Educational tests and measurements--United States

An analysis of curriculum frameworks from the fifty states to ascertain the
compliance with the National Science Education Standards for integrating ScienceTechnology-
Society (STS) themes is reported within this dissertation. Science standards
for all fifty states were analyzed to determine if the STS criteria were integrated at the
elementary, middle, and high school levels of education. The analysis determined the
compliance level for each state, then compared each educational level to see if the
compliance was similar across the levels. Compliance is important because research
s)lows that using STS themes in the science classroom increases the student's
understanding of the concepts, increases the student's problem solving skills, increases
the student's self-efficacy with respect to science, and students instructed using STS
themes score well on science high stakes tests. The two hypotheses for this study are: H01: There is no significant difference in the degree of compliance to ScienceTechnology-
Society themes (derived from National Science Education Standards)
between the elementary, middle, and high school levels.
H02: There is no significant difference in the degree of compliance to ScienceTechnology-
Society themes (derived from National Science Education Standards)
between the elementary, middle, and high school level when examined individually.
The Analysis of Variance F ratio was used to determine the variance between and
within the three educational levels. This analysis addressed hypothesis one. The Analysis
of Variance results refused to reject the null hypothesis, meaning there is significant
difference in the compliance to STS themes between the elementary, middle and high
school educational levels. The Chi-Square test was the statistical analysis used to
compare the educational levels for each individual criterion. This analysis addressed
hypothesis two. The Chi-Squared results showed that none of the states were equally
compliant with each individual criterion across the elementary, middle, and high school
levels.
The National Science Education Standards were created with the input of
thousands of people and over twenty scientific and educational societies. The standards
were tested in numerous classrooms and showed an increase in science literacy for the
students. With the No Child Left Behind legislation and Project 2061 , the attainment of a
science literate society will be helped by the adoption of the NSES standards and the STS
themes into the American classrooms.

The purpose of this study was to identify how various student, school, and staff predictors related to the academic performance of Mexican American fourth graders in selected schools as evidenced by their scores on the Florida Writes Assessment as well as on norm referenced achievement tests in reading comprehension and math applications. Three null hypotheses were tested to show if there was a correlation between predictors and these criterion variables: writing skills, reading comprehension, and math applications. A sample of 64 students from two Florida districts and twelve elementary schools was obtained. Data were collected from archival sources within each school district as well as from surveys distributed to English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teachers. These were then analyzed to determine correlations with Florida Writes and with Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) as well as California Test of Basic Skills (CTBS) subtests in reading comprehension and math applications. The researcher was most interested in determining the relationship between a language arts pull-out program and achievement of ESOL students at a focal school which was in danger of being identified by the Florida Department of Education as "critically low" in academic performance because of low test scores. Correlations of predictor variables including the pull-out program were analyzed to determine statistical significance. Only the third hypothesis--that relating to math applications--was rejected at a probability level of.05. In this case, three predictors were considered significant: number of Limited English Proficient (LEP) students, number of Mexican American students, and the pull-out program. Because of small sample size and limited applications, no far reaching conclusions were drawn although further study was suggested because the Mexican American population in Florida is growing, and these students have historically not performed well in school. It was also recommended that the Florida Department of Education reconsider the timeline for ESOL student participation in norm referenced testing in writing and reading because most research shows that it takes at least five to seven years for most students to acquire comprehensible second language skills.