Steller Secondary School

Science Students Should Do the Math

OVER 80,000 STUDENTS TAKING INTRODUCTORY SCIENCE courses at more than 70 U.S. colleges were randomly surveyed by senior Harvard Smithsonian Center lecturer Phillip M. Sadler and the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education Associate Professor Robert Tai. Three parallel surveys for biology, chemistry and physics were designed and administered during the 2006 fall semester. Professors reported the final course grades for each student.

Using a zero to 100-point scale, the survey found that every year of high school math a student completed added 1.86 points to his or her college chemistry grade. Furthermore, for each year of high school math a student took there was a 1.84-point increase in biology and a 1.28 rise for physics. The survey also found that taking high school chemistry added 1.72 points, while high school biology and physics added 1.35 and 1.32 points, respectively.

“The two important pillars were study in the same science and more advanced mathematics in high school,” Tai says. “Mathematics is the language of science.”
curry.edschool.virginia.edu, cfa
www.harvard.edu

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