarks (%) Country Low (SE) Inter (SE) High (SE) Adv (SE) Morocco 41.22 (1.22) 11.62 (.87) 1.94 (.37) .12 (.07) S Africa 40.77 (1.26) 13.15 (.69) 3.18 (.30) .56 (.09) Egypt 55.43 (2.28 26.84 (1.69) 7.31 (1.08) 0.88 (25) Total 45.81 (.96) 17.20 (.75) 4.14 (.39) .52 (.09) Low: 400; intermediate: 475; high: 550; advanced: 625 To understand these differences qualitatively, I partitioned the schools within each country by school socio-economic status. Owing to the opportunities afforded by wealthier schools, it is not surprising that there is a prevalence of underachievement on the continent. As indicated in Table 3, at least 70% of schools in each of the countries offer services to poor pupils. The effect of this is reflected in the downward trend in achievement from mostly affluent, neither affluent nor disadvantaged, to mostly disadvantaged. Focusing on the continental average, we can see that attending a school in an affluent neighborhood might increase a students’ score by more than 40 points. Table 3: Country-level achievement relative to School composition by SES Mostly Affluent Neither Mostly Disadvantaged Country % Ach % Ach % Ach Morocco 7.08 (2.13) 457.89 (18.19) 13.35 (2.82) 392.76 (6.43) 79.57 (3.42) 380.35 (2.92) S Africa 10.09 (1.60) 462.77 (16.03) 12.94 (2.08) 412.65 (10.19) 76.97 (2.44) 379.34 (3.39) Egypt 11.44 (2.80) 430.50 (13.59) 19.07 (3.50) 418.42 (14.16) 69.49 (4.29) 403.06 (6.37) Total 9.53 (1.29) 450.39 (9.26) 15.12 (1.65) 407.94 (6.20) 75.34 (2.00) 387.58 (2.59) To further understand the nature of these differences within each country, I computed the achievement by gender. One of the motivations for this is the cultural cum religious heterogeneity that exist between the conservative North African countries of Egypt and Morocco, and South Africa. As contained in Fishbein et al. (2021), significance exists to the degree the t-statistic (p value) is either greater than 1.96 or less than -1.96 for the reference and comparison groups respectively. Apart from Egypt where significance was not reached, males outperform females in Morocco. The reverse occurred among South Africans where females significantly outperformed their male counterparts (see Table 4 and Figure 2). Table 4: Achievement differences by gender Ach Gender p Country (SE) F M Morrocco 388.19 (2.28) 385.72 (2.51) 390.67 (2.57) 2.21* S Africa 389.48 (2.27) 392.77 (2.42) 386.23 (2.54) -3.15* Egypt 412.88 (5.21) 419.90 (5.29) 404.52 (7.91) -1.89 Average 396.85 (2.04) 399.47 (2.11) 393.80 (2.90) *Significance at .05 While Table 2 and Figure 1 show glaring achievement differences among the three countries, it is not clear whether they are significant. To answer that, a between-country t-test was conducted. Results from Table 5 confirmed that the Egyptians perform significantly better than their Moroccan and South African counterparts. Students of Morocco and South Africa appear to have no significant difference in achievement scores (p=.05). Table 5: t -statistic of between-country mean differences in mathematics achievement Country 1 2 3 (1) Morocco .00 (2) S Africa .40 .00 (3) Egypt 4.34* 4.12* .00 *Significance at .05 Having found that the three countries are not entirely homogenous in terms of achievement, I now turn to investigate how they fare in the three motivational constructs. As Table 6 depicts, students tend to have less confidence in their mathematical ability than they do like or find mathematics useful in all the countries. As measured on the scales, none of them failed to meet the median threshold of 2.0 in any of the three variables, with the bulk of the perception of usefulness triumphing others in each country and across the continental average. Additionally, unlike with usefulness and interest, self-concept scores follow a rank order that is invariant to achievement. Table 6: Case summaries of interest, self-concept, and usefulness of mathematics by country Interest Concept Usefulness E M Z T E M Z T E M Z T Mean 3.10 3.05 3.05 3.07 2.82 2.67 2.45 2.65 3.35 3.37 3.46 3.39 SD .86 .79 .78 .81 .76 .70 .67 .71 .85 .76 .72 .78 Min 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 Max 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 E: Egypt; M: Morocco; Z: South Africa; T: Total Table 7 reports on the correlations between achievement and each of the motivational variables within the three countries which are all positive and significantly different from zero (.14 ≤ r ≤ .33; p<.01), with self-concept exerting the greatest amount. Table 7: Within-country predictor-achievement correlations Variable Self-concept Interest Usefulness Morocco .33** .25** .20** South Africa .28** .14** .21** Egypt .35** .24** .25** **Significance at .01 level (2-tailed) Multi-level analyses To better understand the results of the preceding section, I conducted hierarchical analyses. In accordance with the research questions, three models (Model 1 [M1], Model 2 [M2], and Model 3 [M3]) were created to capture achievement variability across student and school levels. These are the Unconditional Model (M1), Compositional/contextual effects model (M2), and the Means and slopes as outcome model (M3) respectively. M3 was especially useful for capturing both achievement and motivational variables at the country levels. The values of the fixed effect components and standard errors of each model are as shown in columns 2 (for M1), 3 (for M2), and 4 (for M3) under the Fixed effects (standard errors) header in Table 9 below. The parameters of focus at the student level for M2 and M3 are contained under the Intercept-slopes (β i ) header of Table 9 with the variance components of all three models stationed under the Variance components heading . Table 9: Fixed and random effects from multilevel models Fixed effects M1 coeff (SE) M2 coeff (SE) M3 coeff (SE) Initial status (β 0 ) Fixed effects (standard errors) Intercept ( γ 00 ) 403.60(1.88) 403.67(1.57) 397.97(1.64) Interest ( γ 01 ) -144.09(8.03) -127.59(8.40) Self-concept ( γ 02 ) 111.76(7.34) 113.219(8.70) Usefulness ( γ 03 ) 92.80(8.01) 80.82(8.57) Prop_Female ( γ 04 ) 10.53 + Sch_SES ( γ 05 ) 27.78 D_Egypt ( γ 06 ) -8.55 + D_SA ( γ 07 ) 41.42 D_Mar ( γ 08 ) -25.25 Intercept-slopes (β i ) Interest ( γ 10 ) 6.76(.52) D_Egy( γ 11 ) -.007 + D_SA( γ 12 ) -3.82 + D_MAR (γ 13 ) 2.80 + Prop_F( γ 14 ) -1.45 Sch_SES( γ 15 ) -1.06 + Self-concept ( γ 20 ) 25.11(.57) D_Egy( γ 21 ) .78 + D_SA γ( 22 ) 6.04 + D_MAR γ( 23 ) -5.11 + Prop_F( γ 24 ) 3.86 + Sch_SES( γ 25 ) 3.34 + Usefulness ( γ 30 ) 2.96(.50) D_Egy( γ 31 ) .94 + D_SA γ( 32 ) -.43 D_MAR (γ 33 ) -.21 + Prop_F( γ 34 ) -.06 + Sch_SES( γ 35 ) -1.27 + Variance components ICC 0.4698 R 2 L-1 0.1334 0.1559 + R 2 L-2 0.3101 0.4554 + + No significance at .001 RQ 1: what accounts for the variance that exists in achievement? Results of the unconditional model with achievement as the outcome variable shows an overall mean mathematics achievement of 403.60 (see column 2 in Table 9 above). This score is however distributed almost evenly among the students and schools indicating that African schools are significantly heterogenous. With an intraclass correlation (ICC) of 0.47, it implies that about 47% of the variance in students’ achievement owes to differences between the schools they attend, leaving approximately 53% of the variation to differences among the students. RQ 2: what is the relationship between achievement and interest, self-concept, and usefulness of mathematics at the (i) student (ii) school levels? The compositional effects model returned consistent results at the individual and group levels except for interest whose relationship with achievement was positive at the student level (β 10 = 6.76, p<.001). but negative at the school level (β 01 = -144.09, p<.001). A more consistent picture is evinced at the student level for all three motivational variables whose relationships with achievement were positive and statistically significant (self-concept: β 20 = 25.11, p<.001; usefulness: β 30 = 2.96, p<.001). As indicated, interest in mathematics leads to about 7-point increase and 144-point decrease in student and school achievement respectively. At both levels, a positive association exists between achievement and the perception of mathematics as a useful subject at a magnitude of approximately 3 and 93 points for the student and school. The pattern of relationship between self-concept and achievement is more robust. At both student (β 20 = 25.11, p<.001) and school (β 02 = 111.76, p<.001) levels, confidence in mathematics leads to achievement: a unit increase in confidence causes students’ achievement to go up by at least 25 points. The size was in excess of 111 points in schools. Compositional effects of interest ( γ 01 - γ 10 ), self-concept ( γ 02 - γ 20 ), and usefulness ( γ 03 - γ 30 ) return approximately -150, 87, and 90 points respectively suggesting the unique roles accrued to students by their membership in schools. While it is positive for self-concept and usefulness, schools tend to have a net negative influence on students’ achievement relative to their love of mathematics. Finally, although the inclusion of the three motivational and control variables explained 13.3% of L-1 achievement-variation, their means as predictors of school achievement explained an additional 57% relative to L-1 variance. RQ 3: Does s (i) gender (ii) school SES and (iii) country effect exist across the motivational variables and achievement? Based on the final model, it can be inferred that gender effect does not significantly exist except for interest (β 14 = -1.45, p<.001), implying that being a female decreases the chances of being interested in mathematics by about 1.5 points. In contrast, school affluence positively relates with mathematics achievement by at least 27 points (β 05 = 27.78, p<.001). The results, although mixed for the motivational variables, are not statistically different from zero. Furthermore, membership in countries also reflects mixed but interesting results across the outcome and independent variables. Unlike in Egypt, students in South Africa and Morocco are significantly impacted by their overall country achievement scores in the positive sense for the former (β 07 = 41.42, p<.001) and negatively for Morocco (β 08 = -25.25, p<.001). The only other country effect was recorded in usefulness within South Africa (β 32 = -.43, p<.001). In conclusion, the inclusion of the predictor variables in this model contributed 15.6% and 45.6% to the student and school-level variations in mathematics achievement respectively [1] . [1] All parameter and variance estimates are as contained in Table 9. Discussion Achievement differences exist irrespective of the unit of analysis, informing a need to further account for such occurrence (see Devine et al., 2012; Sarouphim & Chartouny, 2017; Shin et al., 2009),. Especially given how much these differences owe to factors that relate to opportunity to learn, tending to achievement disparities also follows the trail of equity (e.g., Forgasz & Rivera, 2012). But since most of those factors are not easily influenced by interventions, especially within the students and those who work closely with them, there has been a greater focus on understanding how malleable factors interplay with achievement (e.g., Jones et al., 2012). Following results of international comparative achievement, this paper focused on the achievement disparities of African countries that have for decades performed lower than their counterparts in other places of the world. I relied on data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (2019) to primarily examine the interplay between achievement of mathematics and motivational perceptions of interest, self-concept, and usefulness. Preliminary analyses confirmed the achievement gaps between African countries relative to international benchmarks as determined by the percentage of students with knowledge and applications of mathematical ideas to diverse situations (Pirls et al., 2020), with the continental achievement averaging less than 50% for the lowest cutoff. Across each of the participating countries, only Egypt recorded more than the continental average in that regard. To better situate this in perspective, 87%, 56%, 25%, and 5% of students met the low, intermediate, high, and advanced benchmarks globally (Pirls et al., 2020), an indication of African students relatively mediocre performance. One explanation for this was provided by parsing their achievement through school composition by socioeconomic background that showed that at about three-quarters of African eighth graders attend mostly disadvantaged schools. Furthermore, average achievement scores of schools at the middle and top positions both surpass the continental average and least benchmark cutoff. As intended, this study joins others (e.g., Reilly et al., 2019) that have investigated the influence of gender on achievement and motivation. Although the lack of significant gender difference in Egypt extends their finding of a closing, almost nonexistent gender gap, it nevertheless manifests in Morocco and South Africa. Similarly, recall that Wilkins (2004), as did Bofah and Hannula (2015) to some degree reported direct achievement-self-concept relations based on country achievement ranks which also existed in this study with the most achieving country, Egypt. Although self-concept holds almost parallel relationship with achievement across the countries, the association is strongest in the most achieving country (Egypt) and weakest in the least (South Africa) aligning with previous findings such as Wilkins (2014) and (Kadijevich, 2008). Unlike what Bofah and Hannula (2015) reported, a direct trend exists between self-concept and mathematics achievement among countries. Like the single-level statistics, several interesting results emanated from the multi-level analyses to either confirm or disconfirm previous findings, with the predictive capacity of self-concept being the most manifestation of the former (Kadijevich, 2008; Wilkins, 2004), and the latter manifesting in its country-level relationship with achievement (Wilkins, 2004). Furthermore, the insignificant country effects on the motivational variables (except usefulness in SA) joins the long trail of others such as Wilkins’ (2014) self-concept in South Africa. Also in alignment with previous studies is the positive effect of