SAT Math Scores Research Articles

Examining the Existence of Cognitive Thresholds in Highly Quantitative College Courses.

While the dominant finding indicates a monotonic relationship between cognitive ability and academic performance, some researchers have suggested the existence of cognitive thresholds for challenging coursework, such that a certain level of cognitive ability is required for reaching a satisfactory level of academic achievement. Given the significance of finding a threshold for understanding the relationship between cognitive ability and academic performance, and the limited studies on the topic, it is worth further investigating the possibility of cognitive thresholds. Using a multi-institutional dataset and the necessary condition analysis (NCA), we attempted to replicate previous findings of cognitive thresholds on the major GPA of mathematics and physics-majored students, as well as the course grade of organic chemistry, to examine whether high SAT math scores constitute a necessary condition for obtaining satisfactory grades in these courses. The results from the two studies do not indicate an absolute cognitive threshold point below which students are doomed to fail regardless of the amount of effort they devote into learning. However, we did find that the chance of students with a low level of quantitative ability to succeed in highly quantitative courses is very small, which qualifies for the virtually necessary condition.

Cutting our losses: The effects of a loss-aversion strategy on student learning gains

In this randomized controlled trial with controls for student characteristics, the authors used a loss-aversion strategy to test whether students achieve greater learning gains from combining research-based instructional strategies with loss aversion. Students in the control group began the class with no grades and built their course average by completing assignments and exams. The treatment group began with a score of 100 percent on each assignment and viewed the deductions on scores from errors and missed work. The results indicated that students in the treatment group experienced gains in learning that were, on average, 5 to 13 percentage points larger than those of the control group. These learning gains were concentrated among students with low SAT math scores.

Not feeling recognized as a physics person by instructors and teaching assistants is correlated with female students’ lower grades

Student motivational beliefs in introductory physics courses can influence their course outcomes as well as their retention in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines and future career aspirations. Prior research has shown that students’ perceived recognition by others as a physics person is important in predicting their physics identity and career choices. This study used validated survey data from 827 students in the first of two college algebra-based introductory physics courses primarily taken by bioscience majors, in which women make up approximately 67% of the class. We investigated how the students’ perceived recognition by instructors and teaching assistants (TAs) as a physics person predicts their grade at the end of a mandatory physics course for bioscience majors in which women are not outnumbered by men. We found that overall women had lower perceived recognition than men as a physics person and their perceived recognition played an important role in predicting course grades controlling for high school GPA and math SAT scores. Since physics as a discipline presents a barrier to women due to deep-rooted societal stereotypes and biases about who can excel in it, the numerical representation of women alone in these courses does not imply that they will feel recognized by their instructors and TAs as a physics person without an intentional effort to make the learning environment equitable and inclusive. These findings suggest that physics instructors and TAs should focus on changing the culture in their physics classes and create an equitable and inclusive learning environment in which students from traditionally marginalized demographic groups, e.g., women, feel recognized, and can excel.Received 2 November 2021Accepted 22 March 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.18.010138Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasDiversity & inclusionEpistemology, attitudes, & beliefsLearning environmentPhysics Education Research

Signaled or Suppressed? How Gender Informs Women’s Undergraduate Applications in Biology and Engineering

How does gender inform initial academic commitments and narrative self-presentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields during the college application process? Analyzing 60,000 undergraduate applications to the University of California, the authors surface two key findings. First, extant gender segregation of academic disciplines also manifests in intended major choice. Additionally, gender and SAT Math scores together strongly predict intent to major in biology and engineering, the most popular and gender-segregated majors. Second, using natural language processing, the investigators find that author gender is more predictive of essay topics written by prospective engineers than prospective biologists. Specifically, women intending to major in engineering write about essay topics that signal their gender identity to a greater degree than women intending to major in biology, perhaps to mitigate gender-transgressive academic commitments. The authors subsequently argue that prescriptive and proscriptive ideas about men and women’s academic choices remain highly salient in a moment of imagining future academic and professional selves.

