A Comparative Study on the Factors Affecting Middle School Students’ Participation in Private Supplementary Education in Mathematics between Korea and the USA using the TIMSS 2019 Data

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the major factors affecting the participation of Korean and American middle school students in private supplementary education in mathematics using the TIMSS 2019 data. The random forest method was used to extract, compare, and analyze the key factors predicting student’s participation in private supplementary education in mathematics on the data of 3,658 Korean middle school students and 6,960 American middle school students who participated in the TIMSS 2019 survey. Academic achievement, personal characteristics, family background, and school characteristics were found to be important predictors in both countries, but the effect of each factor on the probability of participating in private supplementary education was different between the two countries. The results of this study reconfirmed that students in Korea tend to participate in private supplementary education with 'competitive motives' whereas the United States, students engage in private supplementary education with 'supplementary motives'. Results suggest that when devising policies against private supplementary tutoring, it is necessary to diagnose the state and causes in each individual country and devise customized policies for each country.