Strong school academic culture (academic press and college-going culture) raises ACT scores by about 0.6 points after controlling for prior PLAN scores¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2008 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Controlling for prior eleventh-grade PLAN scores and student and school factors, schools strong on academic press and college-going culture showed ACT Reading and Science scores approximately 0.6 points higher than weak schools, with similar differences on Math and English. → John Q. Easton 2008

Evidence¶

John Q. Easton 2008¶

John Q. Easton, Stephen Ponisciak, Stuart Luppescu. (2008). From High School to the Future: The Pathway to 20. Research Report, Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/high-school-future-pathway-20

q2 · i? · associational · r2

Findings from the CCSR ACT preparation study, cited and described in this report's Chapter 2: comparisons of schools strong versus weak on school-wide academic press for the future and teacher-reported college-going culture, controlling for PLAN scores. The report notes average student improvement between PLAN and ACT is itself less than one point.

"On both the ACT Reading and Science tests, the difference in scores between schools strong on the two academic climate measures, compared to schools that are weak, is approximately 0.6 points of the ACT scale."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Test strategies and item practice are not effective mechanisms for raising ACT scores; improvements are smaller the more class time goes to test preparation — related
• Combined strong academic culture and high grades more than double EXPLORE-to-ACT gains at every starting score, including moving students from an EXPLORE of 17 to an average ACT of 20.7 — related
• Higher course grades predict larger ACT gains regardless of starting PLAN score; students with Ds or Fs lose ground — related
• School academic press is positively related to school-average reading and math achievement gains in Chicago middle grades — related
• Chicago students gain most in achievement when strong academic press and strong social support occur together, and learn less when either is strong and the other weak — related
• Deep Support schools showed significantly larger test-score improvements but smaller improvements in academic demand, teacher support, and elementary grades than non-Deep-Support schools — related
• Schools with stronger college-going cultures have higher student ACT scores, regardless of student backgrounds — possibly the same claim (merge candidate)