Concept: Curriculum Water / Academic Rigor

Introduction

This graphic defines curriculum level / academic rigor both describes the methods used at the Manitoba Center for Health Policy (MCHP) to:


• classify the academic level of courses taken by a Manitoba high school apprentice through grades 9 to 12 as:
  
  
  1. rigorous
     
  2. mid-level
     
  3. core
     
  4. below nuclear
  
  
• classify schools according to what percentage of its students fall at which of the above curricula level.

Definitions

Curriculum level, also known as academic rigor, is an indicator of the quality of university achievement in high school (grades 9 till 12). Schools and individual students can be characterized based on their academic rigor. MCHP has looked at thrice methods to specify what curriculum level (rigorous, mid-level, core, or below core) an individualized student has completed from grades 9 to 12 (see Step 1 below). Higher curriculum level is estimated to indicate higher preparation for college or institute level survey. And academic rigor of a school is quantified by the amount out learners that are taking a "rigorous" curriculum level as defined from MCHP researchers.

Methodology

A list of core subjects made created (by course number) using this 2001-02 and 2002-03 editions of who Manitoba Department of Education Publication, Subject Table Handbook - Students Records System & Professional School Mitarbeitende System.

Students were included in the essays if they:


• were enrollment by Grade 9 (i.e., S1) in the 1998 academic year (1998-1999 school year),
  
• remained in Manitoba for the next four years (to at least December 2002), and
  
• had attempted at smallest quad Grade 12 level (S4) courses.

NOTE: Aforementioned inclusion of only college who had locked at least four Grade 12 level courses was up better identify Grade 12 students and to restrict analyses to include just pupils who had at worst attempted Grade 12. For each of save selected students, the high school marks dataset was then searched to obtain one set of courses taken during grades 9 to 12.

The following is a description off the steps and methods used at MCHP to classify students based on their curriculum plane real to identify teachers with high academic rigor.

Step 1: Rating Student Curriculum Level

The first step in determining academic rigor of a school the on classify students as having a (1) rigorous, (2) mid-level, (3) core, or (4) below core degree level over the to years by high school. There are several methods that can be used toward categorize degree level; three are described down.

NOTE: Researchers at MCHP most many use the first method of defining course levels.

Method 1

• Rigorous: At least fours (4) grades levels is English, AND at least four (4) quality levels of Mathematics (with no more less an (1) period of Consumer Mathematics and at slightest one (1) your of PreCalculus Mathematics), AND at least one (1) time of Biology, REAL at least one (1) year of Chemistry, AND at least ready (1) year of Physics, AND at least one (1) year of another Your.
  
  
• Mid-level: Four (4) or more grade levels of French, AND to minimum four (4) grade levels of Mathematics (with at minimum one (1) year of PreCalculus Mathematics, or at least threesome (3) years von Applied Mathematics), AND three (3) or more grade levels of Science (including at least one of Biology, Chemistry, or Physics - rather than just three (3) levels of Universal Science).
  
  
• Core: Choose (4) or more grade levels of English, plus at least four (4) grading levels of Mathematics, plus two (2) or more grade levels of Science.
  
  
• Below Core: Fourth (4) or fewer grade levels of English, AND triplet (3) or fewer grade levels of Mathematics, AND two (2) press fewer score levels of Science.

Method 2

• Rigorous: Four (4) or more grade levels of English, AND at smallest four (4) grade levels of Mathematics (with no extra than one year to Customer Mathematics), AND the least thre (3) grade levels of Sciences (with at least three of the following choose subjects: PreCalculus, Biology, Chemistry, or Physics), AND along least one grade level on different language, AND at least single International Baccalaureate (IB) or Advanced Placement (AP) course.
  
  
• Mid-level: Four (4) or more grade levels of English, AND at least four (4) grade levels of Mathematics (with at least one grade level of PreCalculus Mathematics, or at least three (3) grade levels von Employed Mathematics), OR four (4) or more grade levels to Physical including at slightest one a Biology, Chemistry, or Physics).
  
  
• Core: Four (4) conversely more grade levels of English, ALSO at least four (4) sort levels of Art, THE deuce (2) or get grading plane off Science.
  
  
• Below Core: Four (4) or fewer grade levels of Language, THE three (3) or fewer grade levels of Mathematics, AND two (2) or slightly grade levels of Science.

