The high school failures : $b a study of the school records of pupils failing in academic or commercial high school subjectsO'Brien, F. P.
History
The high school failures : $b a study of the school records of pupils failing in academic or commercial high school subjects
O'Brien, F. P.
Academic achievement; High school dropouts; Thesis (Ph. D.); Underachievers
A promising but less emphasized basis of prognosticating the school
success or failure of the pupils is found in the employment of the
school entering ages for this purpose. The distribution of all the
pupils (except 30 undistributed ones, for whom the records were
incomplete), according to entering age, is here presented,
independently for the boys and for the girls.
DISTRIBUTION OF PUPILS BY THEIR ENTRANCE AGES TO HIGH SCHOOL
AGES Undis-
Total 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 tributed
2646 B. 16 211 820 900 497 148 23 10 7 14
3495 G. 8 259 1124 1217 614 194 51 10 8 16
The entering ages of these 6,141 pupils are distributed from 12 to 20,
with 30 of them for whom the age records were not given. The median age
for all the entrants is 15.3. But in order to compare this with the
median entering age (14.9) of the 1,033 pupils reported by King[21] for
the Iowa City high school, or with the median entering age (14.5) of
1000 high school pupils in New York City, as reported by Van
Denburg,[22] it is necessary to reduce these medians to the same basis
of age classification. Since age 15 for this study starts at 141/2, then
15.3 would be only 14.8 (15.3-.5) as by their classification. The
percentages of the total number of pupils for each age are given below.
PERCENTAGES OF PUPILS FOR EACH ENTERING AGE
AGES
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Undistributed
Total 0.4 7.6 31.6 34.4 18.1 5.5 1.2 1.0
Boys 0.6 8.0 31.0 37.8 18.8 5.6 0.8 1.1
Girls 0.2 7.4 32.4 34.8 17.5 5.5 1.4 1.0
We see that 84 per cent of the pupils enter at age 14, 15, and 16, or,
what is perhaps more important, that nearly 40 per cent enter under 15
years of age. The similarity of percentages for boys and for girls is
pronounced. The slight advantage of the boys for ages 12 and 13 may be
due to home influence in restricting the early entrance of the girls,
thus causing a corresponding superiority for the girls at age 14. The
mode of this percentage distribution is at 15 for both boys and girls.
What portion of each entering-age-group has no failures? This question
and the answer presented below direct our attention to the superiority
of the pupils of the earlier entering ages. That these groups of
earlier ages of entrance are comprised of pupils selected for their
capabilities is shown by the successive decrease in the percentages of
the non-failing as the ages of their entrance increases, up to age 18.
DISTRIBUTION OF THE PUPILS WHO DO NOT FAIL, FOR EACH ENTERING-AGE-GROUP
AGES
Totals 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
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