Two items from a performance test (developed by the state of Wisconsin) were administered to 10th grade IMP and geometry students at a magnet high school in the mid-west in Spring 1996. Eighth grade test scores were obtained for the students. Again, the mean of the full group of IMP students was significantly higher than that of the geometry students, using analysis of variance, and the IMP students in a matched group analysis significantly outperformed their counterparts (Webb and Dowling, 1997). The IMP students outperformed students taking Honors Geometry who had significantly higher pre-test scores, although this latter result was only significant when controlling for the difference in pre-test scores.
This study was replicated in Spring 1997 in three high schools in different parts of the country (Webb and Dowling, 1998). In two of these high schools the IMP students performed significantly better that their traditionally trained 10th grade counterparts. At the third school the curriculum had been enriched to include content that related directly to one of the problems. On that problem the traditional students outperformed the IMP students, although not significantly, but the IMP students scored significantly higher on the second problem and scored higher overall, although not significantly.
In Spring 1996, the statistics items from the Second International Math and Science (SIMS) international study were administered to ninth grade IMP and algebra I students at a suburban high school in California. The questions were given as open-response items rather than multiple choice items as they had appeared in the SIMS study. Eighth grade standardized test scores were again available for all students. The results followed the same pattern as in the other two studies, with IMP students significantly outperforming the algebra I students as a whole group and in the matched group analysis (Webb and Dowling, 1997).
This study was replicated in Spring 1997 in another California school, in a school in the East of the United States and another in the Rocky Mountains (Webb and Dowling, 1998). In the first two schools the IMP students again scored significantly higher than their matched pairs. In the third school, the algebra I curriculum was enriched with statistics curriculum relating directly to the questions, and the students from the enriched curriculum scored significantly higher than the IMP students.