Keyword: high school

ABSTRACT: This study aimed to research the factors that cause school dropout and whether technology can positively influence the reduction of this phenomenon in adolescents. The research method was conducted using a qualitative-exploratory approach. The sample was 92 students from two schools located in two different regions in Costa Rica for the year 2021. The results show that the gender distribution and the dropout rate in the selected sample indicate that the male gender has the highest dropout rate at 65.22%. This result shows the abundance of unskilled jobs for men and the value system associated with the male gender. The findings evidence that the female gender has a higher level of dropouts in rural areas (53.12%), and one important reason is teenage pregnancy. In conclusion, students who drop out of the school system do so mainly because of a lack of interest in classes and economic problems in the family environment. Finally, it is concluded that for a virtual education process to be successful, it is not only enough to use technology as a tool, but the teacher must also establish a teaching model that is agile, flexible, and dynamic to maintain the student’s interest. Among the recommendations, measures are proposed to reduce school dropout rates in institutions.

ABSTRACT: Despite the significance of the cognitive load of educational procedures, its status quo in teacher-made tests has remained largely uncharted. This study investigated the interplay between cognitive demand levels (CDL) of test items and students’ academic levels. Using the content analysis method, English language tests developed by Iranian high school teachers across three grades (10 through 12) were collected, and a scheme was developed to code the CDL of the tests. The coding scheme was developed based on the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, and Hess’s Cognitive Rigor Matrix. Three trained coders coded the tests using the piloted and validated scheme. The results showed that the low CDLs of “remembering,” “understanding,” and “applying” constituted a large proportion (89.49%), while “analyzing,” “evaluating,” and “creating,” as the high CDLs comprised a small number (10.51%) of the test items. Grade 12 and grade 11 tests contained the most frequent high and low CDLs, respectively. In all grades, “understanding” was the most frequent level, and “creating” was the least frequent level. The trend of remembering and creating was normal, understanding and analyzing was descending, and applying and evaluating showed variation across the grades. The study concludes that the tests predominantly required low CDLs and were not developed based on a measure of cognitive demand balancing and/or regulating low and high CDLs across the grades. It recommends that test developers use a cognitive demand guide specifying the underlying nature of tasks required in the tests, the complexity of the expressions and information presented in the tests, and the choice of test item stem format and response format to regulate the cognitive demand of tests for different school grades.