Studying the Opportunities Provided by an Applied High School Mathematics Course: Explorations in Data Science

Abstract

This paper reports on a multi-method study investigating the impact of a high school course in data science. It reports on 3,163 students in 4 school districts and finds that more under-represented students take data science than other advanced courses; the students who take data science take more mathematics courses than those who do not, and the students who take data science are more positive about a future in STEM. Analysis of writing from 685 students shows that students are very positive about the course, appreciating the relevance of the content, the opportunity to investigate ideas, the chance to learn challenging, applied content, and the opportunity to think creatively. In an assessment of algebra and data given to students in data science and Algebra 2 courses in 2 districts, the students in data science scored at significantly higher levels.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY).

Preferred citation

Boaler, J., Conte, K., Cor, K., Dieckmann, J., LaMar, T., Ramirez, J., and Selbach-Allen, M. (2023). Studying the Opportunities Provided by an Applied High School Mathematics Course: Explorations in Data Science. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/tz479yh3220. https://doi.org/10.25740/tz479yh3220.

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https://purl.stanford.edu/tz479yh3220

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