Germantown Friends School

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Germantown Friends School (GFS) in Philadelphia introduced ninth-grade physics (replacing ninth-grade biology) in 1999. I have studied the effect of this change on the mathematical performance of students on standardized tests taken late in the eighth grade and early in the tenth grade. I examined data for six classes, three that did not have ninthgrade physics and three that did have it, including in the survey only students who were enrolled at GFS in the eighth, ninth, and tenth grades. There were no significant differences in the performance of the six classes on the Quantitative Ability sub-test of the CTP III test in the eighth grade. However, all three classes that had ninth-grade physics performed significantly better on the…show more content…
INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY In the fall of 1999, Germantown Friends School (GFS) "inverted" its upper-school science sequence from biology-chemistry-physics to physics-chemistry-biology, joining about 150 other schools which, at that time, had opted for "physics first"1. Although the arguments in favor of the inverted sequence1-8 are persuasive, they are based more on the intellectual logic of the sequence than on measured outcomes. I do not know of any quantitative studies that explore the effects of teaching physics in the ninth grade. I set out to explore one small facet of the GFS changehow replacing biology by physics in the ninth grade affects the math skills of the students. Setting The students attending this K-12, co-educational, private day school are from Philadelphia and surrounding suburbs. Although many are from middle-class and uppermiddle class families, the school provides numerous scholarships and financial aid opportunities to qualified students who exhibit financial need. The students in eighth grade through twelfth grade are placed in distinct math courses based on ability grouping, but the science curriculum maintains heterogeneous groupings. The total…show more content…
A chi-square test for the mean scores listed in Table 1 gives the results € ÷ 2=0.107, df = 5, and p < 0.005. This means that there is a greater than 99.5% likelihood that the deviations that occur among the six years can be attributed to chance9. Therefore, the chi-square statistical test implies that it is highly probable that the observed fluctuations among the six graduating classes are not unexpected and all six classes have similar quantitative abilities at the end of eighth grade. Between the eighth-to-tenth-grade experiences of the first three classes (graduating in 2000-2002) and the latter three classes (graduating in 2003-2005), the change from biology to physics was the only significant change in the curriculum or academic program. The average percentile performance of each class, during its sophomore year, on the quantitative portion of the PSAT is listed in Table 2. A chi-square test for the PSAT scores between 2000-2002 resulted in € ÷ 2=0.203, df = 2, and p = 0.90. This implies that there is a 90% chance that the variations in the scores during this time period are explained by chance. Therefore, the graduating classes of 2000, 2001, and 2002 can be viewed as having similar quantitative skills during
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