Abstract

BALTRA SAN MARTIN, Mario Tirso Óscar. Profiles of Mathematics Performance by Students of Chilean City Schools, Based on Cognitive Ability by Socioeconomic Level. REDIE [online]. 2010, vol.12, n.1, pp.1-17. ISSN 1607-4041.

This study analyzes the performance profile of Chilean students from different socioeconomic strata, and who attend city schools, as related with the different sets of cognitive skills recognized by the curriculum framework for mathematics education in that country. The study is correlational and ex post facto in type, derived from the results of the math test of the System for Measuring Educational Quality (SIMCE) applied to second-semester students of the 2001 school year. The percentage of students at each performance level was calculated, based on each student's probability of correctly answering each of the test questions, using logistic function, associated with the two-parameter model of the Item Response Theory (IRT). The results show that regardless of the set of cognitive abilities in question, the performance profile follows a similar pattern; it was found that in general, there is a linear decrease in the percentage of lower- and lower-middle-class students' superior performance, and an exponential increase for middle-class students.

Keywords : Student performance; cognitive ability; socioeconomic level; mathematics.

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