Date of Award
Fall 12-1-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Educational Leadership
First Advisor
Terry McDaniel
Second Advisor
Bradley Balch
Third Advisor
Tonya Balch
Abstract
The purpose of this quantitative study was to provide school district leaders and policymakers information of the impact grade configuration had on academic performance using math and ELA ILEARN scores over a three-year period. The study included data from 585 schools that were classified into four groups: Elementary Setting, Intermediate Setting, Middle School/Junior High Setting, and Unified Setting. The study analyzed IDOE publicly released ILEARN math and ELA data for each of the three years. A one-way ANOVA test was utilized to run the statistical analysis, and a Games-Howell Post Hoc test identified which had statistically significantly different mean pass rate scores. The key findings demonstrated there were statistically significant differences between some of the groups, rejecting the null hypotheses for Research Questions 1 and 2, but the analysis cautioned against drawing conclusions about the significance of these results due to the differences between the group sizes. However, in 2021 there was a statistically significant difference in the ELA results between the Elementary Setting and Middle School/Junior High, the two largest groups with similar sizes. This difference did not persist over the other two years, nor did the difference emerge in the math scores. The study concluded that there was not a statistically significant difference in the pass rates between sixth-grade students in different grade configuration settings.
Recommended Citation
Bailey, Bret, "A Comparison of Sixth Grade Student Academic Performance in Indiana Elementary Schools and Middle Schools" (2024). All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3137.
https://scholars.indianastate.edu/etds/3137
Included in
Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, Educational Leadership Commons, Educational Methods Commons, Elementary and Middle and Secondary Education Administration Commons, Elementary Education Commons, Elementary Education and Teaching Commons, Junior High, Intermediate, Middle School Education and Teaching Commons