Breaking Ties: Regression Discontinuity Design Meets Market Design

Many schools in large urban districts have more applicants than seats. Centralized school assignment algorithms ration seats at over‐subscribed schools using randomly assigned lottery numbers, non‐lottery tie‐breakers like test scores, or both. The New York City public high school match illustrates the latter, using test scores and other criteria to rank applicants at the city's screened schools, combined with lottery tie‐breaking at the rest. We show how to identify causal effects of school attendance in such settings. Our approach generalizes regression discontinuity methods to allow for multiple treatments and multiple running variables, some of which are randomly assigned. The key to this generalization is a local propensity score that quantifies the school assignment probabilities induced by lottery and non‐lottery tie‐breakers. The utility of the local propensity score is demonstrated in an assessment of the predictive value of New York City's school report cards. Schools that earn the highest report card grade indeed improve SAT math scores and increase graduation rates, though by much less than OLS estimates suggest. Selection bias in OLS estimates of grade effects is egregious for screened schools.

Athletics and Admissions: The Impact of the Penn State Football Scandal on Student Quality

We ask whether a scandal in a university’s athletics department affects the quality of the incoming student body. To do so, we evaluate the child sex abuse scandal at Penn State University in 2011. The violations involved a former employee with the crimes occurring a decade prior. The plausibly-exogenous shock allows us to make a causal identification of the scandal's effect on the university. We use synthetic control methods establishing economically meaningful impacts. We find that the average high school GPA is 0.12 points less and the proportion of students with high SAT Math scores is down 4.8 percentage points.

Efficacy of an Asynchronous Online Preparatory Chemistry Course: An Observational Study

In an ongoing effort to increase student retention and success in the undergraduate general chemistry course sequence, a fully online preparatory chemistry course was developed and implemented at a large public research university. To gain insight about the efficacy of the online course, an observational study was carried out in which student performance on final exams and performance in the subsequent general chemistry course were compared between the online cohort and a previous student cohort which completed the preparatory chemistry course in a traditional lecture format. Multiple linear regression analyses were used to compare final exam scores and general chemistry course grades between the online and in-person student cohorts, while statistically controlling for incoming student academic achievement. Results from these analyses suggest the fully online course resulted in statistically significant increases in both the preparatory chemistry final exam scores and course grades in the subsequent general chemistry course. Because the retention of less academically prepared students in STEM majors is a historical problem at the institution in which the online preparatory chemistry course was implemented, the analyses also aimed to determine if this at-risk group demonstrated similar achievement relative to the population at large. Notably, it was determined that students with the lowest incoming Math SAT scores appeared to perform better in the online course relative to the analogous group of students in the in-person course. Though the observational nature of this study does not allow for the determination of causality, these results suggest a fully online course can result in improved performance for large populations of students, without resulting in a negative achievement gap for less academically prepared students. The structure and implementation of the online course and the results from the statistical analyses will be described herein.

Number line estimation and standardized test performance: The left digit effect does not predict SAT math score.

IntroductionRecent work reveals a new source of error in number line estimation (NLE), the left digit effect (Lai, Zax, et al., 2018), whereby numerals with different leftmost digits but similar magnitudes (e.g., 399, 401) are placed farther apart on a number line (e.g., 0 to 1,000) than is warranted. The goals of the present study were to: (1) replicate the left digit effect, and (2) assess whether it is related to mathematical achievement.MethodParticipants were all individuals (adult college students) who completed the NLE task in the laboratory between 2014 and 2019 for whom SAT scores were available (n = 227).ResultsWe replicated the left digit effect but found its size was not correlated with SAT math score, although it was negatively correlated with SAT verbal score for one NLE task version.ConclusionsThese findings provide further evidence that individual digits strongly influence estimation performance and suggest that this effect may have different cognitive contributors, and predict different complex skills, than overall NLE accuracy.

Breaking Ties: Regression Discontinuity Design Meets Market Design

Centralized school assignment algorithms must distinguish between applicants with the same preferences and priorities. This is done with randomly assigned lottery numbers, nonlottery tie-breakers like test scores, or both. The New York City public high school match illustrates the latter, using test scores, grades, and interviews to rank applicants to screened schools, combined with lottery tie-breaking at unscreened schools. We show how to identify causal effects of school attendance in such settings. Our approach generalizes regression discontinuity designs to allow for multiple treatments and multiple running variables, some of which are randomly assigned.Lotteries generate assignment risk at screened as well as unscreened schools. Centralized assignment also identifies screened school effects away from screened school cutoffs. These features of centralized assignment are used to assess the predictive value of New York City's school report cards. Grade A schools improve SAT math scores and increase the likelihood of graduating, though by less than OLS estimates suggest. Selection bias in OLS estimates is egregious for Grade A screened schools.

