Relationships among school factors and student mathematics achievement in schools with high and low contact with the SIMMS Project

This study explores relationships between school factors and student mathematics achievement in two groups of schools, namely those that had high contact with the SIMMS Project and those that had low contact with the SIMMS Project. The goal of this study is to identify which school factors are the most important predictors of student achievement in schools participating in a mathematics reform movement and schools not participating in the reform movement. Schools in Montana that participated in a mathematics reform effort called SIMMS were identified (high contact schools). Then each high contact school was matched to a school that had minimal contact with the SIMMS project on three demographic variables, namely (1) school size, (2) socio-economic status of students, and (3) percent of minority students. As a group, the high and low contact schools were remarkably similar when compared using a chi-square test. Measures of student mathematics achievement were alike when contrasting the high and low contact schools as groups.; Previous research has been used to construct a theoretical model with four important components for successful school reform. Students, teachers, and principals were surveyed and results from these surveys were used to construct scale scores for schools on the four components. These school scale scores for high contact schools were used as independent variables in a regression equation to predict student achievement on a standardized achievement test. This process was repeated for low contact schools.; The findings of this study indicate that there was not a significant relationship between measures of the four identified components and student mathematics achievement in either high or low contact schools. In light of this study, several recommendations are made for further research in the area of mathematics reform.