Science Achievement and Health Behavior: High School Curriculum, Social Context, and Opportunity to Learn

University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX

Investigators

Abstract

A three-year research project is proposed with the following goals: 1. To fully describe the science and mathematics curricular exposure of high school students and differences resulting from curricular variations, social context and opportunities to learn, and students background. 2. To analyze how curricular exposure and social structure influence students persistence through the science and mathematics pipeline. 3. To analyze how curricular exposure and academic progress through the science pipeline affect students choice to major in science-related fields, including teaching. 4. To analyze how science curricular exposure shapes students health behavior and health-related science literacy. Three major areas that influence students progress through the science and mathematics pipeline and their health choices and literacy even if they leave the pipeline are identified and analyzed: (1) curriculum content, performance expectations and perspectives (2) formal, structured opportunities to learn and (3) the informal social contexts of students learning environments. Quantitative methods are employed. This study takes advantage of a unique and timely opportunity to analyze nationally representative, longitudinal data from the 1990s, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and its transcript supplement. A third wave of Add Health is currently being gathered, and students high school transcripts and supporting school documents (course catalogues, syllabi, textbook lists) are being collected and coded. For this study, course curriculum (content, performance expectations, and perspectives) will also be coded and analyzed along with the transcript data and longitudinal survey data from approximately 19,000 respondents who were in grades 7 through 12 in the1994-1995 school year. This data set contains extensive measures of many sources of influence from the contexts of students lives that can be linked to adolescents health behavior, academic performance, and science and teaching aspirations. This study is set within Quadrant III of the ROLE program: irResearch on SMET learning in formal and informal educational settings,ll and has major implications and links to Quadrants II and IV. The study directly targets the question of how recent mathematics and science educational reforms in approaches and curriculum materials affect students academic progress and learning. It explicitly distinguishes between formal and informal processes to assess the effects and interactions of each. The study addresses the concentration of Quadrant II since the research questions are framed to recognize how the complex, multilevel aspects of students backgrounds and lives interact with the structure and social context of schools to affect learning. The concentrations of Quadrant IV are also addressed by the multilevel approach to analysis of longitudinal, nationally representative data. The data sets depth allows for analysis of how reforms in curricular content (including textbook adoptions) and structure are related to students progress within the context of schools and curriculum-based subsets of students (such as tracks). Consistent with common themes across ROLE concentration areas, this study will model these processes and analyze large-scale effects of curricular and social structuring inherent in mathematics and science reform efforts. Finally, it assesses how science education is related to the everyday lives of the U.S.s diverse population by examining how exposure to science in high school is related to health choices and behaviors.