Abstract
Patriot High School (PHS) adopted a remediation strategy to help its 10th-grade students at risk of failing the Math portion of MCAS, the state’s end of year competency exam. The centerpiece of that strategy was a computer-based instructional (CBI) course. PHS used a commercially available CBI product to align the course content with the competencies covered on the MCAS exam. This case study examines the overall effectiveness of the PHS strategies, and in particular, the role of CBI. Participant MCAS scores and CBI performance (measured by module-mastery data) are analyzed, and an interview with the course instructor is summarized. Finally, PHS scores were compared to the overall state MCAS scores for the same years. Overall scores of all 10th graders increased significantly compared to their 8th-grade scores, students who participated in the CBI course improved more than the students who did not. The passing rate at PHS improved from 40% in 1999 to 84% in 2001, compared to an improvement of from 47% to 75% statewide. A significant correlation was identified between the MCAS scores and the program usage data, with student CBI module mastery correlated with higher MCAS scores. Overall, the instructor was positive about the impact of the course and believed that the course gave many under-performers a chance to succeed when more traditional methods had failed. It seems likely that CBI contributed to PHS’s success. Although we report herein on just one case, we argue that CBI might play an important a role in the high stakes test environment in the USA and eleswhere.
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Notes
The discrepancy between this average scale score (237) and the average score calculated in the earlier analysis (239) is that the latter does not include all students; it only includes students for whom 8th and 10th grade scores were available. Of the 146 PHS students who took the exam (and are included in Table 2), 126 students were included in the earlier analysis.
Note that Table 3 includes a category for the % of student who failed. The number of students who passed is the sum of the Advanced, Proficient, and Needs Improvement categories.
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Hannafin, R.D., Foshay, W.R. Computer-based instruction’s (CBI) rediscovered role in K-12: An evaluation case study of one high school’s use of CBI to improve pass rates on high-stakes tests. Education Tech Research Dev 56, 147–160 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-006-9007-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-006-9007-4