Antecedents of high school student success and failure on standardized math and English tests

Antecedents of High School Student Success or Failure on Math and English Tests

Research proposition

Anticipated results

Discussion of likely results

Practical applications

Future directions

High school students in the United States are faced with a harsh inevitable eventuality of successfully passing standardized tests when they near graduation. Failing these standardized tests has enormous implications for young learners since this failure means repeating a grade and studies have consistently shown that students that are held back drop out at higher rates. Moreover, current estimates indicate that as many as 75% of American high school students lack competency in the English and mathematics components of these tests, with lower rates generally corresponding to various socioeconomic factors. Despite the numerous criticisms that have been leveled against standardized tests such as the ACT and SAT in measuring student academic achievement and future academic potential, standardized tests are expected to remain the gold standard for these purposes for the foreseeable future. The purpose of the proposed study is to identify the primary reasons for high school student failure on English and mathematics tests using a review of the relevant secondary literature together with the findings the result from the administration and analysis of a questionnaire by a group of American high school teachers.

Literature review

The use of standardized tests in American public schools to establish admission requirements for college acceptance is well established and, despite criticisms, is viewed as an equitable approach to determining academic progress (Peng & Le, 2011). Moreover, standardized tests such as the ACT and SAT have become the golden standard by which assessments of knowledge and predictors of college success of American high school students are made today (Peng & Le, 2011). The continuing popularity of these high-stakes standardized testing regimens is based in large part on their purported ability to identify the aptitude of high school students for various learning streams, and then developing individualized curricular offerings that match the students' capacity to learn. For instance, according to Peng and Le, "As knowledge assessments, these types of tests have found considerable success and unlike admission tests, the goals of these tests are to measure a student's academic ability and then properly stream students to courses to ensure academic success and improve institutional outcomes" (2011, p. 43).

Post-secondary institutions also routinely use standardized tests, most especially the ACT and SAT, for placement purposes that tend to focus on English and mathematics which are used to direct incoming freshmen into appropriate learning streams that will facilitate student success at that individual institution (Peng & Le, 2011). Many colleges and universities across the country offer remedial coursework in math and English to help new students catch up with their peers (Stern, 2009). In addition, many colleges and universities use ACT and SAT scores to roughly sort large numbers of applicants into more manageable pools. For example, Rubin (2009) reports that, "Standardized tests are a fact of life for high-school students, all the more so for the ones headed off for four years of further education. While all colleges profess to evaluate applicants based, of course, on their unique attributes, sheer volume requires most schools to rely on standardized tests to create a baseline" (p. 52). In recent years, American high school students have responded by using expensive tutors or tutoring services, taking more tests in an effort to improve scores and developing test-taking strategies which have achieved mixed results (Stern, 2009).

Given the significance of these trends for American high school students and public schools, it is not surprising that standardized tests have become the focus of a growing amount of criticism from educators, students, parents and lawmakers alike in recent years (Rubin, 2009). For example, Rubin notes that, "Attacking the test has long been in vogue. Among the criticisms: it's culturally biased and unfair to students at lower socioeconomic levels, and answering the questions correctly doesn't really correlate to college success" (p. 52). Likewise, Herman and Golan (2001) emphasize that, "While [standardized] testing is thought by many to benefit education in a variety of ways, the validity and value of traditional standardized tests are subjects of increasing debate" (p. 2).

A growing body of evidence indicates that any improvements in testing scores may not be actually related to gains in student learning, suggesting that teachers are in fact "teaching to the test" (Herman & Golan, 2001). Furthermore, many high school teachers maintain that the time and effort spent on preparing students for high-stakes standardized testing regimens detracts from the time available to teach other subjects, including most especially those that contribute to critical-thinking skills (Herman & Golan, 2001). In addition, other significant criticisms of standardized testing maintain that these methods fail to provide enough "bang for the educational buck" to justify their continued use. For instance, Olson (2003) argues that, "The truth is, our assessments often fall short of the real goal of informing instruction. For example, although soon all states will test students annually, only a handful return results that are useful to teachers" (p. 29).

