The influence of enrollment in agriscience education courses on student achievement of high school students in Louisiana

The purpose of this study was to compare academic achievement of high school students in Louisiana by whether or not they are identified as an agriscience education student. The rationale for the study is to determine if agriscience education contributes to the academic achievement of high school students. The Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) Graduate Exit Exams were used to measure academic achievement. All graduate exit exam test scores for the 2004-2005 school year were utilized for the study. The data for this study came from the Louisiana Department of Education. The study described all 10th and 11th grade students completing the various graduate exit exams by age, grade level, gender, ethnicity, 504 status, socioeconomic status, and whether or not they were agriscience education students. The study also described the performance of 10th and 11th grade students on the science, English language arts, social studies, and mathematics Graduate Exit Exams. The study compared academic achievement of agriscience education students with that of non-agriscience education students in the areas of science, social studies, ELA, and mathematics. These comparisons revealed that although there were statistically significant differences in scores in many areas, the effect size of each of these areas was either small or of low practical significance. Statistically significant models were found explaining a portion of variance in scores on science, ELA, social studies, and mathematics GEE’s. All of these models had either moderate or large effect sizes. Being an agriscience education student had a statistically significant positive impact on student academic achievement. Even though these findings were statistically significant, they had low practical significance