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Independent Research Reveals
Phenomenal Results:
Alabama Seniors Pass Graduation Exam after Remediation with Pace Learning
Systems and PaceWare®
(from Pacesetter 22.1, September - December 2000)
School principal Dr. Tim Lull at Decatur High School in Decatur, Alabama, has
been a proponent of Pace Learning Systems for more than six years. Now he has
statistical data that reinforces what heÍs known all along: students learn
with Pace Learning Systems and PaceWare®.
Last spring, Dr. Lull earned his Doctorate in Administration and Educational
Leadership from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. His dissertation, The
Effectiveness of Remediation for Students Who Failed AlabamaÍs High School
Basic Skills Exit Exam, presents research assessing the performance of
students who participated in a remedial program that used Pace Learning
Systems and PaceWare® after failing one or more sections (reading, math, or
language) of the Exit Exam.
Over the five-year span of the study, a total of 139 students took the
elective courses, which were taught during one fifty-minute class period each day.
About the same number of students (141) elected not to participate in the
remediation classes, attending only their regular classes.
The remediation classes, which were called ñLab Classes,î followed the format
established by Pace Learning Systems. Dr. Lull selected Pace Learning Systems
because of their close correlation with the competencies tested on the Alabama
High School Basic Skills Exit Exam. Teachers for Lab Classes were chosen
because of their student-centered approach to instruction. Students
collaborated with teachers to develop individual study schedules based on the
results of their PLS pretests and on their identified areas of deficiency on
the Exit Exam. PaceWare®, the basic skills software for reading, math
and language, was used as a supplement to the PLS print lessons.
Dr. Lull compared the performance of the two groups of students on subsequent
administrations of the Exit Exam, which occurred after approximately
eight to ten weeks of instruction. In every category, the retake pass rate
for students remediated with Pace Learning Systems was greater than that of
students in regular classes. Among the students in regular classes,
approximately 45% passed the exam upon retaking it, but nearly 80% of the
remediated students passed.
Table 1 indicates the pass rates for the two groups on each section of the
Exit Exam. The increase in the language exam pass rates for students
remediated with Pace Learning Systems is especially striking, considering
that more students failed this section of the exam than either the reading or
the math sections.
Dr. Lull also discovered that use of Pace Learning Systems was
instrumental in overcoming the biasing effects of gender, race, and
socioeconomic status that are associated with standardized testing. Table
2 shows that African-American students and students from low socioeconomic
backgrounds seemed particularly to benefit from the remediation. Males showed
substantial gains from remediation in reading, while females improved
significantly in math. Both groups passed the language exam at high rates
(see Table 3).
Finally, the students in the Lab Classes had a lower dropout rate than did
the students who remained in regular classes. In fact, the percentage of
remediated students that stopped attending school (6.29%) was less than half
the percentage of dropouts in regular classes (13.1%).
These results strongly suggest that instruction with Pace Learning Systems
and PaceWare® was an effective intervention strategy for these at-risk
students. Dr. Lull concludes that remediation with Pace Learning Systems had
a positive impact on the pass rate of students in all three areas — reading,
mathematics, and language — of the Alabama High School Basic Skills
Exit Exam.
Given the achievements of his students, it is easy to see why Dr. Lull
ñstrongly supports the benefits of instruction in Pace Learning Systems.î He
believes the remediation program will be increasingly important as students
take the new, more difficult Alabama High School Graduation Exam. At Decatur High School, students are fortunate to have
access to a program with a solid history of success.
Dr. Tim Lull remains committed to providing effective remediation for
struggling students. He will be happy to talk with you about the results of
his research and to answer questions about the Lab Classes at Decatur High School. You may contact him at tlull@dhs.dcs.edu.
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