Notwithstanding these numerous criticisms, it is clear that high school education is not a zero-sum proposition and that American high school students must be prepared to perform well on the English and mathematics components of standardized tests such as the ACT and SAT in order to gain admission into their college of choice while developing the critical thinking skills they will need to succeed in the 21st century workplace. Further, a concomitant and growing body of evidence suggests that standardized testing may be doing American high school students more harm than good through these classroom processes, making the need to determine their true efficacy all the more important. For instance, Shepard (2002) notes that the scholarly research to date has involved rigorous field studies and large-scale high school teacher surveys that consistently indicate that the corresponding negative effects on other parts of the curriculum far outweigh any tactical advantage that standardized testing may provide educators seeking to sort the academic wheat from the chaff. In this regard, Shepard emphasizes that, "At the same time that researchers addressed the validity of test score gains, studies have also been done to examine the effect of high-stakes accountability pressure on curriculum and instructional practices" (2002, p. 54).

Moreover, the impact of high school-level standardized testing reaches into the primary classroom as well, further exacerbating the negative effects that standardized test preparation and "teaching to the test" are having on American high school students. As Shepard concludes, "These studies show that efforts to improve test scores have changed what is taught and how it is taught. In elementary schools, for example, teachers eliminate or greatly reduce time spent on social studies and science to spend more time on tested subjects" (2002, p. 55). Taken together, it is apparent that there are some constraints involved in the use of standardized tests in the nation's high schools that warrant further analysis because the stakes truly high.

Nevertheless, just three major colleges in the United States make the use of standardized tests optional for students using their application process today (i.e., Bates, Bowdoin or Mount Holyoke) (Stern, 2009). Clearly, then, the standardized testing paradigm remains firmly in place and identifying ways to help high school students improve their performance on the mathematics and English components of the ACT and SAT standardized tests represents a timely and valuable enterprise. The method that will be used in the proposed study to achieve this end is discussed below.

Method

The proposed study will use a mixed quantitative and qualitative method. The quantitative element will be achieved using a comparison of published ACT and SAT test scores from states such as California for the past 5 years which will be used to evaluate the impact, if any, of gender, cultural, religious, or socioeconomic factors.

The qualitative component will be achieved using a questionnaire with proven validity and reliability that was adapted from an instrument developed by Herman and Golan (2001) to measure high school teachers' views concerning the efficacy of standardized tests in determining student academic achievement and potential and how much pressure they feel to help students prepare for standardized tests and the impact that standardized test preparation time has on non-test subjects and critical-thinking skills. A proforma copy of the questionnaire is provided at Appendix A and the main sections of the Likert-scaled questionnaire are as follows:

1. Section One: Influence of Testing on Teachers' Instructional Planning;

2. Section Two: Class Time Spent on Test Preparation;

3. Section Three: Subject Focus and Its Change over the Last Three Years by Test Score Trends; and,

4. Section Four: School Attention to Test Scores

In addition, the use of primary and secondary resources will also improve the trustworthiness of the study findings. In this regard, Dennis and Harris (2002) report that, "Primary data are likely to be directly relevant to the research, unlike secondary data, which may be out of date or collected for a totally different purpose. Ideally, an effective research project should incorporate both primary and secondary data" (p. 39).

Anticipated results

The results anticipated from the analysis described in the method section of the secondary data above will almost certainly show that there is a negative relationship between income levels and academic achievement in mathematics and English; however, the effects of gender, culture and religion on these standardized tests remain less certain. Despite these constraints, it is generally anticipated that females will score higher on the ACT and SAT mathematics and English components, the two major minorities black and Hispanic will perform less well overall compared to their white counterparts, and that culture and religion will have an impact only to the extent that they reflect parental involvement in schooling.

