Comparison on the Effectiveness of Modular Learning in General Mathematics among the Senior High School Strands

This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of modular learning among senior high school strands and investigate the influence of students’ demographic profiles on their academic performances. Using One Way ANOVA, results showed a significant difference in the test scores obtained from the different strands. Results with Tukey HSD revealed that ABM performed best under modular learning, followed by STEM, GAS, ATS, and EIM, respectively. Pearson’s r revealed a significant correlation between student’s sex, monthly income, and parents’ employment status to students’ academic performance. Furthermore, the z test for two means determined that there was a significant difference in the scores of males and females. From these results, the researcher suggests that teachers handling TVL tracks must exert extra effort in delivering their mathematics lessons to close the gap in academic performance with the students from academic tracks.

Are educational track decisions risky? Evidence from Sweden on the assumptions of risk-aversion models

Relative risk aversion (RRA) models explain class inequalities in education with reference to risk avoidance, i.e., the risky choice assumption (RCA). Whether education entails any risks has been subject to minimal scrutiny. In this paper, we test whether or not vocational education is a safety net that protects from marginalization but at the cost of limited access to tertiary education and service class positions. We present an empirical assessment for upper-secondary track choices in Sweden, contrasting the vocational and the academic tracks for those that do not pursue higher educational degrees. The only evidence in favor of the RCA is that when taking selection into account, graduates of the academic track without a tertiary degree initially face higher risks of not being stably employed in their early 20s than their counterparts from vocational education. Differences between secondary tracks in registered unemployment risks are small throughout the life course and, if anything, they favor the academic track for both genders and cohorts. Moreover, the academic track significantly protects men of both cohorts from the risk of entering unskilled routine occupations. We conclude that the support for the RCA is scant at best.

Sketching a motivational landscape

Studies of motivation in bilingual education settings often address questions of differences between learners in bilingual programmes and those in mainstream education. Problematic in this respect is our increasing awareness of the inherent differences between these two learner groups, as learners in bilingual programmes have often chosen or been selected for a bilingual route (Mearns et al., 2017). The study presented here therefore does not seek to compare learners in bilingual and non-bilingual programmes, but rather to explore the nature of language learning motivation within the context of bilingual secondary education (BSE) in the Netherlands. Using a purpose-designed tool reflecting the L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, 2009), this study investigated trends in motivation across genders, academic tracks and year-groups of nearly 2000 learners. Findings suggest that, although these learners all have bilingual education in common, differences between the motivations of these groups should not be overlooked.

Tracking in Israeli high schools: social inequality after 50 years of educational reforms

This paper provides an overview of tracking in Israeli upper secondary education and assesses its effect on the attainment of higher education degrees and earnings. Since the early 1970’s, the Israeli education system has gone through three major reforms that profoundly transformed tracking and sorting mechanisms in secondary education. All three aimed at reducing social inequality in educational attainment through structural changes that expanded learning opportunities and replaced rigid top-down sorting mechanisms with concepts of differentiation and choice. Utilising a data set that includes a large representative sample of Israelis born between 1978 and 1981 who were fully affected by the reforms, the analysis shows that there is a clear link between social background and track placement. Track placement, in turn, is associated with attainment of higher education degrees and income. Moreover, tracking mediates a large proportion of the association between parental class and these two adult outcomes. We also show that the low-status academic tracks that replaced the vocational tracks did not improve the life chances of low-achieving students from disadvantaged social groups.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>We analyze the relation between social background, secondary education tracking and later life achievements using registry data.</li><br /><li>The results show that tracking mediates a large proportion of the association between background and outcomes High-tier vocational tracks improved the chances of students.</li><br /><li>Low-status academic tracks did not improve the life chances of low background students.</li></ul>

It’s not all About the Peers: Reintroducing School Context to the School Segregation Literature

This paper investigates the effect of attending immigrant-dense schools on student outcomes, which consists of the joint effect of immigrant peers and school context. The sorting of students into schools is not random, and a large immigrant peer effect literature uses school fixed effects to eliminate selection bias. However, keeping schools fixed also eliminates the effect of the school context and is accordingly unsuited to estimate the total effect of attending immigrant-dense schools. Using application data to manage selection bias, I demonstrate that attending immigrant-dense upper secondary schools in Norway negatively affect natives’ completion of academic tracks, even though a school fixed effects model indicates no immigrant peer effects. These findings suggest that immigrant-dense schools affect students in other ways than through mere peer exposure, and that research on the consequences of school segregation should take into account the effect of both school context and peers.

Brain drain from vocational to academic education at upper-secondary level? An empirical analysis for Switzerland

Despite the ongoing debate about how much academic versus vocational upper-secondary education is favorable for a country and large differences across countries of those two types of education exist, the interplay of vocational and academic education on upper-secondary level and its consequences for the entire education system remain under-researched. Although difficult to analyze directly, we first construct a measure to capture companies’ reactions to changes in academic education rates and second analyze whether academic education rates are associated with success rates in vocational education over time and with control variables. To measure companies’ reactions, we use a cantonal average requirements profile consisting of the academic requirements profile of an occupation and the number of apprenticeships started in this occupation per year and canton. Although results of the first part of the analysis are ambiguous, combined with the second part, they suggest a non-reaction of companies (i.e., they keep offering the same occupations but have to fill their positions with lower-ability candidates). Results of the second part show that more opportunities for academic education appear to draw highly-able students away from vocational education, with negative consequences for the success rates in vocational education. Our findings have important implications for countries with vocational and academic tracks in their education systems, but also for those who plan to introduce or strengthen (dual) vocational education.

Academic Tracking of English Learners With Disabilities in Middle School

Despite increased attention to the academic progress of English learners (ELs) with disabilities as a result of the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, research has yet to investigate the educational opportunities of these students in secondary grades. This qualitative embedded case study examined the curricular access of 10 ELs with disabilities in middle school. Utilizing deficit thinking for its theoretical underpinnings, the analysis illuminated that ELs with disabilities were consistently placed in lower academic tracks through a number of mutually reinforcing institutional and perceptual factors. The findings have exigent implications for expanding opportunities to learn of ELs with disabilities through reform to placement criteria and provision of special education and linguistic support across a range of academic tracks.

Development of Subjective Well-Being in Adolescence

Despite the importance of subjective well-being (SWB) for students’ mental and physical health, there is a lack of longitudinal studies investigating the development of SWB in adolescents and what factors are associated with it over time. The present study seeks to shed further light on this question by investigating adolescents longitudinally. A sample of German academic tracks students (N = 476) from five schools were followed longitudinally over a time period of 30 months with four measurement points from Grade 11 to Grade 13. Alongside the longitudinal assessment of SWB (mood and life satisfaction), a range of other factors were also assessed at t1 including; demographic factors (sex, age, socio-economic status (HISEI)), intelligence, grades (report cards provided by the schools), personality (neuroticism, extraversion) and perceived parental expectations and support. Latent growth curve models were conducted to investigate the development of SWB and its correlates. On average, mood and life satisfaction improved at the end of mandatory schooling. However, students significantly differed in this pattern of change. Students’ life satisfaction developed more positively if students had good grades at t1. Furthermore, even though introverted students started with lower life satisfaction at t1, extraverts’ life showed greater increases over time. Changes in mood were associated with socio-economic background; the higher the HISEI the more positive the change. As social comparisons in school performance are almost inevitable, schools should intervene to buffer the influence of school grades on students’ SWB.