2026-09-21T14:17:03Z https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/23189 2023-07-10 col_2142_5131 col_2142_8800 com_2142_5130 com_2142_5132

The present study was designed to examine the validity of the individual components of the theoretical framework adopted by the governing boards of higher education. The major research question focused on the relationships that exist between the academic performance of students who completed different quantities of a prescribed rigorous sequence of high school courses as measured by postsecondary grade point averages. In exploring the major research and subsidiary questions, a combination of transcript analysis and statistical calculations were performed on data from the Sophomore Cohort of the National Longitudinal Study of High School and Beyond. The sample consisted of students from the Midwest Census region. Thurston, Paul W. Sherman, Barbara Joyce 2011-05-07T14:05:19Z 2011-05-07T14:05:19Z 10000-01-01 1990 Since the publication of A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (National Commission on Excellence in Education $\{$NCEE$\}$, 1983), the governing boards of many public colleges and universities have adopted course-specific admission requirements as recommended in the report. One of the considerations in developing these admission requirements is a theoretical framework which suggests that high school students are taking fewer academic courses; that completion of a sequence of academic courses is related to improved student performance on college admission tests; that college admission tests represent a major predictor of success in college; and that therefore student completion of a specific sequence of courses is related to college success. As the policy of prescribing specific coursework as an admission requirement becomes more prevalent, the merits of this policy need to be assessed. A review of the literature revealed that only one study (Phipps & McDonald, 1988) has been conducted, in the State of Missouri, which directly linked the completion of a set of courses with student success in college. The research highlighted intrinsic weaknesses of the theoretical framework. The research not only suggested that near completion of a core curriculum is as effective as full completion, but it also indicated that the explained variance of course credit variables resulted in a negligible improvement in the prediction of postsecondary grade point average. Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T14:05:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 9114410.pdf: 6859655 bytes, checksum: dec1683aed3d0e68e4d057159ebb5187 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1990 Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T15:02:47Z Item is restricted indefinitely. Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:29:53-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission U of I Only AAI9114410 (UMI)AAI9114410 http://hdl.handle.net/2142/23189 eng Copyright 1990 Sherman, Barbara Joyce Education, Curriculum and Instruction Education, Higher "The impact of the National Commission on Excellence in Education's ""new basics"" on student performance in midwestern colleges and universities" text Education Education University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Dissertation Ed.D.