High School Exit Examination Research Articles

ICPE 2022 Special Issue (Part 4) Editorial

The International Conference on Physics Education 2022 was themed "Physics Education: Preparing for the Future." This special issue, contains six articles elaborating on presentations from the conference. What they share is the introduction of new methods and didactic approaches in the field of physics education, along with corresponding studies. In "The Use of Analogies by Future Physics Teachers in Conducting Supervised Internship Activities," F.W. Parma, M.H.A. Vieira, and R. Nardi aimed to investigate how future physics teachers employed analogies during a supervised internship. Shintsuruta, T. Iwayama, and H. Okubo provide an exciting insight into physics education research (PER) in the field of electricity. In Japan, the shape dependence of electrical resistance is effectively taught in senior high schools. The authors present design and practice lessons that illustrate and help students understand the concept. Escape rooms are playing an increasingly important role as a leisure activity for teenagers (and adults). T. Sukelová and K. Velmovská address the motivational aspect of escape rooms and integrate it into the learning of physics. Their article impressively demonstrates that a forward-looking physics education must explore new paths to be both engaging and effective! "A Study of Grade Eleven Students’ Representations of Electricity Through Model-Based Inquiry" by W. Boonmak and J. Huntula arises from the conditions prevailing during COVID-19. The pandemic forced schools to close and transition to online learning. The authors from Thailand researched whether students achieve a higher level of representation after learning via an online learning platform through the Model-Based Inquiry (MBI) method and how they can be supported. In the context of physics, this study once again pertains to the topic area of electricity. Physics education takes place all over the world. Thus, "The Use of Research Findings by Undergraduate Physics Education Programs in Angola" enriches the previously presented studies with insights from Africa. The authors, J. Oliveira and R. Nardi, present the findings of a pilot study that aimed to determine whether scholarly literature—such as journal articles, monographs, dissertations, and theses—is considered in the education of physics teachers in Angola. Finally, E. Blanquet and D. Hennequin from France present "Identifying First-Year Science Students’ Difficulties: Results From The Online French Physical Society Questionnaire," a large-scale study involving 5,891 first-year science students from various French tertiary education tracks (universities, preparatory classes for engineering schools, technological university institutes, etc.) conducted over nine years. The goal was to document the understanding of physics concepts and the mastery of basic mathematical tools after completion of the baccalauréat (French high school exit examination). The articles vividly demonstrate how new paths are being pursued internationally to modernize, enhance, and future-proof the teaching and learning of physics. They also highlight the necessity of physics education research to make informed statements about the effectiveness of these new approaches. I would like to thank all the authors and their teams for their inspiring insights into new paths and scientific investigations. May these contributions encourage many educators worldwide to embark on the path toward a future-oriented physics education!

Who is doing better? Exploring the effect of COVID-19 on students’ academic performance across the test score distribution

ABSTRACT Previous studies have found a negative effect on average student performance on standardised tests following the Covid-19 crisis. However, the effects might differ depending on the student’s position in the achievement distribution. Understanding distributional effects allows us to determine how to better direct resources to students most affected. Using a quantile treatment effects model, we estimate the effects of Covid-19 on academic performance of students in the Colombian standardised high school exit examination. Our estimates show a U-shaped pattern: the negative effect is smaller for students located at the tails of the test score distribution.

Gone with the pandemic: How did Covid-19 affect the academic performance of Colombian students?

The Covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented shock that has tested the responsiveness of education systems around the world. The international literature that has studied the Covid-19 pandemic and school performance is still limited. Colombia presents an interesting scenario for the analysis due to the prolonged school closures and long lockdowns it experienced in 2020, and the availability of a rich dataset on the results of a high school exit examination (Saber11) that was administered even during the pandemic. Using this data, we estimate whether the COVID-19 pandemic is associated to lower levels of performance amongst graduating high school students using a school and time fixed effects model, finding a negative relation. Due to the significant reduction in the number of students taking the national standardized high school exit exam in 2020, we use inverse probability weighting (IPW) regressions to control for possible selection bias. The results of these regressions show that the Covid-19 pandemic has a negative and statistically significant relation with the scores obtained by students on the Saber11 exam. These results are relevant because they provide evidence to motivate the design of public policies that mitigate the side effects of the pandemic on educational outcomes.

Forced displacement and educational achievement in Bogota's public schools

The Colombian civil conflict has been going on for many decades affecting civilians directly and indirectly. One of the repercussions of this long-term conflict has been the forced displacement of civilians from conflict areas. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the differences in the performance in the Colombian national high school exit examination between students who were displaced and those who were not (host students). This paper uses two different methodologies to estimate these differences: fixed effects regressions and an inverse probability weighting approach. The results obtained provide clear evidence of the negative association between displacement and human capital accumulation.