These anticipated results of the secondary data are also highly congruent with the patterns experienced with standardized testing to date. For instance, Sireci and DeLeon (2002) report that not only do minority students perform less well on standardized tests compared to their mainstream counterparts, they do not understand the implications of these tests on their future as well as their white counterparts. According to Sireci and DeLeon (2002), "Standardized educational tests have important consequences for both minority and non-minority students. However, there are inconsistencies across these groups with respect to their understanding of the importance of these consequences, and with respect to their test preparation activities" (p. 163). Likewise, female American high school students routinely score better on standardized tests than their male counterparts (Muhammad & Smith, 2008).

Finally, it is expected that the results of the administration of the questionnaire to American high school teachers shown at Appendix A will largely mirror the findings in the secondary research to date that indicate growing dissatisfaction with standardized testing and the adverse impact that the regimen is having on the nation's high school students.

Discussion of likely results

When something is made a priority, it is by definition supposed to get better, but the harsh reality is that despite being made a priority decades ago, the nation's public schools are still not adequately preparing young people for the rigors of college mathematics and English. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the problem is that it is not a surprise -- the nation's failing schools have been the focus on an enormous amount of intense attention from educators, educationists and policymakers alike for nearly a century. Furthermore, there are exemplar schools in even the most impoverished communities of the country that succeed and even excel academically so there are obviously models available to serve as best practices for high schools struggling to prepare their students for college and their professional lives. Nevertheless, the problem remains and continues to worsen and many young people spend their first year in college paying for non-credit remedial mathematics and English classes to learn what they should have been taught already, just to catch up with their peers.

Limitations to the study

The main limitation to the proposed study will be the number of respondents available and willing to participate in the research by completing the questionnaire. Although results may exceed expectations, the total number of respondents will likely be under 100, thereby limiting the generalizability of the findings that emerge from the study (Neuman, 2009). In addition, the potential for researcher bias is always present in a research project, ranging from the selection of resource materials to include in the literature review to the interpretation of the qualitative and quantitative findings that emerge (Karimov, Brengman & Van Hove, 2011).

Practical applications

There are growing calls for a standardized college application process in the United States today. These calls are tempered by an ongoing debate concerning the relevance of a continuing role, if any, for standardized tests in the future. For example, Green and Greene (2007) point out that, "Despite the trend toward adoption of common applications, many colleges continue to require supplements and to implement particular requirements on deadlines, various parts of applications, and standardized tests, for example" (p. 28).

Implications

The implications of this study will not be earth-shattering because of the limitations that are discussed above, but the proposed study will help identify why so many American high school graduates enter college for the first time so woefully unprepared to write at the college level or complete college-level mathematics classes. More importantly, still, perhaps, are the implications for young people that make the effort to excel in high school, get good grades, and improve their chances of succeeding on the ACT and SAT through tutoring and practice testing. Even for these students, their results are no guarantee of being accepted into the school of their choice, or any school for that matter. As Rubin cautions, "While a weak performance can hurt your chances to land a spot at your top college, even a great SAT score can't guarantee it" (2009, p. 52).

Future directions

Given the demonstrated ability of the ACT and SAT in accurately gauging academic achievement and future academic success and notwithstanding the criticisms that have been leveled against these and other standardized tests in recent years, some useful future directions for research include the following:

Do standardized tests encourage teaching to the test rather than promoting critical thinking skills?

Are there superior assessment methods available to replace standardized testing?

Which specific aspects of the mathematics and English test components cause failing students the most problems? Do these aspects have a cultural or racial basis?

General conclusions

It is reasonable to conclude that the SAT and ACT are here to stay for the foreseeable future, and high school students contemplating higher education will ignore this reality at their peril. The research showed that in spite a numerous criticisms, standardized tests including the ACT and SAT remain the national standard by which students from one part of the country are compared to students from other parts based on a set of questions that are intended to accurately measure academic achievement and predict future academic success. The fact that standardized tests have largely lived up to their expectations in these areas over the years suggests that while some fine-tuning may be in order, students today should prepare themselves for the rigors of college-level mathematics and English by preparing to pass these components of the SAT and/or ACT.