school socio-economic status on school average mathematics achievement (Ersan & Rodriguez, 2020). In conclusion, the frame of reference effect (Marsh et al., 1987) appears not to be influential going by the overall student and school-level data of self-concept slopes contrary to Bofah and Hannula (2015). While the same can be gleaned for usefulness, the positive and negative slopes for interest at the student and school levels suggest the existence of the effect. Declarations Ethical Approval: not applicable Funding: not applicable Availability of Data and Materials: The data for this study can be accessed online for free at https://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss-landing.html Conflict of Interest Statement: The author has no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. References Awofala, A. O., Olaguro, M., Fatade, A. O., & Arigbabu, A. A. (2024). Learning engagement as a predictor of performance in mathematics among Nigerian senior secondary school students. International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education , 32 (3). https://doi.org/10.30722/IJISME.32.03.004 Bofah, E. A. tutu, & Hannula, M. S. (2015). TIMSS data in an African comparative perspective: Investigating the factors influencing achievement in mathematics and their psychometric properties. Large-Scale Assessments in Education , 3 (1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40536-015-0014-y Bong, M., & Skaalvik, E. M. (2002). Academic Self-Concept and Self-Efficacy: How Different Are They Really? In Educational Psychology Review (Vol. 18, Issue 1). Devine, A., Fawcett, K., Szucs, D., & Dowker, A. (2012). Gender differences in mathematics anxiety and the relation to mathematics performance while controlling for test anxiety. Behavioral and Brain Functions , 8 . https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-9081-8-33 Eccles, J. S., & Wigfield, A. (2020). From expectancy-value theory to situated expectancy-value theory: A developmental, social cognitive, and sociocultural perspective on motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology , 61 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101859 Ersan, O., & Rodriguez, M. C. (2020). Socioeconomic status and beyond: a multilevel analysis of TIMSS mathematics achievement given student and school context in Turkey. Large-Scale Assessments in Education , 8 (1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40536-020-00093-y Fishbein, B., Foy, P., & Yin, L. (2021). TIMSS 2019 USER GUIDE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DATABASE 2 nd Edition Guide for the International Database, 2 nd Edition . Forgasz, H., & Rivera, F. (2012). Towards equity in mathematics education . www.springer.com/series/8392 Froiland, J. M., & Worrell, F. C. (2016). Intrinsic motivation, learning goals, engagement, and achievement in a diverse high school. Psychology in the Schools , 53 (3), 321–336. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.21901 Graham, S. (2020). An attributional theory of motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology , 61 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101861 Jones, B. D. (2018). Motivating students by design : practical strategies for professors . Jones, B. D., Wilkins, J. L. M., Long, M. H., & Wang, F. (2012). Testing a motivational model of achievement: How students’ mathematical beliefs and interests are related to their achievement. European Journal of Psychology of Education , 27 (1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-011-0062-9 Kadijevich, D. (2008). TIMSS 2003: Relating dimensions of mathematics attitude to mathematics achievement. Zbornik Instituta Za Pedagoska Istrazivanja , 40 (2), 327–346. https://doi.org/10.2298/ZIPI0802327K Kirkham, J., & Chapman, E. (2022). Gender, achievement level and sociocultural factors in the mathematics course choices of Year 10 students in Western Australia. Australian Educational Researcher , 49 (1), 97–114. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-020-00425-5 Lee, J., & Chen, M. (2019). Cross-country predictive validities of non-cognitive variables for mathematics achievement: Evidence based on TIMSS 2015. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education , 15 (8). https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/106230 Linn, M. C., Lewis, C., Tsuchida, I., & Songer, N. B. (2000). Beyond Fourth-Grade Science: Why Do U.S. and Japanese Students Diverge? Educational Researcher , 29 (3), 4–14. Marsh, H. W., Ball, S., Barnes, J., Debus, R., Myers, M., Shavelson, R., & Spearritt, D. (1987). The Big-Fish-Little-Pond Effect on Academic Self-Concept. In Journal of Educational Psychology (Vol. 79, Issue 3). Marsh. Mejía-Rodríguez, A. M., Luyten, H., & Meelissen, M. R. M. (2021). Gender Differences in Mathematics Self-concept Across the World: an Exploration of Student and Parent Data of TIMSS 2015. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education , 19 (6), 1229–1250. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-020-10100-x Middleton, J. A., & Spanias, P. A. (1999). Motivation for Achievement in Mathematics: Findings, Generalizations, and Criticisms of the Research. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education , 30 (1), 65–88. https://www.jstor.org/stable/749630?seq=1&cid=pdf- Olaguro, M., Kuku, O., Olafare, F. O., & Adeyanju, O. L. (2019). Evaluation of mobile learning digital game for teaching numeracy to adult learners in Lagos State. Conference Proceedings of the AITIE 3rd International Conference and Workshop on Innovation, Technology and Education (ICWITE) , 152–162. Ozen, S. O. (2017). The effect of motivation on student achievement. In The Factors Effecting Student Achievement: Meta-Analysis of Empirical Studies (pp. 35–56). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56083-0_3 Pirls, T. &, Mullis, I. V. S., Martin, M. O., Foy, P., Kelly, D. L., & Fishbein, B. (2020). HIGHLIGHTS . Reilly, D., Neumann, D. L., & Andrews, G. (2019). Investigating Gender Differences in Mathematics and Science: Results from the 2011 Trends in Mathematics and Science Survey. Research in Science Education , 49 (1), 25–50. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-017-9630-6 Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology , 61 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101860 Sarouphim, K. M., & Chartouny, M. (2017). Mathematics education in Lebanon: gender differences in attitudes and achievement. Educational Studies in Mathematics , 94 (1), 55–68. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-016-9712-9 Schöber, C., Schütte, K., Köller, O., McElvany, N., & Gebauer, M. M. (2018). Reciprocal effects between self-efficacy and achievement in mathematics and reading. Learning and Individual Differences , 63 , 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2018.01.008 Schoenfeld, A. H. (1983). Beyond the Purely Cognitive: Belief Systems, Social Cognitions, and Metacognitions As Driving Forces in Intellectual Performance*. Cognitive Science , 7 (4), 329–363. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog0704_3 Sengul, U. (2015). Factors affecting the Mathematics achievement of Turkish students in PISA 2012. Educational Research and Reviews , 10 (12), 1670–1678. https://doi.org/10.5897/err2014.2067 Shen, C. (2002). Revisiting the relationship between students’ achievement and their self-perceptions: A cross-national analysis based on TIMSS 1999 data. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice , 9 (2), 161–184. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969594022000001913 Shin, J., Lee, H., & Kim, Y. (2009). Student and school factors affecting mathematics achievement: International comparisons between Korea, Japan and the USA. School Psychology International , 30 (5), 520–537. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034309107070 Siegler, R. S., Duncan, G. J., Davis-Kean, P. E., Duckworth, K., Claessens, A., Engel, M., Susperreguy, M. I., & Chen, M. (2012). Early Predictors of High School Mathematics Achievement. Psychological Science , 23 (7), 691–697. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612440101 Stankov, L. (2010). Unforgiving Confucian culture: A breeding ground for high academic achievement, test anxiety and self-doubt? Learning and Individual Differences , 20 (6), 555–563. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2010.05.003 Taylor, G., Jungert, T., Mageau, G. A., Schattke, K., Dedic, H., Rosenfield, S., & Koestner, R. (2014). A self-determination theory approach to predicting school achievement over time: The unique role of intrinsic motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology , 39 (4), 342–358. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2014.08.002 Webster, B. J., & Fisher, D. L. (2000). Accounting for variation in science and mathematics achievement: A multilevel analysis of Australian data third international mathematics and science study (TIMSS). School Effectiveness and School Improvement , 11 (3), 339–360. https://doi.org/10.1076/0924-3453(200009)11:3;1-G;FT339 Wilkins, J. L. M. (2004). Mathematics and science self-concept: An international investigation. Journal of Experimental Education , 72 (4), 331–346. https://doi.org/10.3200/JEXE.72.4.331-346 Winberg, M., & Palm, T. (2021). Antecedents and Relative Importance of Student Motivation for Science and Mathematics Achievement in TIMSS. Frontiers in Education , 6 . https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.575926 Živković, M., Pellizzoni, S., Doz, E., Cuder, A., Mammarella, I., & Passolunghi, M. C. (2023). Math self-efficacy or anxiety? The role of emotional and motivational contribution in math performance. Social Psychology of Education , 26 (3), 579–601. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-023-09760-8 Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4835055","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":335150178,"identity":"a833e15c-4801-42f1-8280-1d193141d53d","order_by":0,"name":"Modiu Olaguro","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAtElEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDACdgglByZ5iNLCDKGMGdhI1ZLYQLQWfmbmx69599ikb7jfwPjgbRsRWiSb2cyseZ6l5W44xsBsOJcYLQaHGcyMeQ4czp3ZxsAmzUucFvZvIC3pkm0M7L+J1MJj/BioJYGfjYGNmSgtks08ZYxzDqQZ9rMlNkvOOUeEFn729s0f3hywkWdjPnzww5syIrQAAZsEhGZsIE49EDB/IFrpKBgFo2AUjEwAAFfeLrrIltzDAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0009-0001-6871-8700","institution":"Virginia Tech","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Modiu","middleName":"","lastName":"Olaguro","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-07-31 11:23:38","currentVersionCode":2,"declarations":{"humanSubjects":false,"vertebrateSubjects":false,"conflictsOfInterestStatement":false,"humanSubjectEthicalGuidelines":false,"humanSubjectConsent":false,"humanSubjectClinicalTrial":false,"humanSubjectCaseReport":false,"vertebrateSubjectEthicalGuidelines":false},"doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4835055/v2","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4835055/v2","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":62483836,"identity":"51015383-e372-49b3-a5aa-1a14d67bf2c7","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-08-14 17:42:52","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":16704,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eBar charts showing achievement of students in Morocco, South Africa, and Egypt\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4835055/v2/ca27997c789a97ec3d46d992.png"},{"id":62483835,"identity":"600d801b-0f38-4273-a378-31eb4d2c4e22","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-08-14 17:42:52","extension":"png","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":24302,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eBar charts showing achievement of males and females in Morocco, South Africa, and Egypt\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"2.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4835055/v2/7408c6ff675346fde383e1ee.png"},{"id":62484652,"identity":"de5dccba-e7f2-4c9b-a454-29f8348c63c6","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-08-14 17:50:52","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":974813,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4835055/v2/72906802-4567-46d1-aa72-870de6e00c6d.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"The authors declare no competing interests.","formattedTitle":"\u003cp\u003eA motivational account of achievement differences in mathematics using TIMSS data: an African focus.\u003c/p\u003e","fulltext":[{"header":"Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe success of students as operationalized by performance either on teacher-made tests or achievement in high stakes assessments has elicited a rave of conversations over the latent and manifest factors that account for the differences between them (Awofala et al., 2024). Nowhere are these accounts of achievement differences as important as Africa where students have consistently demonstrated lower than expected results in comparative studies. For example, in a ranking of 41 participating countries in TIMSS 2003, Wilkins\u0026nbsp;(2004)\u0026nbsp;found student and country-level achievement gaps of 145 and 144 points between overall scores and those of African eighth graders obtained from South Africa. Occupying the last position, it fell a whopping 241 points below students in Korea (1\u003csup\u003est\u003c/sup\u003e). In an earlier cycle, achievement gaps were also striking with South Africa giving up the last position for Morocco, pitching them in the 37\u003csup\u003eth\u003c/sup\u003e and 38\u003csup\u003eth\u003c/sup\u003e place respectively\u0026nbsp;(Shen, 2002). A similar pattern is observed in the most recent TIMSS data, with Egypt (53\u003csup\u003erd\u003c/sup\u003e), South Africa (57\u003csup\u003eth\u003c/sup\u003e), and Morrocco (58\u003csup\u003eth\u003c/sup\u003e) trailing Singapore (1\u003csup\u003est\u003c/sup\u003e) by 203, 227, and 228 points.