On the Threshold: Impacts of Barely Passing High-School Exit Exams on Post-Secondary Enrollment and Completion

Many states use high-school exit examinations to assess students’ career and college readiness in core subjects. We find meaningful consequences of barely passing the mathematics examination in Massachusetts, as opposed to just failing it. However, these impacts operate at different educational attainment margins for low-income and higher-income students. As in previous work, we find that barely passing increases the probability of graduating from high school for low-income (particularly urban low-income) students, but not for higher-income students. However, this pattern is reversed for 4-year college graduation. For higher-income students only, just passing the examination increases the probability of completing a 4-year college degree by 2.1 percentage points, a sizable effect given that only 13% of these students near the cutoff graduate.

On Teaching Quantum Physics at High School

In the Italian education system, secondary students (ages 14-19) are confronted with the foundations of quantum physics during the final term of scientific high school (pre-university year). The Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (acronym MIUR) has remarked its importance in the syllabus to address the high school exit examination (30 percent of the 5th year physics course) but, due to limited learning time and intrinsic difficulty, this branch of physics is neither assimilated nor appreciated as it should. We wish to illustrate six didactic suggestions focused on learning motivation, emerged during a 17-year long teaching experience, which could help to tackle the main problems found. The key references are two peer-reviewed talks given, respectively, in 2018 at the "6th Annual International Conference on Physics" by the Athens Institute for Education and Research and in 2013 at the 2nd Rome workshop "Science Perception" by the Roma Tre University together with a concise and evocative poster outlining the history of quanta. Other useful resources are a 2015 conceptual diagram and four invited lectures held in the years 2010-2017.

Test Preparation and Students’ Performance: The Case of the Colombian High School Exit Exam

Standardized test scores play a central role in determining college admission decisions in both developed and emerging countries. For that reason, many courses are offered by schools and other educational institutions to prepare students for the exams. However, it is still unclear whether additional preparation has a positive and significant effect. The objective of this paper is to use the results of the Colombian high-school exit examination to gain a better understanding of the relationship between preparation and test results. Our results show that, on average, preparatory activities are associated with an increase of approximately 0.06 standard deviations in scores.

A Widening Gap? A Gender-Based Analysis of Performance on the Colombian High School Exit Examination

En este artículo proveemos información sobre el menor desempeño de las niñas comparado con niños de similares características en las pruebas de salida del bachillerato colombianas, que son requeridas para el acceso a la Universidad. Usando la técnica de regresión cuantílica se encuentra que hay una brecha significativa a favor de los niños, que se incrementa a lo largo de la distribución. La descomposición de Juhn-Murphy-Pierce, muestra que las características personales, familiares y escolares explican una porción pequeña de las brechas, mientras que diferencias en los retornos juegan un papel importante. Adicionalmente, semuestra que la brecha observada difiere significativamente de acuerdo con la región; sugiriendo que características específicas de cada región como por ejemplo diferencias en la cultura relacionadas con el rol de la mujer- pueden estar influenciando el desempeño de las niñas.

Does gender make a difference? Gender-related fairness of high-stakes testing in A-level examinations in English as foreign language in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia in the context of Educational Governance

The shift from decentralized to centralized A-level examinations (Abitur) was implemented in the German school system as a measure of Educational Governance in the last decade. This reform was mainly introduced with the intention of providing higher comparability of school examinations and student achievement as well as increasing fairness in school examinations. It is not known yet if these ambitious aims and functions of the new centralized examination format have been achieved and if fairer assessment can be guaranteed in terms of providing all students with the same opportunities to pass the examinations by allocating fair tests to different student subpopulations e.g., students of different background or gender. The research presented in this article deals with these questions and focuses on gender differences. It investigates gender-specific fairness of the test items in centralized Abitur examinations as high school exit examinations in Germany. The data are drawn from Abitur examinations in English (as a foreign language). Differential item functioning (DIF) analysis reveals that at least some parts of the examinations indicate gender inequality.

Understanding Educational Success Among Latino/a English Language Learners: Factors Associated with High School Completion and Postsecondary School Attendance

As of 2014, 24 states require students to pass exit exams to graduate from high school. In California, all high school students are required to pass the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) to earn a diploma. Failure to pass the CAHSEE is linked with school dropout, which is associated with many deleterious outcomes and disproportionately affects Latino/a youths. Among first generation Latino students, English language learners (ELL) may be especially at risk. The current study explored potential protective influences (e.g., academic expectations, school connectedness) on educational outcomes among 115 Latino/a ELL students at high academic risk. Logistic regressions and discriminant analyses were conducted, and results revealed that only socioeconomic status was significantly associated with school completion and that self-expectation was the only variable significantly associated with postsecondary school attendance. Implications of these results and future directions are discussed.

