The Impact of Time-Of-Day Course Scheduling on Student Achievement

Kelly Ramey Moore, Tennessee State University

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine the impact of time-of-day of instruction on students’ academic achievement in the core High School subject areas of English, mathematics, and science as measured by the Tennessee End-of-Course TCAP Assessment. . The English, mathematics, and science scores of students from different time blocks were compared to determine whether the time-of-day when the course was taken had an impact on their achievement levels. The population studied included 430 students from a rural Tennessee high school. The data were based on archival academic records of students from the school years of 2013–2014 and 2014–2015. The research questions investigate the difference, if any, in high school student achievement on End-of-Course Exams between students who take English II, Algebra II, and Biology during varying times of the day, after adjusting for ability. In addition, socioeconomic status was also investigated as a potential factor in this relationship. Six null hypotheses were tested using descriptive and inferential statistics at a 0.05 level of significance. The findings from this study conclude that there were no statistically significant differences in Algebra and English assessment performance averages among the students who have taken exams in during different times of the school day. However, the findings indicated that there was statistically significant difference in student achievement in science among students instructed during the four different time blocks, as measured by the scores on the Biology End-of-Course Exam, after adjusting for ability. The students who had science during the lunch block, and therefore had interrupted classes, had statistically significant lower achievement on the Biology End-of-Course Exam. Furthermore, students with low socioeconomic status were not found to be more vulnerable to the impact of time-of-day on achievement than their more affluent counterparts.

Subject Area

Educational administration|Education Policy|Secondary education

Recommended Citation

Kelly Ramey Moore, "The Impact of Time-Of-Day Course Scheduling on Student Achievement" (2019). ETD Collection for Tennessee State University. Paper AAI27547050.
https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/dissertations/AAI27547050

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