Citizenship Test

1. Citizenship Test Lisa Glassman Christopher LaForgia Neil Putman

2. Introduction • Questions: How would Dartmouth Students fare on the U.S. Citizenship Test? • Does Major Choice effect the results? • Does home residency effect the results?

3. Methodology • Selection process: Blitz/ Math 5 Class • Number of people blitzed: 237 • Two clusters, and two random classes, one of 06s and one of 05s. • Responses: 123 = 51.9% response rate • Also used were 15 from Math 5 Class, only used 05s and 06s. • Selection of questions (10/100). To ensure that it covered as much material as possible and varied in difficulty of the questions, we hand picked the questions, rather than selecting them completely randomly in order to ensure a test that most accurately represented the 100 question test as a whole. • 7 correct questions needed to pass test

4. Hypotheses • NULL HYPOTHESIS: There is no significant difference in scores from a geographical background or major. (5% significance level). Also, the exam is a fair assessment of the political and governmental knowledge of the average United States citizen. We believe that if 8% or less of the Dartmouth students polled fail, then the test is a fair evaluation.

5. Major Breakdown • Government and History • Government • History Humanities Art History Classics English Film and Television Studeies Language Music Philiopshy Religion Studio Art Theater Social Sciences Anthropology Economics Education Geography Psychological and Brain Sciences Sociology Natural Sciences Biological Sciences Chemistry Computer Science Earth Science Engineering Sciences Mathematics Physics and Astronomy Undeclared

6. Regions: The Breakdown Northeast: Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont South: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma West: California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon International: Canada, Singapore, India, Argentina

7. Data • Overall mean score: 8.197 • Overall Dartmouth student failure percentage: 16.79% • Nationwide failure rate: 16.1% • Although the Margin of error must be taken into consideration, our results show that Dartmouth Students performed right at the national average

8. Major data Gov/History Surveyed: 28 Mean Score: 8.96 Percentage who failed: 7.1% Math/ Science Surveyed: 30 Mean Score: 7.76 Percentage who failed: 20.0% Humanities Surveyed: 13 Mean Score: 8.07 Percentage who failed: 23.07% Social Science Surveyed: 34 Mean Score: 7.82 Percentage who failed: 20.54% Undeclared Surveyed: 32 Mean Score: 8.38 Percentage who failed: 15.13%

9. Geographical Data Number of Students from the Northeast Surveyed: 69 Mean score of Northeast: 8.18 Percentage of Northeast who Failed: 17.39% Number of Students from the South Surveyed: 20 Mean Score of South: 8.2 Percentage of South who Failed: 13.33% Number of Students from the Midwest Surveyed: 15 Mean Score of Midwest: 8.4 Percentage of Midwest who Failed: 15.0% Number of Students from the West Surveyed: 26 Mean Score of West: 8.23 Percentage of West who Failed: 15.38% Number of International Students: 7 Mean International Score: 7.42 Percentage of International who Failed: 28.57%

11. The Results:

16. Discussion • Government/ History Majors had the lowest failure percentage. • Humanities Majors had highest failure percentage • Midwest had lowest failure percentage • Other areas had higher percentages

17. Chi-Square Results • Null Hypotheses is rejected for Major. Proves there is a difference in how one will fare on the test based on their major • Null Hypotheses is rejected for Geographic Background. Proves there is a difference on how one will fare on the test based upon one’s home state.

18. Margin of Error • +/- 8.5 % • Shows that our data is reliable but more people surveyed are needed in a future study to have a smaller margin of error

19. Biases ~ Creation of Survey • Choosing Questions (10 out of 100) • Issue of random selection • Using only the class of 2005 and 2006

20. Biases ~ Methodology and Analysis • Using Math 5 surveys • Data collection and organization • Non-response bias

21. Possible Explanations For High Failure Rate • One would expect students at a prestigious school such as Dartmouth to perform exceptionally well on the citizenship test. 16.79% of the Dartmouth population sampled and 16.1% of American citizens failed the United States Citizenship test. One area that may be to blame is lack of instruction in high schools in their history courses. This could definitely be a factor because the students in the survey were only first and second year students just coming out of high school who may not have received good instruction on our nation’s history. Another problem may be that our generation may have an overall lack of interest in history in general and have not taken the time to learn the basics.

22. Concluding Thoughts… • It is clearly evident that Dartmouth students had difficulty passing the United States citizenship test. • It was also determined that major greatly determines how one will do on the test • Geographic region had less to do with one's test score

23. Future Applications • Polling a greater number of Dartmouth students • Smaller margin of error • Polling more International students