Standard-based abilities in mathematics at the end of upper secondary educationA linking-study Abstract Several large-scale assessments focus on mathematical abilities at the end of upper secondary education. They show that more than 50% of graduates fail to meet the target-level of pre-university education in mathematics. To extend these findings, we pose the question whether the same graduates at least meet the goals related to the Educational Standards for the intermediate school-leaving certificate. Particularly, we investigate whether the upper secondary education succeeds in consolidating or even deepening the content and abilities of the lower secondary level education. We analyzed data from students (N = 3641) who were enrolled in grade 13 in academic and vocational upper secondary schools in Schleswig-Holstein. In upper secondary level in Schleswig-Holstein, students opt between different tracks: academic and vocational. Through a linking study, the administered test in mathematics was transformed to the national metric (M = 500, SD = 100, end of grade 9) of the IQB-National Assessment 2012 for the intermediate school leaving certificate in mathematics. The results show that at the end of upper secondary education norms that are typically expected for the acquisition of the intermediate school leaving certificate are more than met in almost all tracks. We conclude by elucidating implications for target levels of pre-university education.
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