A Study of Mathematics Achievement in a Secondary School System

This study was conducted in an attempt to determine some causes for the failure of students in a city high school system to perform at or above the national norm on a standardized mathematics achievement test. A second purpose was to examine variation in mathematics achievement among the 9 schools represented in the study. With IQ as a covariate, 3 separate analyses of covariance were performed in the achievement subtest scores of 656 high school juniors. The overall sub-par achievement was attributed to the failure of most students to pursue mathematics beyond their freshman or sophomore years. Variation among schools appeared to be a function of variability in mean IQ scores in those schools. In addition, reading comprehension appeared to be significantly related to mathematics achievement.