Standardized Test Outcomes for Students Engaged in Inquiry-Based Science Curricula in the Context of Urban Reform

Item

Title

Standardized Test Outcomes for Students Engaged in Inquiry-Based Science Curricula in the Context of Urban Reform

Abstract/Description

Considerable effort has been made over the past decade to address the needs of learners in large urban districts through scaleable reform initiatives. We examine the effects of a multifaceted scaling reform that focuses on supporting standards based science teaching in urban middle schools. The effort was one component of a systemic reform effort in the Detroit Public Schools, and was centered on highly specified and developed project-based inquiry science units supported by aligned professional development and learning technologies. Two cohorts of 7th and 8th graders that participated in the project units are compared with the remainder of the district population, using results from the high-stakes state standardized test in science. Both the initial and scaled up cohorts show increases in science content understanding and process skills over their peers, and significantly higher pass rates on the statewide test. The relative gains occur up to a year and a half after participation in the curriculum, and show little attenuation with in the second cohort when scaling occurred and the number of teachers involved increased. The effect of participation in units at different grade levels is independent and cumulative, with higher levels of participation associated with similarly higher achievement scores. Examination of results by gender reveals that the curriculum effort succeeds in reducing the gender gap in achievement experienced by urban African-American boys. These findings demonstrate that standards-based, inquiry science curriculum can lead to standardized achievement test gains in historically underserved urban students, when the curriculum is highly specified, developed, and aligned with professional development and administrative support.

Author/creator

Geier, Robert

Blumenfeld, Phyllis C.

Marx, Ronald W.

Krajcik, Joseph S.

Fishman, Barry J.

Soloway, Elliot

Clay-Chambers, Juanita

Date

2008

In publication

Journal of Research in Science Teaching

Volume

45

Issue

8

Pages

922-939

Resource type

en Research/Scholarly Media

Resource status/form

en Published Text

Scholarship genre

en Empirical

Keywords

general science

middle school science

program evaluation

urban education

Language

en

Open access/full-text available

en Yes

Peer reviewed

en Yes

ISSN

1098-2736

DOI

10.1002/tea.20248

URL

Official Publisher's Webpage (Wiley Online Library)

Open Access PDF (University of Michigan Deep Blue)

Citation

Geier, R., Blumenfeld, P. C., Marx, R. W., Krajcik, J. S., Fishman, B., Soloway, E., & Clay-Chambers, J. (2008). Standardized Test Outcomes for Students Engaged in Inquiry-Based Science Curricula in the Context of Urban Reform. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 45(8), 922–939. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.20248

Cited in

Equitable Learning

Item sets

Open Access Resource (IRE)

Handbook Chapter 3 Citations

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