Impact of Repeatedly Failing a High School Exit Exam: Voices of English Language Learners

This qualitative study explored the perceived psychological impact of repeated failures on a high school exit examination (HSEE). We interviewed eight self-identified English language learners (ELLs), whose ages ranged from 20 to 29. All participants were attending tutoring HSEE programs at urban community colleges in New England. Using a modified grounded theory approach (Goldkuhl and Cronholm in Int J Qual Methods 9:187–205, 2010), interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed. The interviewees perceived many more negative effects than benefits of failing a HSEE. They reported adverse effects on academic motivation, emotions, goals, and self-perceptions. Despite these perceived adverse effects, they identified both individual (efforts, goals, self-reflection and positive mindset, positive self-perceptions) and environmental protective factors (encouragement, instructional support and emotional support) that helped them persist in attempting to pass the HSEE. The findings from study have implications for educational and psychological research, policy and practice.

Educational achievement at schools: Assessing the effect of the civil conflict using a pseudo-panel of schools

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between civil conflict and educational achievement in Colombia through the use of pseudo-panel analysis. We construct a pseudo-panel of schools using the Colombian high school exit examination (Saber11) results from the years 2000, 2002, 2005 and 2007. The results obtained in this research provide evidence of the negative repercussions that a civil conflict can have on human capital accumulation at the school level. Results show a negative and significant relation between the intensity and presence of conflict and the levels of performance in the mathematics and language examinations.

Comparing the Impact of a High School Exit Examination on Science Teachers' Instructional Practices

The purpose of this study was to compare the impact of a high school exit examination with different consequences attached to the results on biology teachers' instructional practices in Mississippi and Tennessee. Self-reported survey data were obtained from a representative sample of teachers who taught the same content tested on their respective state's high-stakes graduation examination. An analysis showed that both groups used a balance of student-centered (e.g., critical-thinking activities) and teacher-centered practices (e.g., lectures) on average at least 2 to 4 days per week. At least 83% of participants indicated an interest in helping their students earn test scores required for graduation and improving graduation examination scores as factors that influenced their use of specific practices and tools. This study presents a detailed picture of which practices were used and factors influencing their use by biology teachers who prepare students for state-mandated examinations with different consequences attached to results.

Do the Academic and Quantitative Literacy tests of the National Benchmark Tests have discriminant validity?

The massification of higher education since the last decade of the 20th century has resulted in an unprecedented influx of students to universities throughout the world. In South Africa, the advent of democracy in 1994 has added impetus to this phenomenon. As a result of the poor quality of education offered at the schools they attended, however, most of the students entering universities in the country are underprepared to handle the demands of higher education in English, the language of teaching and learning at these institutions and a second language to most students. This is the case even for students who obtain good results in their high school exit examinations. Higher Education South Africa (HESA) has introduced a set of tests known as the National Benchmark Tests (NBTs) to assess the level of academic preparedness of the students entering universities for the first time. The NBTs comprise three tests of Academic Literacy (AL), Quantitative Literacy (QL) and Maths Literacy (ML). As their names imply, the three tests are aimed at measuring three different knowledge/skills domains that are key to student success at university. It is important therefore that performance in these tests exhibits evidence of the difference that these domains entail. The aim of this study was to establish if two of these tests, namely, the AL and QL tests possessed discriminant validity. The results revealed that the tests lack discriminant validity.

High-School Exit Examinations and the Schooling Decisions of Teenagers: Evidence From Regression-Discontinuity Approaches

We examine whether barely failing one or more state-mandated high school exit examinations in Massachusetts affects the probability that students enroll in college. We extend the exit examination literature in two ways. First, we explore longer term effects of failing these tests. We find that barely failing an exit examination, for students on the margin of passing, reduces the probability of college attendance several years after the test. Second, we explore potential interactions that arise because students must pass exit examinations in both mathematics and English language arts in order to graduate from high school. We adopt a variety of regression-discontinuity approaches to address situations where multiple variables assign individuals to a range of treatments; some of these approaches enable us to examine whether the effect of barely failing one examination depends on student performance on the other. We document the range of causal effects estimated by each approach. We argue that each approach presents opportunities and limitations for making causal inferences in such situations and that the choice of approach should match the question of interest.

