Supplementary Education in Australia: A Study of Who Supplements and Why

This thesis investigates supplementary education from the perspective of 1,523 parents of Australian school-age children. It develops and validates two psychometric perception scales and a predictor model using Rasch modeling, factor analyses, and logistic regression analysis. This thesis applies a critical ecological framework to examine the likelihood of parents supplementing their children's education by predicting which social, economic, political, and relational variables are more likely to influence parents who supplement. The findings have implications for educational policy and future research on supplementary education as well as the discourse that surrounds the practice.