Middle School Students' Course-Taking and Performance on NAEP Assessments

• In Event: 61.052 - An Analytic Examination of Current Issues in the Middle School Education

Abstract

The academic courses students take in middle school (i.e., sixth through eighth) affect what academic courses they take in high school (Attewell & Domina, 2008; Wimberly & Noeth, 2005). These research studies suggest that the earlier students take core courses in mathematics and science, the more mathematics and science courses there are available to take during high school (Attewell & Domina, 2008; Wimberly & Noeth, 2005). For example, a student who completes algebra I in eighth grade can take a high school mathematics sequence ending with calculus in twelfth grade, while a student who takes algebra I in ninth grade would likely only reach pre-calculus in twelfth grade. Knowing when students’ high school academic tracks are set can help tailor academic instruction to improve or expand on their coursework.

The purpose of this study is to investigate student middle school coursetaking by using the questions related to middle school courses on the school, student, and teacher questionnaires associated with the NAEP eighth-grade assessments and how they relate to student performance on the NAEP assessments. There are five subjects in the NAEP eighth-grade assessments that included coursetaking questions in the student contextual questionnaire. The NAEP 2014 Technology and Engineering Literacy Study (TELS) and the NAEP mathematics assessments asked about the types of courses they took, while the Civics, United States History, and Visual Arts assessments asked if and/or when they took a course in the subject. For the other assessment subjects, information about what topics were taught could be inferred by course content questions asked in the teacher questionnaires.

Findings from this study indicate that students who reported taking geometry in eighth grade had higher scores on every NAEP eighth-grade mathematics assessment from 2005 to 2015 than students who reported taking algebra II. These difference likely results from the students taking algebra II having not yet taken geometry, which is a major component of the NAEP mathematics assessment. Additionally, eighth-grade students who reported taking or have taken engineering or computer-related studies courses tended to have higher scores on the NAEP 2014 TELS assessment than students who did not take those courses. While a small portion of the students who reported taking or have taken industrial technology courses tended to score similarly on the TELS assessment to students who reported have not taken industrial technology courses. These differences could suggest that students may have similar exposure to technology outside of school, which provide sufficient proficiency in understanding industrial technology-related questions. Further analyses on student home environment (i.e., availability of computer and technology at home) are examined to help explain these differences.

The present study also addresses findings from other NAEP eighth-grade assessments from 2005 to 2017, as well as the conditions and limitations of using NAEP questionnaire data to determine courses that students take during middle school.

Authors

• Robert Colby Perkins, Westat

• Ingrid Fichtenberg, Westat