GED 2002

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GED 2002

• What do we know so far?
• Presentation by Claire Ludovico at Tucson AALL
  Conference based on PowerPoint presentation at
  COABE by Marie Hassett and information supplied
  by Joan Auchter

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Whats happening with the new GED?
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Percent who passed

• Overall on GED 2002 64
• Overall on 1988 version of GED 69

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Passing Percentages
5
Passing Percentages by Age
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Average Scores
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Average Score Disparities
158
176
160
158
171
8
Re-TestPassing Percentages
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Average Scores
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Non-Passers v. Retesters
62
71
53
48
54
Dark blue numbers show percent passing on Retest.
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Passers, Non-Passers Retesters
62
71
53
48
54
Dark blue numbers show percent passing on Retest.
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Who Passes the GED?

• 18-24 year olds (53)
• Primary Language English (97)
• Eleven or more years of school (43)
• Out of school 2 or fewer years (47)

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Who Takes the GED?

• 20-39 year olds (53)
• Ten or fewer years of school (63)
• Primary Language?
• Years out of school?

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Why do they take the GED?

• Personal Satisfaction
• Better Job
• Further Education

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Top 5 reasons for leaving school given by those
with 8th grade education or less

• Did not like school
• Needed money to help at home
• Bored
• Poor teaching
• Teachers did not help enough

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Top 5 reasons for leaving school given by those
with 9th grade education or more

• Poor teaching
• Did not like school
• Needed money to help at home
• Teachers did not help enough
• Parents did not support my education

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Top reasons for leaving school given by those
who passed the test

• Absent too many times
• Bored
• Got a job

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Top reasons for leaving school given by those
who did not pass the test

• Didnt get it
• Didnt understand math
• Teacher didnt help

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What do Passers Non-Passers Have in Common?

• Low Writing Scores (467/296)
• Low Math Scores (485/327)

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Language Arts, Writing
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Essay Scores
71
57
20
13
3
3
3
8
8
7
1
1
5
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Mathematics
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Percent Correct Math
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Social Studies
25
Science
26
Language Arts, Reading
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Average Scoresof passers, non-passers, and
retesters
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Why do Writing Math scores improve on retest,
while Content Area scores do not?
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Reading Comprehension

• On the basis of the information in the poem, what
  will the speaker do next? The speaker will
• set up camp for the night to protect himself and
  his horse
• try to buy the land from the owner
• continue traveling so he can meet his obligations
• stay where he is and watch the snow in the woods
• turn around and go back where he came from

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Components of Reading
Vocabulary
Prior Knowledge
Meaning Skills (Comprehension)
Print Skills
Reading Rate
Decoding Skills
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Why Reading Matters

• dntf th wrds n ths lst dffdl,
  Wshngtn, cmptr, qut, rd.
• Lrnng s th ndspnsbl nvstmnt rqurd
  fr sccss n th nfrmtn g w r
  ntrng.

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Strategies to Improve Learner Performance
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• Daily exposure to a variety of texts.
• Vocabulary instruction that includes a variety of
  complementary methods designed to explore the
  relationships among words and the relationships
  among word structure, origin, and meaning.
• Comprehension strategies that include prediction
  of outcomes, summarizing, clarification,
  questioning and visualization.
• Frequent writing to enable deeper understanding
  of what is said.

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Problems with social studies, science, and
reading

• SOCIAL STUDIES reading a passage and
  understanding the gist of it, then applying that
  concept to a different situation
• SCIENCE understanding basic science concepts
  (especially in physics) and applying those to
  concrete situations
• READING questions that require the integration
  of new information about the piece or about the
  author with the passage on the test

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Some suggestions for social studies, science, and
reading

• Try scaffolding have students determine
• Literal understanding of passage (restate ideas,
  check focus statement title of passage)
• Interpretive understandingwhat else does student
  know about this writer or this piece who, where,
  when, attitude?
• Applied understanding how do these fit with
  answers to question?
• Try some simple science experiments or discuss
  science principles in terms of everyday
  activities.

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How about the math test?

• Biggest problem is application can they choose
  the correct procedure to answer question?
• Real world problems are often missed

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Suggestions for improving math

• Discuss how to solve problems
• Discuss relevant words in the problem
• Use realia to create real world problems

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Suggestions for improved scores on writing skills
multiple choice

• Practice construction shift questions have
  student read stem and each choice of ending
  together
• Students need to be given authority to remove
  non-relevant sentences from text try taking
  realia and polluting it.
• Have students check each statement against focus
  statement (title of passage) for relevancy

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Any thoughts?

• Thanks for coming!
• Special thanks to Brite Lee
• and Marie Hassett, Ph.D.
• Steck-Vaughn Publishers
• And to Joan Auchter, GEDTS