A Relational Study of International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) Scores to the American College Test (ACT) Scores in a Mississippi Innovative High School

摘要

The purpose of the quantitative, correlational study of expo/facto data was to determine if a relationship exists between the Cambridge International General Certificate of Secondary Education college and career readiness PUM scores and the corresponding ACT subsection scores of eleventh graders at a municipal pubic high school in a southern state. The degree of correlation between the two assessment results illustrated the effectiveness of the Cambridge curriculum in preparing students for the college and achievement on the ACT. The research is particularly important to Mississippi because Cambridge is a pilot program for the state. Performance data from Corinth School District, a municipal pubic high school in Mississippi, was utilized from archived score reports of eleventh grade students who took both the ACT and corresponding IGSCE assessments. Test results from the 2015, 2016, and 2017 Spring ACT administrations and the IGSCE PUM scores of those same students filtered from preceding years were used in the research.;Using the Pearson r correlation coefficient, a significant linear relationship was shown to exist between the ACT subsection scores in English, reading, science, and mathematics and the Cambridge IGSCE PUM scores on the First Language English, English Literature, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, World History, and American History exams. Measures of central tendency were used to compare college readiness thresholds set for the two assessment programs. Also, linear regression equations were generated to find future ACT subject area outcomes using the Cambridge IGSCE subject exam PUM scores. The research results indicate Cambridge IGCSE performance to be a valid predictor of success on the ACT subscores.