Hispanic Students' Mathematics Achievement in Tennessee: Comparing with Asian Students

The purpose of this study was to investigate mathematics achievement differences of Hispanic students and Asian students in terms of English proficiency, gender, grade level, and Socioeconomic Status (SES). Interactions between English proficiency and gender, English proficiency and SES, and English proficiency, gender, and SES were hypothesized. The mathematics scores of 6675 fourth and eighth-grade and Hispanic and Asian students were selected from the 2005 Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) to explore achievement differences. Analysis of data revealed Asians significantly outscore Hispanics on the mathematics achievement test of the TCAP, regardless of English proficiency, gender, or SES. The difference between Asian male English Language Learner (ELL) with low SES and Hispanic male ELL with low SES at the fourth- grade was statistically significant albeit with a very small effect size. Analysis also showed that while the Asian ELL female scored higher than their male peers, the Hispanic ELL females scored lower than their male peers. In contrast, Asian non-ELL females scored lower than their male peers, the Hispanics non-ELL females scored higher than their male peers. By eighth-grade, Asian ELL female were scoring lower than their male peers, but the Hispanic ELL females still scored lower than their male peers. While the Asian non-ELL females scored higher than their male peers, the Hispanic non-ELL males scored higher than their female peers. Yet, these differences were not statistically significant. This study concludes that language, together with gender and SES had significant impact on math achievement of both Asian and Hispanic students.