A study of socioeconomic status and performance on physical science assessments

When the federal government passed the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation into law, its main objective was to improve the education in America's schools so that all students will be learning at the proficient level by the year 2014. However, not all students may be able to achieve at the same levels in some science classes, especially physical science classes. The achievement gap issues in science classes deals with students having difficulty grasping different concepts because they lack the real world experiences, a stable home environment, and even the parental guidance to comprehend the information. It is currently unknown if physical science standardized test scores are related to the different socioeconomic conditions that exist in a school's student body. This study examined the relationship between student socioeconomic status and student achievement on a physical science standardized test.Research for this study involved examining the socioeconomic status of students and its effect on a student's educational performance. Another aspect that was researched was the National School Free and Reduced Lunch Program. This data was used to categorize each participant of the study. Science classes as well as standardized tests, specifically South Carolina tests, were also researched as a part of this study. The quantitative data that was collected during this study included student age, gender, ethnicity, lunch program status, and physical science end of course test score. A one way analysis of variance was done on the quantitative data in order to determine if a relationship existed between student socioeconomic status and their achievement on the South Carolina End of Course Test (EOCT) for physical science. The resulting p-values indicated a significant difference in the data.