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLodged within this is an understanding that being agentic individuals as well as members of classrooms, schools, and citizens of distinct countries, student achievement in mathematics is contingent upon influences located within as well as without. Owing to this, researchers have put this understanding to use, informing a multitude of variables that have been enlisted to explain the criterion and normative categorizations of students by achievement results. To this end, salient themes have emanated and put into factors that are either domiciled within the student (e.g., Kirkham \u0026amp; Chapman, 2022), teacher\u0026nbsp;(e.g., Bofah \u0026amp; Hannula, 2015), school\u0026nbsp;(e.g., Shin et al., 2009), or nature of instructional resource/intervention\u0026nbsp;(Olaguro et al., 2019). Especially with reports on international assessments, these accounts have found convincing reasons to believe in the potential of students\u0026rsquo; achievement to be influenced both by the structures and cultures of the immediate and wider community\u0026nbsp;(e.g., Stankov, 2010), acting, indicating, and interacting reflexively with one another.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSuch factors within the students have been stated to include gender\u0026nbsp;(Kirkham \u0026amp; Chapman, 2022; Mej\u0026iacute;a-Rodr\u0026iacute;guez et al., 2021), age\u0026nbsp;(Wilkins, 2004), socioeconomic status\u0026nbsp;(Ersan \u0026amp; Rodriguez, 2020), study expectations\u0026nbsp;(Winberg \u0026amp; Palm, 2021), achievement history (Ma, 1996) and a commitment to further studies which was particularly found to have the most influence on achievement in Ghana, Botswana, South Africa, Egypt, and Morocco\u0026nbsp;(Bofah \u0026amp; Hannula, 2015). Researchers have also relied on findings from school characteristics to explain the rationale for differences in student achievement. In one of those studies,\u0026nbsp;Lee and Chen (2019)\u0026nbsp;found bullying and sense of belonging as holding varying relationships with achievement in Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa. Other factors outside of the students\u0026rsquo; control include the school\u0026rsquo;s socio-economic status, readiness, and quality of instruction\u0026nbsp;(Ersan \u0026amp; Rodriguez, 2020), school location\u0026nbsp;(Webster \u0026amp; Fisher, 2000), curricula coherence\u0026nbsp;(Linn et al., 2000), teachers\u0026rsquo; responsiveness\u0026nbsp;(Bofah \u0026amp; Hannula, 2015)\u0026nbsp;and expressing belief in student\u0026rsquo;s ability\u0026nbsp;(Winberg \u0026amp; Palm, 2021). This line of research has also reinforced the place of the home environment in the achievement profiles of students, touching on learning resources\u0026nbsp;(Winberg \u0026amp; Palm, 2021), parents\u0026rsquo; education and involvement\u0026nbsp;(Bofah \u0026amp; Hannula, 2015), attitudes and expectations\u0026nbsp;(Mej\u0026iacute;a-Rodr\u0026iacute;guez et al., 2021).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile not discounting the value in identifying and quantifying the basis for achievement differences, many of these variables are either not within the students\u0026rsquo; spheres of influence, or the reach of the individuals (e.g., teacher) and institutions (e.g., school) with direct touch on both short- and long-term students\u0026rsquo; success. Against the backdrop that the affect drives the intellect\u0026nbsp;(Schoenfeld, 1983), certain noncognitive variables have become prominent in this regard. Consequently, some researchers have sought to explain achievement differences via state-like affective constructs (Middleton et al., 2017) whose malleability offers more pedagogical implications for individuals as well as groups that work closely and make decisions that directly impact students\u0026rsquo; outcomes. Prominent among these variables have been attitudes\u0026nbsp;(Kadijevich, 2008; Webster \u0026amp; Fisher, 2000), anxiety\u0026nbsp;(Sengul, 2015; Winberg \u0026amp; Palm, 2021), interest\u0026nbsp;(Lee \u0026amp; Chen, 2019), self-concept\u0026nbsp;(Wilkins, 2004), and usefulness of mathematics\u0026nbsp;(Winberg \u0026amp; Palm, 2021).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough the studies have sought various means of explaining achievement disparities, they have mostly been restricted to western countries or taken a holistic look at the data. The few ones that have focused solely on Africa have not gone beyond establishing correlational relationships between the motivational variables and achievement, leaving out other key findings such as the slopes that convey directions like correlations does, as well as provide their relative contributions within control conditions. For example, in Shen (2002), the negative association between the duo of interest and self-concept and achievement were based on country-level aggregated analyses of the almost 40 participating countries. Similarly, Bofah and Hannula\u0026rsquo;s (2015) focus was on the psychometric features of the motivational variables within the African population viz-z-viz the direction and strengths of relationships among, and with achievement. With many of these studies returning significant relationships, it becomes a matter of interest to want to know the precise magnitude of the self-concept, usefulness, and interest parameters relative to achievement at different units of analyses.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Theoretical Background","content":"\u003ch2\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMotivation and Students\u0026rsquo; Achievement\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe prominence of research on students\u0026rsquo; mathematical achievement within the motivational lens owes to the latter\u0026rsquo;s conception as a measure of the degree an individual intends to engage in quantitative situations (Jones, 2018). Following the multitude of factors underlying achievement both within and outside of an individual (Siegler et al., 2012), accounting for students\u0026rsquo; achievement within the motivational framework maps into a parallel understanding of motivation as driven by forces within and without (Ryan \u0026amp; Deci, 2020), influencing cognitive outcomes through the intentionality that underpins students\u0026rsquo; choice, latency, and persistence in mathematics (Graham, 2020). To this end, a near-consensus exists in the literature that motivation plays crucial roles in students\u0026rsquo; achievement (Middleton \u0026amp; Spanias, 1999). This has informed a plethora of studies that have found justifications for explaining achievement differences based on variations in students\u0026rsquo; levels of motivation (Wilkins, 2004; Winberg \u0026amp; Palm, 2021).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn implementing this, researchers have masked motivation within finer-grained constructs that capture the foundational principle determining an intent to engage with mathematics, returning findings that have placed such motivational proxies like engagement (Awofala et al., 2024), enjoyment (Živković et al., 2023), self-efficacy (Sch\u0026ouml;ber et al., 2018), and the self-determination taxonomies of amotivation, extrinsic, and intrinsic (Taylor et al., 2014) at influential roles for cognitive outcomes. For example, Ozen\u0026rsquo;s (2017) meta-analysis study of 205 published works on the motivation-achievement relation over a 6-year period found low to medium effect of motivation on students\u0026rsquo; achievement across individual and collectivist societies. Suggestive of the affinity between them, motivation played a greater role in students\u0026rsquo; achievement in mathematics than in reading, science, and the aggregate academic measure. In another study, Sch\u0026ouml;ber et al. (2018) affirmed the findings of Ozen in all but the strength of association relative to English/language, informing their conclusion that a stronger motivation-achievement relationship in mathematics owes to perceived difficulty of the subject. More recently, Živković et al. (2023) parsed motivation into enjoyment and self-efficacy returning significant positive associations with achievement.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe overwhelming evidence for the role of motivation in accounting for achievement differences in mathematics owes to the proclivity of motivated students to engage in effortful situations requiring significant intellectual capital (Froiland \u0026amp; Worrell, 2016) and perform personalized, self-assessments in relation to set goals (Middleton \u0026amp; Spanias, 1999) that underscore making informed attributions on achievement outcomes (Graham, 2020).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAchievement within the Motivation Triad\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough motivational variables are not solely responsible for students\u0026rsquo; achievement, they are arguably the most influential. Informed by the need to make lasting improvements in students\u0026rsquo; achievement, these variables, more than any, have been reckoned to lend themselves to influential tendencies. In pursuit of this, Ersan and Rodriguez included malleable factors (e.g., interest) into their model even as they found that \u0026ldquo;SES at both student and school levels is a dominant factor related to mathematics achievement and a much stronger predictor at the school level\u0026rdquo; (2020, p. 1). Relatedly, Winberg and Palm\u0026rsquo;s (2021) study of 300 variables that were hypothesized to account for achievement differences magnified the fundamental roles of students\u0026rsquo; self-concept, interest, and usefulness. Perhaps a consequence of their multicollinear nature, they found that these variables better function as a collective rather than isolated predictors of achievement. In particular, the affinity between interest and usefulness owes to the commonality that exists between them as value-laden constructs, differing but marginally (Eccles \u0026amp; Wigfield, 2020).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe theoretical basis for self-concept in the explication of achievement differences owes to its potential to foster \u0026ldquo;engagement, goal-setting, task choice, persistence and effort, intrinsic motivation, strategy use, performance and achievement, and even career selection\u0026rdquo; (Bong \u0026amp; Skaalvik, 2002, p. 7), a reality that has found strong footing in empirical studies both in isolation and within a set of competing influences across the motivational, social, and economic spectra. In his study of attitudes as a composite of self-concept, interest, and usefulness of mathematics, Kadijevich (2008) found that self-concept holds a positive relationship with achievement in all the countries at a range of magnitude between 25% in Belgium to 61% in Korea. Results from the African representation was captured at 33% and 44% for Morocco and Tunisia respectively.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile this pattern is retained in most studies (e.g., Lee \u0026amp; Chen, 2019; Wilkins, 2004), within-country analyses offer valuable insights into the nature of this relationship. A case in point is Wilkins (2004) and Lee and Chen (2019) whose analyses confirmed between-country variations in self-concept but found parallels in the strengths of their associations by achievement scores. Like them, Bofah and Hannula (2015), restricting their analyses to African countries also communicated similar findings. An affirmation of the big-fish-little-pond effect (Marsh et al., 1987), both studies found the strength of association between self-concept and achievement as a function of relative position. Surprisingly, this not only occurred at the global level where vivid achievement differences existed, but within low achieving countries. As recorded, global high achievers like Asian countries (e.g., Korea; r = .46) and least achievers (e.g., South Africa; r = .00) had strong and weak associations between self-concept and achievement respectively. Within Africa, the top achieving nation, Tunisia and the least, South Africa also had the strongest and weakest self-concept-achievement relationship.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough interest does not contribute as much as self-concept in explaining achievement differences among learners at different units of analyses, it nevertheless has proven to have a formidable influence especially given how inextricable it is with self-concept. Advancing this point, Bong and Skaalvik wrote that \u0026ldquo;there exist different views among researchers regarding whether academic self-concept also includes emotional reactions to the tasks such as interest, enjoyment, and satisfaction. Some regard these as part of self-concept, whereas others consider them a distinct construct\u0026rdquo; \u0026nbsp;(2002, p. 7). In what could be a demonstration of the former, a host of researchers have found affinity between findings involving both variables.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor example, amidst country-level variations between self-concept, interest, usefulness, teacher responsiveness, and parental involvement, Bofah and Hannula (2015) found the strongest correlation between the first pair across five African nations although achievement correlated with interest less than it did with self-concept and usefulness. Like self-concept, interest of mathematics (1.5) was the only predictor of achievement above the mean (1.1), with students\u0026rsquo; interest of biology, physics, and chemistry predicting their achievement by 1.0, 0.9, and 0.9 points respectively (Winberg \u0026amp; Palm, 2021). Offering more specificity in the relationship, Ersan and Rodriguez (2020) found that students\u0026rsquo; interest of mathematics positively influenced their achievement by at least 13 points. With engagement playing a mediating role, such predictive tendency of the positive kind was also recorded by Froiland and Worrell (2016) in their study of African American and Latino high school students.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut students that like mathematics have also been found to perform below their counterparts that do not. As reported by Kadijevich (2008), such relationship was found in 30 out of 33 countries enrolled in TIMSS (2003), with many of those having positive associations occupying magnitudes close to zero (e.g., Macedonia, 0.05; Chile, 0.10). The dislike of mathematics by African students may also be a pointer to their low achievement. As Bofah and Hannula (2015) indicated, not only did all five African countries performed below the international benchmarks, but they were also unanimous in their dislike of mathematics and their view of it as having little use.