The Semestered Secondary School and Student Achievement: Results from the Second Ontario International Science Study

Abstract

In an earlier article (Raphael, Wahlstrom, & McLean, 1986), achievement results from the Ontario component of the Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) were examined in relation to the claims of advocates of the semestered secondary school. While teachers in semestered Ontario schools reported greater variety in their teaching approaches, fewer hours of course instruction were reported. Analyses revealed that students enrolled in semestered Grade 12 and 13 mathematics classes demonstrated significantly lower achievement than their non-semestered school peers with no difference in attitudes. Ontario also participated in the Second International Science Study (SISS).2 Biology, chemistry, and physics classes were sampled from 75 secondary schools, and students were administered achievement and attitude items near the end of their course. Test booklets designed for the three science content areas of biology, chemistry, and physics each consisted of 30 international and 5 Canadian-designed items. Unlike SIMS, where 136 mathematics achievement items were rotated through a class, students in SISS answered all of the 35 items in either the biology, the chemistry, or the physics booklet depending upon the class in which they were enrolled. Attitude items designed to assess affective responses to the subject areas were administered at time of testing. Principals, responding to a school questionnaire, indicated whether the school was semestered or on a full-year timetable. Achievement levels for students within a school were computed for each item and overall school scores for each biology, chemistry, and physics class were attained by averaging scores across the 35 items. Since not all three class types were tested within all schools, multivariate tests on the achievement measures were inappropriate. One-way analyses of variance were used to compare semestered and non-semestered schools on biology achievement, chemistry achievement, and physics achieve-