The Role of Dual Enrollment STEM Coursework in Increasing STEM Career Interest among American High School Students

Background/ContextThe United States is facing a shortage of domestically prepared STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) professionals, yet many high school graduates find they are not sufficiently prepared for college-level work in STEM subjects. Dual enrollment STEM courses count for both high school and college credit, expose students to the demands of a college course, and may be used to augment existing high school course offerings and graduate students who are better prepared to continue, and are interested in continuing, their education in STEM.Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of StudyThis study investigated changes in students’ reported interest in STEM careers after taking a dual enrollment STEM course. We address the following questions: (1) Are high school students who take one or more STEM dual enrollment courses more likely than their peers to report an interest in STEM careers by the end of high school? (2) Is dual enrollment STEM course-taking more effective than Advanced Placement STEM course-taking in increasing student interest in STEM careers by the end of high school?Research DesignA quasi-experimental research design was used in this work, with propensity weights employed to account for group self-selection effects post hoc. Data were collected through a national survey of college students (N = 14,114) who provided information about their K–12 experiences.Findings/ResultsAfter controlling for demographic, academic, and background characteristics, particularly prior interest in a STEM career, the odds of a STEM career intention were 1.3 times (p < .05) greater for those taking a dual enrollment course compared with peers who did not. Students who took both dual enrollment and AP STEM courses had 2.1 times the odds of their nonparticipating peers to report an interest in STEM careers. Results show that the STEM dual enrollment intervention is equally effective for students of all demographic backgrounds.Conclusions/RecommendationsThis study is the first to examine the link between dual enrollment and career interest, revealing an additional avenue through which students may be encouraged to pursue STEM careers. Dual enrollment is a promising intervention to increase STEM career interest among all high school students, including students of different genders, races, socioeconomic status (as measured by highest parental education level), and academic achievement (as measured by math SAT score). The policy implications for this work are that dual enrollment programs should be vigorously implemented and promoted in an effort to increase the number of students, especially students from underrepresented groups, who graduate from high school with an interest in a STEM career.

Athletics and Admissions: The Impact of the Penn State Football Scandal on Student Quality

We ask whether a scandal in a university's athletics department affects the quality of the incoming, first-year student body. To do so, we evaluate the child sex abuse scandal at Penn State University in 2011. The violations involved a former employee with the crimes occurring a decade prior. Thus, the plausibly-exogenous shock allows us to make a causal identification of the scandal's effect on the university. We use synthetic control methods establishing economically meaningful impacts. We find that the average high school GPA is 0.12 points less and the proportion of students with high SAT Math scores is down 4.8 percentage points.