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUsefulness pertains to the relevance of mathematics. Although this understanding is obvious given the prioritization of mathematics within school subjects and across professional training programs, it should not be surprising that such perception may not be so obvious to young learners who are for the most part unsure of how well mathematics \u0026ldquo;fits into an individual\u0026rsquo;s present or future plans\u0026rdquo; (Eccles \u0026amp; Wigfield, 2020, p. 5). Unsurprisingly, the utility value of mathematics was mostly predicted by the extent learning is related to students\u0026rsquo; lives (Winberg \u0026amp; Palm, 2021). Kadijevich (2008) followed this in relation to achievement, returning with positive associations in 12% of participating countries, implying that achievement differences alternate between a lack or negative influence in majority of countries. Although usefulness appears to hold zero relationship with achievement in many global studies, such trend is largely reversed within the African continent especially in non-Arab countries where achievement correlated more strongly with students\u0026rsquo; perception of mathematics as a useful endeavor than self-concept (Bofah \u0026amp; Hannula, 2015). The basis for students\u0026rsquo; perception of self-concept, interest, and usefulness sits at the intersection of the demonstrated potential of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to influence cognitive outcomes (Ryan \u0026amp; Deci, 2020), offering justifications for making causal inferences across academic and non-academic fields of study.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Current Study\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe purpose of this study is to investigate the achievement of African eighth grade students as a unit relative to the influences of motivational and control factors. These motivational influences include their interest, self-concept, and the extent they find mathematics useful. Given the evidence from literature that motivational factors drive achievement, the study hypothesizes that all three variables would be positively associated with achievement. A similar expectation will be made for the relationship between SES and achievement. I also hypothesize that gender differences will exist by region in favor of the males in North Africa and females in South Africa. In brief, the study hopes to find answers to these research questions:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eWhat accounts for the variance that exists in achievement?\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eWhat is the relationship between achievement and interest, self-concept, and usefulness of mathematics at the (i) student (ii) school levels?\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eDoes (i) gender (ii) School SES and (iii) country effect exist across the motivational variables and achievement?\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"},{"header":"Method","content":"\u003ch2\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eData\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe data from this study were drawn from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS, 2019). Although several countries participated in the study across fourth and eighth grades, this research is focused on eighth grade students in the three participating countries in Africa: Egypt, Morrocco, and South Africa. A total of 36, 441 students nested in 945 schools participated in the study. Among them were 52.6% females and 47.4% males. South Africa had the most representation with 20, 786 students nested within 520 schools followed by Morocco with 8, 456 students in 251; and Egypt who had 7, 199 students in 174 schools. Although several data were obtained from the participants, this study is restricted to three motivational variables (self-concept, interest, usefulness), gender, socioeconomic status, and achievement.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https://myfiles.space/user_files/58854_b38fc7f3db2c487f/58854_custom_files/img1723656944.png\" width=\"973\" height=\"205\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMeasures\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eLevel-1\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSelf-concept:\u0026nbsp; the average of nine items made up this construct (e.g., \u003cem\u003eI usually do well in mathematics\u003c/em\u003e).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUsefulness: the average of nine items made up the usefulness construct (e.g., \u003cem\u003eI think learning mathematics will help me in my daily life\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInterest: the average of nine items made up the interest construct (e.g., \u003cem\u003eI enjoy learning mathematics\u003c/em\u003e). Responses from all three motivational items were measured via a 4-point Likert scale on this range: 4 (agree a lot), 3 (agree a little), 2 (disagree a little), to 1(disagree a lot). Negative items were also re-coded so that higher position on the scale reflected positive level of agreement.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGender: dummy variables 0 and 1 represent male and female respectively.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAchievement: achievement was based on the average of five separate computations per plausible value as recommended by\u0026nbsp;Fishbein et al. (2021). The items whose aggregate scores comprised the achievement measure cover four content areas (number, algebra, geometry, and data/probability) and three cognitive domains (knowing, applying, and reasoning).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eLevel-2\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMean Interest: created by averaging the interest within each school.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMean Self-concept: created by averaging the self-concept within each school.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMean Usefulness: created by averaging the usefulness within each school.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSchool SES: this measure was based upon the three-point school composition by socio-economic background scale ranging from more affluent (1) to more disadvantaged (3). The scale was reverse coded so that higher values reflected more economic advantage.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eProp_Female: dummy of 1 represented proportion of females in the school or country.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCountry: three dummy variables (D_Egypt, D_SA, and D_MAR) represented the individual countries.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMean Achievement: obtained by averaging students\u0026rsquo; achievement across separate estimations of the plausible values in each school.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAnalytic Plan\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe qualitative differences in the formulated research questions necessitate different analytic pathways. Three models were created to cater for each research question. The first analytic plan is the \u003cem\u003eUnconditional Model\u003c/em\u003e (Model 1) to explain variability in the outcome variable (achievement). For this reason, no predictor was included. In addition, three parameters were of relevance in the result of this model: \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e00\u003c/sub\u003e which is overall true mean mathematics achievement and the two variance components (\u0026sigma;\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e: individual deviation from school mean/unique effect of student \u003cem\u003ei\u003c/em\u003e in school \u003cem\u003ej\u003c/em\u003e; \u0026tau;\u003csub\u003e00\u003c/sub\u003e: unique effect of school \u003cem\u003ej\u003c/em\u003e). The proportion, \u0026tau;\u003csub\u003e00/\u003c/sub\u003e \u0026tau;\u003csub\u003e00\u003c/sub\u003e+ \u0026sigma;\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e gave an estimate of the intraclass correlation (correlation of student scores in the same school/percentage of variance in mathematics achievement that lies between schools).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLevel-1 Model\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eACHIEVEM\u003csub\u003eij\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e = \u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e0j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e + \u003cem\u003er\u003csub\u003eij\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLevel-2 Model\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e0j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e = \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e00\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e + \u003cem\u003eu\u003csub\u003e0j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMixed Model\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u003cem\u003eACHIEVEM\u003csub\u003eij\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e = \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e00\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\u0026nbsp; + \u003cem\u003eu\u003csub\u003e0j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e+ \u003cem\u003er\u003csub\u003eij\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith the \u003cem\u003eCompositional/contextual effects model\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e(Model 2), the three predictor variables and their means were composed at the first and second levels. Through this model, the predictors-outcome relationships were determined. The relevant parameters are: \u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e1j\u003c/sub\u003e, change in student achievement by a unit change in interest; \u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e2j\u003c/sub\u003e: change in student achievement by a unit change in self-concept; and \u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e3j\u003c/sub\u003e: change in student achievement by a unit change in usefulness. The model also quantifies the true student and school-level relationships between the predictor and outcome variables. The six parameters in this regard include \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e10\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003eand \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e01\u003c/sub\u003e, between achievement and interest; \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e20\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003eand \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e02\u003c/sub\u003e, between achievement and self-concept; and \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e30\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003eand \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e03\u003c/sub\u003e, between achievement and usefulness\u0026mdash;at the student and school levels respectively. The difference in each pair was used to determine the compositional or contextual effect estimates. Specifically, interest (\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e01\u003c/sub\u003e - \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e10\u003c/sub\u003e)\u003csub\u003e,\u003c/sub\u003e self-concept (\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e02\u003c/sub\u003e \u0026ndash; \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e20\u003c/sub\u003e), and usefulness (\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e03\u003c/sub\u003e \u0026ndash; \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e30\u003c/sub\u003e). Finally, the level-1 and level-2 variance parameters were used to quantify the amount of variation due to the predictors at each level.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLevel-1 Model\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u003cem\u003eACHIEVEM\u003csub\u003eij\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e = \u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e0j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e + \u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e1j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eINTEREST\u003csub\u003eij\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e2j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eSELF_CON\u003csub\u003eij\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e3j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eUSEFULNE\u003csub\u003eij\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003er\u003csub\u003eij\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLevel-2 Model\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e0j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e = \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e00\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e01\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eINTEREST\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e02\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eSELF_CON\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e03\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eUSEFULNE\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003eu\u003csub\u003e0j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e1j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e = \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e10\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e2j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e = \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e20\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e3j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e = \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e30\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eModel 3 is the \u003cem\u003eMeans and slopes as outcome model\u003c/em\u003e aimed at ascertaining the effects of gender, school SES, and country on the motivational