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Many English Examination Boards will make some use of the differentiated paper method of assessment in the new scheme of 16+ examining, but it is not clear whether problems of comparability have been adequately solved. This article presents an analysis based on well-defined assumptions incorporated into a measurement model and utilising regression. Marks on the paper not taken by a group are estimated from their joint marks on the common paper and the paper specific to their group. The marks are then weighted using the measurement model and combined to produce a rank order over both the groups. In an appendix, the weighting method used is related to the more usual method of weighting adopted when combining scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to increased public interest in the question of the comparability of the various examining boards' grading standards in the same subjects, the boards have in recent years published numerous reports on their own inter-board comparability studies. The results of these studies have, in general, been disappointing in terms of the tentativeness of their conclusions about relative standards. This paper discusses the problems involved in attempting to compare grading standards across different examining boards, suggests reasons for the inevitable inconclusiveness of recently conducted cross-moderation exercises, and, finally, suggests a strategy which would increase the future effectiveness of the cross-moderation approach to comparability. The strategy involves the application of generalizability theory to the cross- moderation method, leading to a programme of carefully designed subject-studies from which the relative effects of some of the known influences on grade variation can be quantified. The results of such studies would then be available for the informed planning of future routine cost-effective cross-moderation exercises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to articulate our dissatisfaction with current thinking about attainment, in the hope that this may help us to see more clearly what ways of conceptualising attainment would be more useful. Thus most of the paper is devoted to demonstrating the inadequacy of psychometric and taxonomic ways of thinking about attainment, but towards the end we shall very much more tentatively suggest an alternative approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proportion of 16-year-olds in Britain who stay on at school is low by OECD standards. This paper examines the probability of completing education at the minimum legal age using micro data on individuals. Parameter estimates of a reduced-form logit model of the leaving probability are obtained for both boys and girls. The rich data set used allows the separate effects of family, school and ability to be assessed. Family background in the form of class and parental education is shown to have a large effect even when ability and school type are controlled for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper uses data from a single School of a UK university to estimate the impact of a switch from end-of-semester to end-of-year final exams on student performance. The identification strategy exploits the fact that while the timing of final exams changed, the timing of mid-term exams remained the same. Estimates are based on a difference-in-differences methodology that compares final and mid-term exam scores after the switch, with final and mid-term exam scores before the switch. The empirical findings suggest that the shift of final exams to the end of the academic year had a negative effect on student achievement. Many changes in higher education are often done on the basis of financial, administrative or ideological considerations, underestimating the magnitude of their effect on student learning and student performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of departments has been largely neglected in previous studies of subject choice in secondary schools. This is a significant omission because analysis at departmental level enables a fuller assessment of the effects of competition and specialisation on pupil performance. This paper examines relationships between both absolute and value-added measures of departmental performance and the likelihood of students being entered for examination in a subject. It examines these relationships with reference to four option subjects: French, German, Geography and History. It utilises data from an Economic and Social Research Council-funded study which examined trends and patterns in departmental effectiveness using a sample of 664 schools which participated in the Yellis monitoring system for a minimum of five years during the period 1995-2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the determinants of gender differences in educational attainment using data for all university graduates. We find that, although women students perform better on average than their male counterparts, they are significantly less likely to obtain a first class degree. There is no evidence that this is because of differences in the types of subject male and female students study or in the institutions they attend, nor does it reflect differences in personal attributes, such as academic ability. Rather, it is differences in the way these factors affect academic achievement that give rise to gender differences in performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports findings from the first two years of a four-year longitudinal study into the ways that students' attitudes towards, and achievement in, mathematics are influenced by ability-grouping practices in six schools. Through the use of questionnaires administered to the whole cohort of 943 students, interviews with 72 students and approximately 120 hours of classroom observation, the relative achievement in, and the changes in attitudes towards, mathematics are traced as the students move from year 8 to year 9, with students in four of the six schools moving from mixed-ability grouping to homogenous ability groups or 'sets'. Ability-grouping was associated with curriculum polarisation. This was enacted through restriction of opportunity to learn for students in lower sets, and students in top sets being required to learn at a pace which was, for many students, incompatible