Ray, Brian D. (1994). A nationwide study of home education in Canada: Family characteristics, student achievement, and other topics. Salem, OR: National Home Education Research Institute, www.nheri.org. (Descriptive and correlational study, basic information about home education families (n=808) and their children (n=2,594) throughout Canada in terms of (a) demographics, (b) selected educational characteristics of the families, 8 educational and post-secondary school characteristics of the students, (d) academic achievement of the students, (e) relationships between their academic achievement and factors such as educational attainment of parents, family income, and pedagogical practices, and (f) the relationship between selected physical and mental limitations and pedagogical practices. In general, the parents had somewhat higher educational attainment than the general population in Canada, and their total family income was 83% of that of all husband-wife families in Canada. The families had notably more children (3.5) than the national average. They made regular use of libraries, and engaged their children in numerous social activities. “Table 11 shows the types of activities in which children who had ever been home schooled were involved. For example, 60% were involved in group sports, 82% were in Sunday school, 48% were involved in music classes, and 93% engaged in play activities with people outside the family. Table 11 also indicates the number of hours that the students in these families spent in contact with persons other than their parents” [p. 36 circa]. Students’ scores on achievement tests: (a) total reading, 80th, (b) total listening, 84th, 8 total language, 76th, (d) total math, 79th, (e) science, 82nd, (f) social studies, 81st, (g) basic battery (reading, language, and mathematics), 79th, and (h) complete battery (all subject areas in which student was tested), 82nd. None of the following variables explained a significant amount of variance in the students’ total mathematics, total listening, science, and social studies scores: formal educational attainment of the parents, teacher certification status of the parents, family income, number of years the student was home educated, degree of structure in the home education environment, age of the student, time spent in formal education activities, age at which formal education commenced, gender of the student, extent to which the family uses public libraries, and amount of money spent on the home education of the child. Father’s educational attainment was a significant predictor of reading and language scores, and the longer a child had been home educated, the better was his language score. Both variables were only weak to moderately strong predictors. None of the following variables explained a significant amount of variance in the students’ farsightedness: degree of structure in the learning environment, time spent in structured learning, and age at which formal instruction commenced. Time in structured learning was a weak predictor of nearsightedness, and age at which formal instruction began was a weak predictor of attention deficit disorder.) (Descriptors: home education, academic achievement, demographics, legal, correlates, predictors, income, teacher certification, parent education)