and achievement variables. The parameters relevant to answer the questions are \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e02\u003c/sub\u003e, country effect; \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e04\u003c/sub\u003e, gender effect; and \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e05,\u003c/sub\u003e school SES effect\u0026mdash;on achievement. Unique effects of these control variables on the predictors were also included. They are \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e11\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e(Egypt),\u003csub\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e12\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e(South Africa), and \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e13\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e(Morocco)\u0026mdash;country effect; \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e14\u003c/sub\u003e, gender effect; and \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e15\u003c/sub\u003e, school SES effect on interest. For self-concept, they include \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e21\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e(Egypt),\u003csub\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e22\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e(South Africa), and \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e23\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e(Morocco)\u0026mdash;country effect; \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e24\u003c/sub\u003e, gender effect; and \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e25\u003c/sub\u003e, school SES effect. Finally, \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e31\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e(Egypt),\u003csub\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e32\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e(South Africa), and \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e33\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e(Morocco)\u0026mdash;represent country, gender (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e34\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e), and school SES (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e35\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) effect on usefulness respectively. The variance components also came handy in determining the amount of achievement variations due to the predictors at the student (R\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e\u003csub\u003eL-1\u003c/sub\u003e)\u003csub\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003eand school (R\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e\u003csub\u003eL-2\u003c/sub\u003e)\u003csub\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003elevels.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLevel-1 Model\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u003cem\u003eACH\u003csub\u003eij\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e = \u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e0j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e + \u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e1j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eINTEREST\u003csub\u003eij\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e2j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eSELF_CON\u003csub\u003eij\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e3j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eUSEFULNE\u003csub\u003eij\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003er\u003csub\u003eij\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLevel-2 Model\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e0j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e = \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e00\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e01\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eCONCEPT\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e02\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eD_COUNTRY\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e03\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eINTEREST\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e04\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003ePROP_FEM\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e+ \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e05\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eSES_SCHO\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e06\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eUSEFULNE\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003eu\u003csub\u003e0j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e1j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e = \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e10\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e11\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eCONCEPT\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e12\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eD_COUNTRY\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e13\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eINTEREST\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e14\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003ePROP_FEM\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e+ \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e15\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eSES_SCHO\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e16\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eUSEFULNE\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003eu\u003csub\u003e1j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e2j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e = \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e20\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e21\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eCONCEPT\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e22\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eD_COUNTRY\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e23\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eINTEREST\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e24\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003ePROP_FEM\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e+ \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e25\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eSES_SCHO\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e26\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eUSEFULNE\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003eu\u003csub\u003e2j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e3j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e = \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e30\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e31\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eCONCEPT\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e32\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eD_COUNTRY\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e33\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eINTEREST\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e34\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003ePROP_FEM\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e+ \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e35\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eSES_SCHO\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e36\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e*(\u003cem\u003eUSEFULNE\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) + \u003cem\u003eu\u003csub\u003e3j\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Results","content":"\u003ch2\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSingle-level Analyses\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe single level analyses feature both descriptive and inferential statistics with graphical accompaniments. Given that this study was inspired by the achievement differences that exist among students of different countries, the first table presents the percentage of students in Morocco, South Africa, and Egypt that met the four benchmarking cutoffs. As is shown in Table 2, across all countries, less than 1% of students reached the advanced level. Except for Egypt, more than half of them failed to meet the lowest cutoff point. Aggregating the results over the three countries indicate that the continent of Africa struggles to attain even the least benchmark.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eTable 2: Within-country achievement by international benchmarks\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable style=\"width:439.8pt;border-collapse:collapse;border:none;\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-right: none;border-bottom: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"4\" style=\"border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;text-align:center;'\u003eBenchmarks (%)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eCountry\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eLow\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(SE)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eInter\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(SE)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eHigh\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(SE)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eAdv\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(SE)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eMorocco\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e41.22\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(1.22)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e11.62\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(.87)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e1.94\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(.37)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.12\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(.07)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eS Africa\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e40.77\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(1.26)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e13.15\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(.69)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e3.18\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(.30)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.56\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(.09)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eEgypt\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e55.43\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.28\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e26.84\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(1.69)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e7.31\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(1.08)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e0.88\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(25)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eTotal\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e45.81\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(.96)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e17.20\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(.75)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e4.14\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(.39)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 27.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.52\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(.09)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u003cem\u003eLow: 400; intermediate: 475; high: 550; advanced: 625\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo understand these differences qualitatively, I partitioned the schools within each country by school socio-economic status. Owing to the opportunities afforded by wealthier schools, it is not surprising that there is a prevalence of underachievement on the continent. As indicated in Table 3, at least 70% of schools in each of the countries offer services to poor pupils. The effect of this is reflected in the downward trend in achievement from mostly affluent, neither affluent nor disadvantaged, to mostly disadvantaged. Focusing on the continental average, we can see that attending a school in an affluent neighborhood might increase a students\u0026rsquo; score by more than 40 points.