with understanding. The same teachers employed a more restricted range of teaching approaches with 'homogeneous' groups than with mixed-ability groups which impacted upon the students' experiences in profound and largely negative ways. Almost all of the students interviewed from 'setted groups' were unhappy with their placement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports research into the relationship between the apparent variety of standards applied to different GCE Ordindary level subjects and school- children's avowed preferences for subjects. The ordering of subjects by grades awarded agrees closely with those derived in similar research in England and elsewhere and is shown to be comparatively stable across time. This ranking is also shown to agree closely with expressed preferences of subjects by 14-year-olds, and reasonably closely with those of 16-year-olds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A theory of language is outlined which emphasises the interactive nature of linguistic communication, and it is hypothesised that such interaction forms the basis for the child's acquisition of control of the language system. It is further suggested that differences in quality and quantity of interaction, in which meaning is negotiated in the shared construction of social reality, may be largely responsible for the 'linguistic disadvantage' which is the putative cause of the educational under-achievement of many children. The paper describes the way in which these questions are being investigated in a longitudinal study of the language development of a representative sample of children, based on regular observations of the children's spontaneous linguistic interaction at home and at school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last 20 years have seen the development of sophisticated techniques for analysing individual data within a hierarchical context and the growing availability of good datasets to which these techniques can be applied. The modelling of pupil performance controlling for prior attainment has led to a type of analysis commonly titled 'value-added'. Concern for school factors which affect pupil progress has given rise to 'school effectiveness' research. This article outlines the history of these linked movements, mainly with reference to England and Wales, but developments in other countries are also outlined. It discusses some of the objections that have been raised, and comments on possible future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the size and stability of gender, ethnic and socio-economic differences in British students' educational achievement over a nine-year period, including performance in the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) at age 16. Factors concerning pupils' background that can be used to predict statistically increased risk of low attainment.

Survey research has identified, using questionnaire approaches, that important assessments are a significant source of stress and worry for students in secondary school. In particular, failing important examinations and the consequences of failing these examinations are rated as more important than a range of other personal and social worries. Qualitative approaches have gone further in exploring the meaning of these stressful events for students concerned, highlighting themes such as an over-identification with academic success and the perception of GCSE examinations as constituting a crucial moment in determining the future life trajectory of a student. However, this area has been neglected by researchers working on the education-psychology disciplinary boundaries, and a number of important features have yet to be specified regarding the development, antecedents and educational consequences of assessment/examination stress in Key Stage 4 (KS4). The aim of this article is to build on previous work to explore some basic questions surrounding KS4 assessments from a student-centred perspective: (a) what factors lead to the development of assessments in KS4 to be perceived as stressful; and (b) what are the effects for the students concerned? Thirty-four students were interviewed from six secondary schools in the North of England, identified as being likely to experience examinations as anxiety-provoking events and analysed using the principles of grounded theory. Twelve themes emerge structured around a central narrative of 'stress, achievement and esteem', which highlighted three key findings. First, stress was linked to the motivation to achieve and the fear of failure through esteem judgements and conditions of acceptance from important others. Second, the experience of stress was linked to a wider educational context including practices and policies pursued by teachers and schools. Third, a more specific state, examination anxiety, was associated with facilitating effects prior to examinations and debilitating effects during examinations. These findings have furthered insights into the developmental antecedents and effects of assessment/examination stress in KS4, and highlighted the need to investigate school/teacher practices and policies and to ascertain the mechanism by which examination anxiety might produce debilitating effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shows how multilevel modelling can be used to study institutional variations in the gender differences in achievement. The results presented are from analyses of the degree classifications of 22,433 individuals who graduated in mathematical sciences, from universities in the UK, between 1994/95 and 1999/2000. The analyses were designed to measure gender differences in the achievement of first class honours in mathematical science degrees as a whole and within individual institutions. After allowing for students' entry qualifications, age, type of course and institution attended, no systematic gender difference was detected in the achievement of first class honours in mathematical sciences at any level of entry qualifications. However, there were statistically significant variations between universities in ‘gender difference added’. This variation between institutions in gender difference added was explained by the significant gender differences in the first class degree awards made by Oxford and Cambridge universities, with no significant evidence of gender differences in the