Publication Date

2020

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Creed, Benjamin M.

Degree Name

Ed.D. (Doctor of Education)

Legacy Department

Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations (LEPF)

Abstract

Building off of other studies that examined the effectiveness of double-dose algebra programs such as Nomi and Allensworth (2009), this dissertation compared the performance outcomes of students enrolled in one of two alternatives to traditional high school algebra, a double-dose and a single-dose algebra program. This work utilized multiple linear regression to assess the degree of association between student race/ethnicity and selected demographic characteristics, including gender, free and reduced lunch status, and IEP status, on standardized assessment and end of semester mathematics course grade outcomes, while controlling for initial mathematics placement test results. This project assessed these outcomes for students who took double-dose or single-dose algebra during the ninth-grade and assessed the degree to which any associations between the independent variables and program enrollment extended into the tenth and eleventh grades.

In general, the results of this analysis show that students taking single-dose algebra demonstrate significantly better performance than their double-dose counterparts on standardized assessment and end of semester mathematics course grade outcomes. More specifically, single-dose algebra students demonstrate significantly better performance than their double-dose peers on the PSAT 9 and the PSAT 10 at the 95% significance level. The results also suggest that students taking single-dose earn higher mathematics courses grades at the end of first and second semester in their tenth-grade mathematics course at the 95% confidence level. Overall, the results of this work suggest that students from traditionally disadvantaged populations, specifically Black Non-Hispanic students, Latinx students, students identified as female, and students identified as free and reduced lunch demonstrate the largest significant gains on the PSAT 9 as a result of taking single-dose algebra. Lower sample sizes in the tenth and eleventh grades limited the ability to extend the racial/ethnic and demographic sub-group analysis beyond the ninth-grade. Given that these results fail to show that any students realize improved performance as a result of taking double-dose over single-dose algebra and given the significant gains demonstrated by traditionally disadvantaged students as a result of taking the single-dose program, these findings suggest that the single-dose algebra program may provide students with a more cost effective alternative to traditional algebra.

Extent

249 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

Download

Share

COinS