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eTable 3: Country-level achievement relative to School composition by SES\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable style=\"width:443.9pt;border-collapse:collapse;border:none;\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-right: none;border-bottom: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.1pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.1pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eMostly Affluent\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.1pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Neither\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.1pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eMostly Disadvantaged\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.1pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eCountry\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.1pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e%\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.1pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eAch\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.1pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e%\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.1pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eAch\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.1pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e%\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.1pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eAch\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eMorocco\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e7.08\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.13)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e457.89\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(18.19)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n 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26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e79.57\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(3.42)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e380.35\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.92)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eS Africa\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e10.09\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(1.60)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e462.77\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(16.03)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e12.94\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.08)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n 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26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e379.34\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(3.39)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 11.7pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eEgypt\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 11.7pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e11.44\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.80)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 11.7pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e430.50\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(13.59)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 11.7pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e19.07\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(3.50)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 11.7pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e418.42\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(14.16)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 11.7pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e69.49\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(4.29)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 11.7pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e403.06\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(6.37)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eTotal\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e9.53\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(1.29)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e450.39\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(9.26)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e15.12\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(1.65)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e407.94\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(6.20)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e75.34\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.00)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 26.25pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e387.58\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.59)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo further understand the nature of these differences within each country, I computed the achievement by gender. One of the motivations for this is the cultural cum religious heterogeneity that exist between the conservative North African countries of Egypt and Morocco, and South Africa. As contained in Fishbein et al. (2021), significance exists to the degree the t-statistic (p value) is either greater than 1.96 or less than -1.96 for the reference and comparison groups respectively. Apart from Egypt where significance was not reached, males outperform females in Morocco. The reverse occurred among South Africans where females significantly outperformed their male counterparts (see Table 4 and Figure 2).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eTable 4: Achievement differences by gender\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable style=\"width:446.1pt;border-collapse:collapse;border:none;\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-right: none;border-bottom: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 69.15pt;border-right: none;border-bottom: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eAch\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"border-right: none;border-bottom: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Gender\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-right: none;border-bottom: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003ep\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eCountry\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 69.15pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(SE)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.8pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eF\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.8pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eM\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eMorrocco\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 69.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e388.19\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.28)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.8pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e385.72\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.51)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.8pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e390.67\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.57)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e2.21*\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eS Africa\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 69.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e389.48\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.27)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.8pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e392.77\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.42)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.8pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e386.23\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.54)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e-3.15*\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eEgypt\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 69.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e412.88\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(5.21)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.8pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e419.90\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(5.29)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.8pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e404.52\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(7.91)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e-1.89\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eAverage\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 69.15pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e396.85\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.04)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.8pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e399.47\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.11)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 53.8pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e393.80\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2.90)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 1.05pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u003cem\u003e*Significance at .05\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile Table 2 and Figure 1 show glaring achievement differences among the three countries, it is not clear whether they are significant. To answer that, a between-country t-test was conducted. Results from Table 5 confirmed that the Egyptians perform significantly better than their Moroccan and South African counterparts. Students of Morocco and South Africa appear to have no significant difference in achievement scores (p=.05).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eTable 5: \u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e-statistic of between-country mean differences in mathematics achievement\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable style=\"width:437.15pt;border-collapse:collapse;border:none;\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eCountry\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e2\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e3\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(1) Morocco\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(2) S Africa\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.40\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(3) Egypt\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e4.34*\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e4.12*\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.00\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 16.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u003cem\u003e*Significance at .05\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHaving found that the three countries are not entirely homogenous in terms of achievement, I now turn to investigate how they fare in the three motivational constructs. As Table 6 depicts, students tend to have less confidence in their mathematical ability than they do like or find mathematics useful in all the countries. As measured on the scales, none of them failed to meet the median threshold of 2.0 in any of the three variables, with the bulk of the perception of usefulness triumphing others in each country and across the continental average. Additionally, unlike with usefulness and interest, self-concept scores follow a rank order that is invariant to achievement.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eTable 6: Case summaries of interest, self-concept, and usefulness of mathematics by country\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable style=\"width:468.25pt;margin-left:-.25pt;border-collapse:collapse;border:none;\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 34.55pt;border-right: none;border-bottom: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 11.05pt;border-right: none;border-bottom: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"4\" style=\"width: 137.15pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003eInterest\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"4\" style=\"width: 137.2pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003eConcept\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 11.1pt;border-right: none;border-bottom: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"4\" style=\"width: 137.2pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003eUsefulness\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 34.55pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 11.05pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 31.65pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003eE\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 31.7pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003eM\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 36.9pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:left;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight: normal;\"\u003eZ\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 36.9pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003eT\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 31.7pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003eE\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 31.7pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003eM\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 36.9pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003eZ\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 36.9pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003eT\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 11.1pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 31.7pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003eE\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 31.7pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003eM\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 36.9pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003eZ\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 36.9pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003eT\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 34.55pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:left;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight: normal;\"\u003eMean\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 11.05pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 31.65pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e3.10\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 31.7pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e3.05\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 36.9pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e3.05\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 36.9pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e3.07\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 31.7pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e2.82\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 31.7pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e2.67\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 36.9pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e2.45\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 36.9pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e2.65\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 11.1pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 31.7pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e3.35\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 31.7pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 14.55pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New 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13.85pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e4.00\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 36.9pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.85pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e4.00\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 11.1pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.85pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 31.7pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.85pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e4.00\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 31.7pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.85pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e4.00\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 36.9pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.85pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e4.00\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 36.9pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 13.85pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin:0in;text-align:center;font-size:16px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;font-weight:bold;'\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;\"\u003e4.00\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u003cem\u003eE: Egypt; M: Morocco; Z: South Africa; T: Total\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTable 7 reports on the correlations between achievement and each of the motivational variables within the three countries which are all positive and significantly different from zero (.14 \u0026le; r \u0026le; .33; p\u0026lt;.01), with self-concept exerting the greatest amount.