Making an Online Summer Bridge Program High Touch

Making an Online Summer Bridge Program High Touch Melissa Eblen-Zayas (bio) and Janet Russell (bio) Summer bridge programs are designed to ease the transition to college by providing students with academic skills and social resources during the summer between high school graduation and college. Research shows that bridge programs are potentially effective at increasing retention and academic success of at-risk students by providing an early orientation to the college experience and connecting these students with each other and the community (Thayer, 2000; Institute of Education Sciences, 2016); however, bridge programs can be expensive for institutions to operate, and the students who might benefit most from participation may not be able to commit to being on campus full-time during the summer. We developed a hybrid program to achieve many of the goals of a traditional summer bridge program, but with a flexible implementation that allowed students to remain at home to meet employment or family obligations. The 6-week summer portion of the program was entirely online, followed by on-campus, face-to-face weekly course meetings in the 10-week fall term. Students earned 6 credits for completion of the entire (summer and fall) program (typical courses at our institution carry 6 credits), and there was no cost to students to participate. For our residential, small liberal arts college, a bridge course that opened with a completely online portion was paradoxical—How do you create a high-touch, online program that captures key elements of what is a mostly residential and face-to-face experience for students? We had two main goals for the design and implementation of the 6-week summer online portion of the program: for participating students (a) to review and strengthen the quantitative skills seen in high school math classes, and (b) to connect with the college community before arriving on campus in the fall. As these goals suggest, this program blended elements of academic affairs and student affairs to create a rich learning experience built on research-based suggestions for supporting first-generation students (Pascarella, Pierson, Wolniak, & Terenzini, 2004), although the program was not limited to first-generation students. GROUNDING OUR PROGRAM IN THE LITERATURE The academic focus of this program was strengthening and reviewing quantitative skills. Research has shown that there are large disparities in the math preparation of students that can be traced back to early [End Page 104] educational periods that impact whether students are well-positioned for 2-year or 4-year college experiences (Lee, 2012), and for some demographic groups, college enhances quantitative literacy disparities (Baer, Cook, & Baldi, 2006). Even at selective liberal arts colleges similar to ours, there are significant retention and achievement gaps for students in quantitative fields (Brown, Coffey, Rachford, & Sambolín, 2017). Every student at our institution is required to complete three courses that include a quantitative reasoning exploration component; yet students’ high school preparation in quantitative topics up through precalculus varies immensely, and the college offers no remedial courses in math or quantitative reasoning. Because this program did not target students with particular academic interests (e.g., potential STEM majors), our goal was to review quantitative skills and also showcase the relevance of these skills to a variety of disciplines and career paths. First-generation college students are often unaware of the range of possible curricular and career options, but they benefit from explicit discussion of the possibilities (Parks-Yancy, 2012; Tate et al., 2015). Students were invited to participate based on ACT and SAT math scores that suggested they could benefit from quantitative skills review. Over 100 students were invited to apply, approximately 30–40 students followed through with an application, and we selected 20 students to participate, primarily based on a quantitative skills assessment and how students’ areas of needed improvement matched with the quantitative topics addressed by the program. The program topics were chosen based on conversations with faculty members in multiple disciplines, as well as assessments of students’ quantitative skills from previous years. We did not target particular demographic groups in our invitation or in our selection process, but the percentage of students eligible for U.S. Department of Education TRIO Student Services Support who participated in the...

Breaking Ties: Regression Discontinuity Design Meets Market Design

Many schools in large urban districts have more applicants than seats. Centralized school assignment algorithms ration seats at over-subscribed schools using randomly assigned lottery numbers, non-lottery tie-breakers like test scores, or both. The New York City public high school match illustrates the latter, using test scores and other criteria to rank applicants at ``screened'' schools, combined with lottery tie-breaking at unscreened ``lottery'' schools. We show how to identify causal effects of school attendance in such settings. Our approach generalizes regression discontinuity methods to allow for multiple treatments and multiple running variables, some of which are randomly assigned. The key to this generalization is a local propensity score that quantifies the school assignment probabilities induced by lottery and non-lottery tie-breakers. The local propensity score is applied in an empirical assessment of the predictive value of New York City's school report cards. Schools that receive a high grade indeed improve SAT math scores and increase graduation rates, though by much less than OLS estimates suggest. Selection bias in OLS estimates is egregious for screened schools.

EASEing Students Into College: The Impact of Multidimensional Support for Underprepared Students

Extensive theoretical literature and qualitative evidence nominate learning communities as a promising strategy to improve persistence and success among at-risk populations, such as students who are academically underprepared for college-level coursework. Yet rigorous quantitative evidence on the impacts of these programs is limited. This paper estimates the causal effects of a first-year STEM learning communities program on both cognitive and noncognitive outcomes at a large public 4-year institution. We use a regression discontinuity design based on the fact that students are assigned to the program if their math SAT score is below a threshold. Our results indicate that program participation increased the academic performance and sense of belonging for students around the cutoff. These results provide compelling evidence that learning communities can support at-risk populations when implemented with a high level of fidelity.

Are psychology students getting worse at math?: Trends in the math skills of psychology statistics students across 21 years

Statistics is an important subject in psychology and social science education. However, inadequate mathematical skills can pose a barrier to learning statistics. Some educators have suggested that students’ math skills are declining. The present research examined trends in the math skills of psychology undergraduates across 21 years. Students (n = 3735) who were enrolled in an introductory psychology statistics course from 1990 to 2011 completed a pencil-and-paper math skills test. Over the 21-year period, there was a 9% decline in math skills scores and a 28% increase in the number of attempts required to pass the test. Consistent with national trends, SAT Math scores also increased by 7%; however, the pencil-and-paper math skills test was nearly twice as predictive of course performance as was the SAT. Results suggest that important math abilities have declined. Implications for statistical education in the social sciences are discussed.

