Date of Award

2000

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of grade organization and its subsequent impact on student performance as measured on a statewide test of academic progress. The grade span configurations compared were 6–8 middle school and 7–12 junior-senior high school arrangements. Norm reference scores measuring the academic performance of students in reading, language arts, mathematics and total battery were collected from the Indiana Statewide TestingEducational Progress Plus. This study sought to determine if a relationship existed between the tenth grade measures of achievement due to differences in the middle grades span organization. The procedures for this study involved selecting one elementary school feeding into one middle school and then one high school or one elementary school into one junior-senior high school and then one high school. Potential schools were randomly selected with six middle school configurations and six junior-senior high configurations. Thirty students were randomly selected from the twelve schools for test score analysis. Each student must have been enrolled in the same school corporations for grades six through ten. The students' scores utilized were normal curve equivalents for grades six, eighth and ten. The findings of the study concluded that normal curve equivalent (NCE) test scores from reading, language arts, mathematics and total battery portions were positively correlated between grades 6 and 8, 6 and 10, and 8 and 10 for all students, among middle schools and among junior high schools. There were significant mean differences between students who attended a middle school 6–8th grade span organization and students who attended a 7–12 junior-senior high school grade span organization in the sixth grade for language arts, mathematics and total battery; eighth grade mathematics; tenth grade mathematics and total battery NCE scores. There were significant mean difference among the six junior-senior high schools for language arts 6, math 6, battery 6, reading 8, language arts 8, math 8, total battery 8, language arts 10 and math 10. There were significant mean differences among the six middle schools math 6, and language arts 8. Junior-senior high schools performed significantly higher than middle schools on language arts 6, language arts 10, math 6, math 8 math 10, total batter 6 and total batter 10. The results of the study provide suggest that although the variation among junior-senior high schools is significant, that on average junior-senior high students perform better on math tests than do students in middle schools. This pattern holds true for language arts in grade 6 and grade 10, as well as total battery in grade 6 and grade 10. This would be in contrast to the current statewideEducational philosophy of eliminating junior-senior high school in favor of middle schools.

Download

Share

COinS