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eTable 7: Within-country predictor-achievement correlations\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable style=\"width:461.3pt;border-collapse:collapse;border:none;\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 151.55pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 31.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eVariable\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 101.75pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 31.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eSelf-concept\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 102.1pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 31.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eInterest\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 105.9pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 31.3pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eUsefulness\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 151.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 15.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eMorocco\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 101.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 15.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.33**\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 102.1pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 15.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.25**\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 105.9pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 15.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.20**\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 151.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 15.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eSouth Africa\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 101.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 15.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.28**\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 102.1pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 15.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.14**\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 105.9pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 15.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.21**\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 151.55pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 15.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eEgypt\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 101.75pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 15.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.35**\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 102.1pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 15.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.24**\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 105.9pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;height: 15.65pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.25**\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u003cem\u003e**Significance at .01 level (2-tailed)\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMulti-level analyses\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo better understand the results of the preceding section, I conducted hierarchical analyses. In accordance with the research questions, three models (Model 1 [M1], Model 2 [M2], and Model 3 [M3]) were created to capture achievement variability across student and school levels. These are the \u003cem\u003eUnconditional Model\u003c/em\u003e (M1), \u003cem\u003eCompositional/contextual effects model\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e(M2), and the \u003cem\u003eMeans and slopes as outcome model\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e(M3) respectively. M3 was especially useful for capturing both achievement and motivational variables at the country levels. The values of the fixed effect components and standard errors of each model are as shown in columns 2 (for M1), 3 (for M2), and 4 (for M3) under the \u003cem\u003eFixed effects (standard errors)\u003c/em\u003e header in Table 9 below. The parameters of focus at the student level for M2 and M3 are contained under the \u003cem\u003eIntercept-slopes (\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003ei\u003c/sub\u003e)\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003eheader of Table 9 with the variance components of all three models stationed under the \u003cem\u003eVariance components heading\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eTable 9: Fixed and random effects from multilevel models\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable style=\"width:468.75pt;border-collapse:collapse;border:none;\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 156.55pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eFixed effects\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.9pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eM1 coeff (SE)\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 85pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eM2 coeff\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e(SE)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.3pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eM3 coeff (SE)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84pt;border-top: 1pt solid windowtext;border-left: none;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;border-right: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eInitial status (\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e0\u003c/sub\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"8\" style=\"width: 312.3pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eFixed effects (standard errors)\u003c/p\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eIntercept (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e00\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e403.60(1.88)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e403.67(1.57)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e397.97(1.64)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eInterest (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e01\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e-144.09(8.03)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e-127.59(8.40)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eSelf-concept (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e02\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e111.76(7.34)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e113.219(8.70)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eUsefulness (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e03\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e92.80(8.01)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e80.82(8.57)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eProp_Female (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e04\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e10.53\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eSch_SES (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e05\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e27.78\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eD_Egypt (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e06\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e-8.55\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eD_SA (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e07\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e41.42\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eD_Mar (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e08\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e-25.25\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eIntercept-slopes (\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003ei\u003c/sub\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eInterest (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e10\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e6.76(.52)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eD_Egy(\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e11\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e-.007\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eD_SA(\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e12\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e-3.82\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eD_MAR\u003cem\u003e(\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e13\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;2.80\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eProp_F(\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e14\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e-1.45\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eSch_SES(\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e15\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e-1.06\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eSelf-concept (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e20\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e25.11(.57)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eD_Egy(\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e21\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e.78\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eD_SA\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;(\u003csub\u003e22\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e6.04\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eD_MAR\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;(\u003csub\u003e23\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e-5.11\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eProp_F(\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e24\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e3.86\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eSch_SES(\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e25\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e3.34\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eUsefulness (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e30\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e2.96(.50)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eD_Egy(\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e31\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;.94\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eD_SA\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;(\u003csub\u003e32\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;-.43\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eD_MAR\u003cem\u003e(\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e33\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e-.21\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eProp_F(\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e34\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e-.06\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eSch_SES(\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e35\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e-1.27\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"9\" style=\"width: 465.3pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;text-align:center;'\u003eVariance components\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eICC\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e0.4698\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eR\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e\u003csub\u003eL-1\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e0.1334\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border: none;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e0.1559\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 153pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003eR\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e\u003csub\u003eL-2\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 70.85pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.55pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e0.3101\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 72.75pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 84.15pt;border-top: none;border-right: none;border-left: none;border-image: initial;border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext;padding: 0in 5.4pt;vertical-align: top;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top: 0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e0.4554\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;\"\u003e\n \u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"border:none;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;text-indent:0in;line-height:normal;font-size:15px;font-family:\"Times New Roman\",serif;'\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003csup\u003e+\u003c/sup\u003eNo significance at .001\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRQ 1: what accounts for the variance that exists in achievement?