Increasing Exposure to Programming: A Comparison of Demographic Characteristics of Students Enrolled in Introductory Computer Science Programming Courses vs. a Multidisciplinary Data Analysis Course

Upward trends in programming careers and increases in programming in less traditionally computer-oriented occupations threaten to further increase the current underrepresentation of both females and individuals from racial minority groups in these disciplines. Using administrative data (2009 – 2014), the present study compares demographic characteristics of students enrolled in a course that introduced programming: a multidisciplinary data analysis course, an introductory programming course, or an introductory computer science (CS) gateway course. The multidisciplinary data analysis course enrolled significantly more female students and students with lower Math SAT scores. Females were overrepresented in the data analysis course and underrepresented in the introductory programming and CS gateway courses relative to the larger campus community, with similar findings for underrepresented minority students. Less emphasis on traditional approaches to introductory programming and increased interdisciplinary opportunities to tackle real world questions may be one way to improve access to programming experiences for students from a wider range of educational, social and economic backgrounds.

Food Insecurity and Standardized Test Scores

This paper aims to explore the impact of food insecurity on students’ standardized test scores by using a panel data of US states from 2005-2012. While estimating this relationship, we also address the endogeneity bias of food insecurity in the math-SAT score regression by relying on a dynamic panel specific system GMM estimator. We find that food insecurity is a significant factor in determining the average math-SAT score. An increase in food insecurity lowers the students’ Math-SAT scores. Although, a few studies using small micro-level survey data have found evidence to link food insecurity to children’s learning outcomes, this is the first study to find this link using a macro level panel data for the US states, indicating that the problem of food insecurity is much more pervasive than what the small scale studies have indicated so far, and needs to be dealt with in a more effective way through public policies, if the US has to succeed in the twenty first century.

A student's dilemma: is there a trade-off between a higher salary or higher GPA

ABSTRACTIn this paper, we explore whether there is a relationship between average grades earned in a course and the national average salaries of graduates of the major associated with the course. Using student-level data from a selective private liberal arts college, we find an inverse relationship. The result suggests that students face a trade-off between grades earned in college versus higher expected earnings in the future. This relationship is stronger for students with lower math SAT scores but not for those with lower verbal SAT scores. Finally, the female advantage in course grades diminishes significantly in majors with higher salaries.

Can they succeed? Exploring at-risk students' study habits in college general chemistry

A well-established literature base identifies a portion of students enrolled in post-secondary General Chemistry as at-risk of failing the course based on incoming metrics. Learning about the experiences and factors that lead to this higher failure rate is essential toward improving retention in this course. This study examines the relationship between study habits and academic performance for at-risk students in General Chemistry. Students who were in the bottom quartile of SAT math scores were identified as at-risk students. The study habits of General Chemistry students, both those identified as at-risk and those not identified were measured by text message inquiries. The text message asked ‘‘Have you studied for General Chemistry I in the past 48 hours? If so, how did you study?” twice a week throughout a semester. Student responses to the messages were used to calculate the frequency of studying throughout the term. The results from a multiple regression analysis showed that high frequency of studying could mitigate the difference between at-risk and non-at-risk students on final exam scores. Additionally, the quality of studying for six at-risk students was analyzed by student interviews in concert with their text message responses. The results indicated that the quality of studying is not necessarily linked to frequency of studying and both quality and frequency can play a role in at-risk students' academic performance. The results presented offer a path for at-risk students to succeed in General Chemistry and the methodology presented offers a potential avenue for evaluating future efforts to improve student success.

Knowledge decay between semesters

Summer learning loss has been widely studied in K-12 schooling, where the literature finds a range of results. This study provides the first evidence of summer learning loss in higher education. We analyze college students taking sequential courses with some students beginning the sequence in the fall semester and others in the spring. Those beginning in the fall experience a shorter break between the courses. We test whether the length of that gap explains the students’ performance in the subsequent course. Initial results suggest that a longer gap is associated with lower grades. However, including student fixed effects eliminates the observed knowledge decay with a few exceptions: knowledge decay remains for students in language courses, for students with below-median SAT Math scores, and for students with majors outside STEM fields.