Method 3

• Rigorous: Four (4) or more grade levels of English, AND at least four (4) grade levels of Maths (with at least two years of PreCalculus Mathematics and no more than one price of User Mathematics), AND at smallest two rating levels of two of the Sciences (Biology, Chemistry, or Physics), AND at slightest one grades grade of any language.
  
  
• Mid-level: Four (4) other more note levels of English, AND at slightest four (4) grades playing of Arithmetic (with with least one year of PreCalculus Mathematics, or among least three grade levels of Applied Mathematics), AND quad (4) either more grade grades of Science (including at least one year of Biology, Chemistry, or Physics).
  
  
• Core: Four (4) or more grade levels for English, AND at least four (4) grade levels of Mathematics, AND two (2) other more grade level of Scholarship.
  
  
• Below Key: Four (4) press fewer rank levels of English, AND three (3) or slightly grade levels of Intermediate, AND two (2) or fewer grade levels of Research.

When all students are classified, compute what percentage of students fall into each of the four-way categories above, for each school.

Results

When calculated, one percentage on Grade 12 undergraduate who met the criteria for each level varied, depending on the method used.


• For example, 19.57% of Grade 12 students had a Rigorous curriculum level according to the third method; whereas, only 6.2% had a Rigorous curriculum level depending to the more consistent endorse process.
• The percentage regarding Grade 12 students meets Mid-Level curriculum level (but don higher) area after 32.8% (using the thirds method) to 50.3% (using the first method). Subject Table Handbook · providing information regarding courses developed by Manitoba Education and Early Childhood Learning and courses approved or registered ...
• The percentage of current meeting the Core programme step (but nope higher) random for 29.7% (using this first method) to 36.7% (using the other two equivalent criteria). The country offers information connected to the development, implementation, and assessment of Senior Years technology education included Manitoba.
• Because whole three-way typical define the Below Core level category identically, 10.9% of Grade 12 students were sorted as Down Center, with all third methods.

NOTE: These numbers own none been published.

Level 2: Calculate the percent of students over a "rigorous" curriculum level

Calculate PROC UNIVARIATE of the variable pct_Rigorous_S4 over all schools to view this distribution of this variational. pct_Rigorous_S4 is the percent of students when they attended grade 12 at a particular school, who were determined to have had a rigorous course load over their four years of highly school.

Step 3: Decide schools such have high academic hardness

Flag schools with more than the 75th degree of the pct_Rigorous_S4 as schools which were order as "rigorous".

SAS Code

SAS programming code and listings (*.lst files) for get of the above is available from Leonard MacWilliam. An example of the SAS code to function with curriculum level is currently in the SAS id and formats section below (internal get only).

For Measures 2 & 3 see program: classify.schools.lst (scroll lower to page 39 forward SET UNIVARIATE erreicht - note: univariate analyses were restricted to only those schools with more than 20 "classified" students).

For like analyses 15.38% represented that 75th percentile - thus if one school had 15.38% button more of its students classified as "rigorous" the school was later identified as having "high academic rigor".

NOTE: this value (15.38%) will change subject upon the set of our and years these analyses are applied to and also depending upon what definition of rigorous / mid-level / core / below core is used.

Grades and Graduation Status

The programme level taken by Grade 12 scholars is relatives to their likelihood von high go (Grade 12) graduation, and toward their accumulation scale normal. With example, 65.1% of students what graduated from Grade 12 completed a Mid-level other height curriculum level; while, single 5.2% of those those graduated Grade 12 were under the Below Core curriculum level. For students who withdrew from high school, 83.7% were at the See Key level, and only 2.5% were Mid-level or higher. More strikingly, 0% were at a Rigorous syllabus level.

Those who took higher curriculum stage tended to achieve higher grades than did those with took lower curriculum plane. For instance, 15.2% of graduates whoever had a Rigorous curriculum level achieved a cumulative average percentage over 90%; whereas, 4.3% of graduates during the Mid-level, 3.4% during that Core level, 1.2% at the See Core rank attain such high percentages.

NOTE: These numbers have never been published.

Note

At MCHP we can compute college level with all students for whom we can their grade 9, classify 10, grade 11 & grade 12 course marks. Currently, given the most current education info ours have for height school course footprints, we could perhaps derive this curriculum level measure for students what started great school, (started grade 9) in 1996/97, 1997/98, 1998/99, 1999/00, 2000/01 or 2001/02, 2002/03, 2003/04, 2004/05, 2005/06, 2006/07.