Campus Location
Dallas Campus (Online)
Date of Award
Summer 8-2019
Document Type
Dissertation
Department
Organizational Leadership
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Committee Chair or Primary Advisor
Andrew Lupme
Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor
Karen Maxwell
Third Committee Member or Committee Reader
Karan Duwe
Abstract
In order for students to perform well in science, they need opportunities to develop formal reasoning. Teachers in a private school in Latin America noted that students who had not yet completed Algebra I were struggling in a 9th-grade chemistry course more than their classmates who had completed Algebra I. The purpose of this causal, comparative action research was to determine if math placement was key to supporting student success in science. Data on achievement, as indicated by final exam scores in math, science, and English, were used from the cohort of students enrolled in 9th grade in 2015 and in 10th grade in 2016. A repeated measures ANOVA was used to determine if there was a difference in science achievement between students on an accelerated pathway and students on a nonaccelerated pathway. Spearman’s rho was used to determine if science achievement was correlated with math and English. It was found that there was a significant difference in science achievement for students on different pathways, as well as significant differences in achievement between the 2015 and 2016 school years. Additionally, it was found that both math and science and English and math had similar correlations. It was concluded that math provides significant opportunities to practice formal reasoning that is important for success in science.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Hidalgo, Tila, "Evaluating the Relationships Between Science Class Success and Math Placement in High School" (2019). Digital Commons @ ACU, Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 157.
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/157