\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eResults of the unconditional model with achievement as the outcome variable shows an overall mean mathematics achievement of 403.60 (see column 2 in Table 9 above). This score is however distributed almost evenly among the students and schools indicating that African schools are significantly heterogenous. With an intraclass correlation (ICC) of 0.47, it implies that about 47% of the variance in students\u0026rsquo; achievement owes to differences between the schools they attend, leaving approximately 53% of the variation to differences among the students.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRQ 2: what is the relationship between achievement and interest, self-concept, and usefulness of mathematics at the (i) student (ii) school levels?\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe compositional effects model returned consistent results at the individual and group levels except for interest whose relationship with achievement was positive at the student level (\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e10\u003c/sub\u003e = 6.76, p\u0026lt;.001). but negative at the school level (\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e01\u003c/sub\u003e = -144.09, p\u0026lt;.001). A more consistent picture is evinced at the student level for all three motivational variables whose relationships with achievement were positive and statistically significant (self-concept: \u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e20\u003c/sub\u003e = 25.11, p\u0026lt;.001; usefulness: \u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e30\u003c/sub\u003e = 2.96, p\u0026lt;.001). As indicated, interest in mathematics leads to about 7-point increase and 144-point decrease in student and school achievement respectively. At both levels, a positive association exists between achievement and the perception of mathematics as a useful subject at a magnitude of approximately 3 and 93 points for the student and school. The pattern of relationship between self-concept and achievement is more robust. At both student (\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e20\u003c/sub\u003e = 25.11, p\u0026lt;.001) and school (\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e02\u003c/sub\u003e = 111.76, p\u0026lt;.001) levels, confidence in mathematics leads to achievement: a unit increase in confidence causes students\u0026rsquo; achievement to go up by at least 25 points. The size was in excess of 111 points in schools. Compositional effects of interest (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e01\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e- \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e10\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e), self-concept (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e02\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e- \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e20\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e), and usefulness (\u003cem\u003e\u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e03\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sub\u003e- \u0026gamma;\u003csub\u003e30\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/em\u003e) return approximately -150, 87, and 90 points respectively suggesting the unique roles accrued to students by their membership in schools. While it is positive for self-concept and usefulness, schools tend to have a net negative influence on students\u0026rsquo; achievement relative to their love of mathematics. Finally, although the inclusion of the three motivational and control variables explained 13.3% of L-1 achievement-variation, their means as predictors of school achievement explained an additional 57% relative to L-1 variance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRQ 3: Does s (i) gender (ii) school SES and (iii) country effect exist across the motivational variables and achievement?\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBased on the final model, it can be inferred that gender effect does not significantly exist except for interest (\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e14\u003c/sub\u003e = -1.45, p\u0026lt;.001), implying that being a female decreases the chances of being interested in mathematics by about 1.5 points. In contrast, school affluence positively relates with mathematics achievement by at least 27 points (\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e05\u003c/sub\u003e = 27.78, p\u0026lt;.001). The results, although mixed for the motivational variables, are not statistically different from zero. Furthermore, membership in countries also reflects mixed but interesting results across the outcome and independent variables. Unlike in Egypt, students in South Africa and Morocco are significantly impacted by their overall country achievement scores in the positive sense for the former (\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e07\u003c/sub\u003e = 41.42, p\u0026lt;.001) and negatively for Morocco (\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e08\u003c/sub\u003e = -25.25, p\u0026lt;.001). The only other country effect was recorded in usefulness within South Africa (\u0026beta;\u003csub\u003e32\u003c/sub\u003e = -.43, p\u0026lt;.001). In conclusion, the inclusion of the predictor variables in this model contributed 15.6% and 45.6% to the student and school-level variations in mathematics achievement respectively\u003ca href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\" title=\"\"\u003e[1]\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"ftn1\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\" title=\"\"\u003e[1]\u003c/a\u003e All parameter and variance estimates are as contained in Table 9.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eAchievement differences exist irrespective of the unit of analysis, informing a need to further account for such occurrence (see Devine et al., 2012; Sarouphim \u0026amp; Chartouny, 2017; Shin et al., 2009),. Especially given how much these differences owe to factors that relate to opportunity to learn, tending to achievement disparities also follows the trail of equity (e.g., Forgasz \u0026amp; Rivera, 2012). But since most of those factors are not easily influenced by interventions, especially within the students and those who work closely with them, there has been a greater focus on understanding how malleable factors interplay with achievement\u0026nbsp;(e.g., Jones et al., 2012). Following results of international comparative achievement, this paper focused on the achievement disparities of African countries that have for decades performed lower than their counterparts in other places of the world. I relied on data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (2019) to primarily examine the interplay between achievement of mathematics and motivational perceptions of interest, self-concept, and usefulness.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePreliminary analyses confirmed the achievement gaps between African countries relative to international benchmarks as determined by the percentage of students with knowledge and applications of mathematical ideas to diverse situations\u0026nbsp;(Pirls et al., 2020), with the continental achievement averaging less than 50% for the lowest cutoff. Across each of the participating countries, only Egypt recorded more than the continental average in that regard. To better situate this in perspective, 87%, 56%, 25%, and 5% of students met the low, intermediate, high, and advanced benchmarks globally\u0026nbsp;(Pirls et al., 2020), an indication of African students relatively mediocre performance. One explanation for this was provided by parsing their achievement through school composition by socioeconomic background that showed that at about three-quarters of African eighth graders attend mostly disadvantaged schools.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFurthermore, average achievement scores of schools at the middle and top positions both surpass the continental average and least benchmark cutoff. As intended, this study joins others\u0026nbsp;(e.g., Reilly et al., 2019)\u0026nbsp;that have investigated the influence of gender on achievement and motivation. Although the lack of significant gender difference in Egypt extends their finding of a closing, almost nonexistent gender gap, it nevertheless manifests in Morocco and South Africa. Similarly, recall that Wilkins (2004), as did Bofah and Hannula (2015) to some degree reported direct achievement-self-concept relations based on country achievement ranks which also existed in this study with the most achieving country, Egypt. Although self-concept holds almost parallel relationship with achievement across the countries, the association is strongest in the most achieving country (Egypt) and weakest in the least (South Africa) aligning with previous findings such as Wilkins (2014) and\u0026nbsp;(Kadijevich, 2008). Unlike what Bofah and Hannula (2015) reported, a direct trend exists between self-concept and mathematics achievement among countries.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike the single-level statistics, several interesting results emanated from the multi-level analyses to either confirm or disconfirm previous findings, with the predictive capacity of self-concept being the most manifestation of the former (Kadijevich, 2008; Wilkins, 2004), and the latter manifesting in its country-level relationship with achievement (Wilkins, 2004). Furthermore, the insignificant country effects on the motivational variables (except usefulness in SA) joins the long trail of others such as Wilkins\u0026rsquo; (2014) self-concept in South Africa. Also in alignment with previous studies is the positive effect of school socio-economic status on school average mathematics achievement (Ersan \u0026amp; Rodriguez, 2020). In conclusion, the frame of reference effect (Marsh et al., 1987) appears not to be influential going by the overall student and school-level data of self-concept slopes contrary to Bofah and Hannula (2015). While the same can be gleaned for usefulness, the positive and negative slopes for interest at the student and school levels suggest the existence of the effect.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEthical Approval:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003enot applicable\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFunding:\u003c/strong\u003e not applicable\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAvailability of Data and Materials:\u003c/strong\u003e The data for this study can be accessed online for free at\u0026nbsp;\u003ca href=\"https://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss-landing.html\"\u003ehttps://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss-landing.html\u003c/a\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConflict of Interest Statement:\u003c/strong\u003e The author has no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003cp\u003eAwofala, A. O., Olaguro, M., Fatade, A. 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The role of emotional and motivational contribution in math performance. \u003cem\u003eSocial Psychology of Education\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e26\u003c/em\u003e(3), 579\u0026ndash;601. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-023-09760-8\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"Virginia Tech","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Interest, Mathematics Achievement, Motivation, Self-concept, Usefulness","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4835055/v2","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4835055/v2","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eThe article accounts for achievement differences of eighth graders in three African countries, Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa. Using data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS, 2015), I found that African students struggle to attain the lowest international benchmark across the three countries. Consequently, efforts were made to explain this phenomenon primarily through the motivational factors of self-concept, interest, and usefulness of mathematics. Findings from single-level and multi-level analyses extended common findings especially the synergy between self-concept and achievement and the eroding gender gap. Interesting findings emanated from the multi-level analyses, especially the inverse relationship between achievement and interest of mathematics at the student and school levels respectively. Amidst the poor achievement of students on the continent, the article extends previous findings on the need for African countries to be more attentive to educating its young ones if it is to develop their untapped potential.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"A motivational account of achievement differences in mathematics using TIMSS data: an African focus.","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":2,"date":"2024-08-14 17:42:47","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4835055/v2","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}},{"code":1,"date":"2024-08-02 09:48:05","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4835055/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"c16d718e-0b1c-4463-a374-dfe772f35b40","owner":[],"postedDate":"August 14th, 2024","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2024-09-19T09:32:38+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2024-08-14 17:42:47","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v2","identity":"rs-4835055","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-4835055","identity":"rs-4835055","version":["v2"]},"buildId":"qtupq5eGEP_6zYnWcrvyt","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}