first class degree awards made by other institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the impact of pre-school experience on young children's cognitive attainments at entry to primary school and analyses data collected as part of a wider longitudinal study, the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) project, which followed a large sample of young children attending 141 pre-school centres drawn from six types of provider in five English regions. The article compares the characteristics and attainments of the pre-school sample with those of an additional 'home' sample (children who had not attended pre-school) recruited at entry to reception. Multilevel analyses of relationships between child, parent and home environment characteristics and children's attainments in pre-reading, early number concepts and language skills are presented. Duration of time in pre-school is found to have a significant and positive impact on attainment over and above important influences such as family socio-economic status, income, mother's qualification level, ethnic and language background. The research also points to the separate and significant influence of the home learning environment. It is concluded that pre-school can play an important part in combating social exclusion by offering disadvantaged children, in particular, a better start to primary school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite evidence from the USA that children in small classes of less than 20 do better academically there is still a vociferous debate about the effects of class size differences in schools, and considerable gaps in our understanding of the effects of class size differences. This article summarises results from the most complete UK analysis to date of the educational consequences of class size differences. The study had two aims: first, to establish whether class size differences affect pupils' academic achievement; and second, to study connections between class size and classroom processes, which might explain any differences found. The study had a number of features that were designed to be an improvement on previous research. It used an 'observational' approach, rather than an interventionist one, in order to capture the nature of the relationship between class size and achievement across the full range of observed classes, and it employed a longitudinal design with baseline assessment to adjust for possible non-random selection of children into classes. The study followed a large sample of over 10,000 children from school entry through the infant stage, i.e. children aged 4-7 years. It used multilevel statistical procedures to model effects of class size differences while controlling for sources of variation that might affect the relationship with academic achievement, and a multimethod research approach, integrating teachers' judgements and experiences with case studies, and also carefully designed time allocation estimates and systematic observation data. Results showed that there was a clear effect of class size differences on children's academic attainment over the (first) Reception year. In the case of literacy, the lowest attainers on entry to school benefited most from small classes, particularly below 25. Connections between class size and classroom processes were examined and a summary model of relationships presented. Effects were multiple, not singular; in large classes there are more large groups and this presented teachers with more difficulties, in smaller classes there was more individual teacher contact with pupils and more support for learning, and in larger classes there was more pupil inattentiveness and off-task behaviour. Results support a contextual approach to classroom learning, within which class size differences have effects on both teachers and pupils. It is concluded that much will depend on how teachers adapt their teaching to different class sizes and that more could be done in teacher training and professional development to address contextual features like size of class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A division test involving both context and bare problems was taken by year 5 pupils in 10 different schools at two points in the school year to identify changes in approach as the standard algorithm was introduced. Increase in the use of the standard algorithm led to many errors and only half of the attempts to use this strategy in the second test were successful. More successful were efficient informal strategies although difficulties in structuring a written record of such strategies were evident. Overall 52% of pupils gained a higher score in the second test while 48% remained the same or performed less well. In comparing context and bare problems, development of a successful strategy was most marked in problems that were given a context. In both tests girls performed better than boys with better improvements over the two tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines a survey on the variability of educational performance among the ethnic minority society in the United Kingdom. Exploration of some of the social processes behind the statistics concerning teacher racism and student adaptability; School experiences of a variety of ethnic students; Policy and practice of racism and antiracism; Conclusion of survey.

The article examines the development of teacher-based techniques for observational research and classroom learning assessment in primary schools in Great Britain. Key issues discussed include a series of inter-related projects involving the study of pupils in their primary schools and their transfer to the next stage of schooling and the impact of certain patterns of teacher interaction on the behavior of students in the classroom and the manner in which these behaviors are related to educational achievement.

The article presents an overview of homework research in Great Britain that is intended to serve as a basis for the identification of several vital methodological and conceptual problems and the stimulation of some interest in what has been a somehow neglected area of educational research. Key issues discussed include the relationship between various homework practices and the achievement of children at the secondary and primary school levels, as well as the issues' implications for educational research and education.