Exit Strategies: How Low-Performing High Schools Respond to High School Exit Examination Requirements

Background Over the past several decades, a significant number of states have either adopted or increased high school exit examination requirements. Although these policies are intended to generate improvement in schools, little is known about how high schools are responding to exit testing pressures. Purpose This study examined how five low-performing high-poverty high schools responded to the pressures of Texas’ exit testing policy. The goal of this study was to understand how schools responded to the pressures of Texas’ exit testing system (in terms of curriculum, instruction, and supports for low-achieving students) and how educators reconciled those pressures with other accountability pressures that they faced. Research Design This study employed qualitative case study design. Five low-performing high schools were sampled within the state of Texas, each of which served large concentrations of at-risk students. A total of 105 interviews were conducted across the five case study sites over the course of 2 years (2008–2009). Conclusions This study found that the Texas exit testing policy created a misalignment between educator and student-level accountability, which had particularly negative consequences for struggling students. The findings of this study suggest a need for policy makers to reconsider the assumptions on which exit tests are based and to more closely consider the goal of exit testing systems in the context of, and in relation to, the larger systems of accountability in which they are embedded. Acknowledgments The research reported herein was supported by a grant from the Spencer Foundation. The author would like to thank the editors of Teachers College Record, as well as the anonymous reviewers, for their helpful feedback on the manuscript. The author would also like to thank Meredith Richards and Rebecca Cohen for their assistance with data collection for the project.

“Stakes Is High”

This article explores practitioner inquiry and culturally relevant pedagogy to create academic success with students facing high school exit examinations in Reading. In Florida, about one-third of African American students passed the test in 2010. Student perspectives on achievement, school processes, and engagement were incorporated with strategic practice to create a collaborative, classroom environment. Culturally relevant pedagogy, literacy theory, and English language arts instruction were integrated with student’s perspectives in curriculum design and instruction.

Standardising Assessment in an Era of Curriculum Reform: The Case of High School Exit-Level Economics Examinations in South Africa

KEYWORDS Assessment. Standards. High-stakes Testing. Economics. Benchmarking ABSTRACT Education policy has undergone radical change in post-apartheid South Africa (SA), and high school exit-level assessment policy has been subject to pressure for reformulation. This article examines recent trends in exit-level high school Economics examinations in SA and reflects on a curriculum reform context in which examining authorities struggle to benchmark standards of assessment. In SA the exercise of standardi sation and benchmarking is highly politicised, especially at the crucial, high-stakes school exit level. An account is presented of the contested nature of high-stakes assessment amidst mounting public pressure to show improved pass rates and growing critique of the quality of high school graduates. Data are drawn from a rigorous comparative analysis of standardised high school exit examinations in Economics for a 3-year period (2008-2010). The a ssessm ent protocol of the state-controlled Department of Basic Education (DBE) is analysed. The DBE administer s the examination of 93% of schools in SA. The findings indicate that the standard of the exit-level Economics examination has varied considerably across the years under review, revealing the fragility and uncer tainty that permeates Economics assessment as the examining authority searches for a suitable assessment standar d. The article begins with an outline of the existing assessment context in SA, followed by a discussion of the contested nature of high-stakes assessment. An analysis of the selected Economics papers follows, and the arti cle concludes with a discussion of the findings and an exploration of the constructs 'inception-year dilemmas', 'veiled upward shifts in standards' and 'fragile academic vigilance'.

Exit examinations, peer academic climate, and adolescents' developmental outcomes

Implications of high school exit examination performance were examined with a sample of 672 racial/ethnic minority students. Exit examination failure in the 10th grade was negatively linked to subsequent grade point average, school engagement, and school belonging one year later, controlling for outcomes prior to taking the examination. Academically incongruent students–those who failed the exit examination but were in schools where their same-race/ethnicity peers were performing well academically–seemed to be at particular risk for struggling grades and poorer socioemotional well-being (e.g., experiencing greater depressive symptoms and loneliness). Findings contribute to the limited research base on exit examinations and highlight the links between exit examination performance and developmental outcomes beyond the oft-studied academic domain.

Evidence, Methodology, Test-Based Accountability, and Educational Policy

This exchange represents a follow-up to an article on the effects of state high school exit examinations that previously appeared in this journal ( Warren, Grodsky, & Kalogrides 2009 ). That 2009 was article featured prominently in a report by the National Research Council (NRC) that evaluated the efficacy of test-based accountability systems. Hanushek (2012 ) was highly critical of the NRC’s interpretation of the existing evidence, including Warren, Grodsky, & Kalogrides’ 2009 piece. Here, Warren and Grodsky explain why they believe that Hanushek incorrectly evaluated their original article on state high school exit examinations. Hanushek then responds.