Staying at elementary school for longer associated with higher student attainment
September 20, 2019
Science Daily/Taylor & Francis Group
A new study has discovered that US students achieve better results in reading and mathematics tests when they stay in elementary school for grades six (age 11-12) and seven (age 12-13), rather than transfer to middle school. In contrast, students in grade eight (age 13-14) achieve better results in middle school than high school.
"The current study adds to the growing body of research that experiencing a school transition during early adolescence is associated with detrimental outcomes," said lead researcher Marisa Malone from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Malone and her colleagues report their findings in School Effectiveness and School Improvement.
In the US, there are various ways that students can transfer between schools as they age, with the span of grades covered by different schools known as grade configuration. One of the most common configurations is to go to elementary school up to grade five, and then to middle school from grades six to eight, and then to high school from grade nine onwards. But several studies have found that academic motivation and achievement tend to fall in middle school, with sixth-grade students in middle schools more likely to exhibit lower academic competency, more disciplinary problems and poorer attendance than those who stay in elementary schools.
Most of these studies focused on student performance, but to gain a slightly different perspective on the issue, Malone and her colleagues decided to focus on school performance. This also allowed them to take account of various school-level factors that can affect academic performance, including school size, racial composition, socioeconomic status, and whether the school is in an urban, suburban or rural location. They also considered sixth, seventh and eighth grade students, whereas most studies only focus on sixth and seventh grade students.
They conducted their study on 573 public schools in Virginia, which adopts various grade configurations. Most students transfer to middle school for grades six, seven and eight, but in some areas, students stay in elementary school until grade six or seven and then transfer straight to high school, missing out middle school.
All schools in Virginia conduct mandatory tests of reading and mathematics from grade three onwards. Malone and her colleagues recorded the pass rates for these tests in grades six, seven and eight for each school over three years, and then compared the pass rates between the different configurations. They found that the pass rates for these tests were significantly higher for sixth and seventh grade students at elementary schools when compared to middle schools, although the effect was more pronounced for sixth grade students than seventh grade. For eighth grade students, the pass rate was higher in middle schools than high schools.
Together, these results suggest that students struggle with the transfer between schools, especially in early adolescence, adversely affecting their academic achievement. Malone and her colleagues therefore recommend that eliminating middle schools should be considered as an option, in order to limit the number of school transfers.
Although this study looked solely at US schools, Malone says transferring between schools may well affect the academic achievement of students in other countries. "Early adolescence is a challenging time for youth; these individuals are experiencing a host of physiological, psychological and social-emotional changes. At the same time, they experience the transition to middle school, which is structured very differently than elementary schools. For example, students in American middle schools have many teachers throughout the day, which means that they need to learn the rules and expectations for multiple classrooms, versus just one. Class and school sizes also tend to be larger in middle schools. If these structural changes are similar in other countries, then we may suspect that students in other countries may experience similar challenges adjusting to the new school environment."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190920081908.htm
Power of refocusing student stress in middle school transition
Sixth graders taught to see transition turmoil as 'normal, temporary' perform better in class
July 29, 2019
Science Daily/University of Wisconsin-Madison
A new study by education researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that proactively addressing students' anxieties with clear and cost-effective messaging early in the school year can lead to a lasting record of higher grades, better attendance, and fewer behavioral problems for sixth graders embarking on their stressful first year of middle school.
Published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the journal of the National Academy of Sciences, the featured six-page paper by lead author Geoffrey D. Borman traces those benefits to a difference-making change in attitude and positive well-being reported by students after two brief, reassuring classroom activities, known as interventions.
Seasoned with peer success stories and designed to boost students' sense of belonging, the interventions, in the form of reading and writing exercises, are targeted to ease sixth graders' fears about "fitting in" at their new schools with a message that the angst they're feeling is "both temporary and normal," the paper says, and that help is available from school staff.
"It's saying, 'There's not something unusual or different about you, but this is just an issue that is difficult for a lot of kids when they make the transition to middle school,'" Borman says. "And that there's support available, both academically and socially. You'll make new friends, you'll discover that you fit in, and teachers and other adults in the building are there to help you."
Borman, a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at UW?Madison and scientist in the School of Education's Wisconsin Center for Education Research, tested his hypothesis in a double-blind, randomized field trial involving 1,304 sixth graders at all 11 middle schools in the Madison Metropolitan School District, a diverse, K-12 system in the state's second biggest city.
Borman's research team found that, compared to a control group of sixth graders that received a neutral reading and writing activity, those in the treatment group experienced post-intervention effects that:
· reduced disciplinary incidents by 34 percent.
· increased attendance by 12 percent.
· reduced the number of failing grades by 18 percent.
The paper spells out the pathway that led to these impacts, as borne out in school records and students' completion of surveys measuring their attitudes pre- and post-intervention.
"The kids internalized this message, they worried about tests less, they trusted their teachers more and sought help from adults," Borman says. "They also felt like they belonged in the school more, and because they felt more comfortable, they didn't act out as often and they showed up more. All of those things explain how this intervention (finally) affects kids' grades."
Borman and his team developed the intervention for the study based on prior work by social psychologists and brainstorming internally about what sixth graders need to know to feel better about fitting in socially and measuring up academically in middle school. They also tested the wording and presentation of their proposed messaging with student focus groups.
Existing literature makes clear that the transition to middle school is a high stakes one, Borman notes, with a marked and lasting decline in teens' academic performance often beginning with a rocky start in middle school. Educators know that the upheavals of moving to a new school are a bad fit with the increased self-awareness, heightened sensitivity to social acceptance and other physical and psychological changes that young teens already are experiencing.
Surprisingly, though, few interventions have been developed to address it, Borman says.
"This is a near-universal experience of young adolescents," he notes. "They're forced to make this transition from the more comfortable and familiar neighborhood elementary school, where they were under the care of mainly one teacher, to this much larger school with a larger number of teachers with whom they have to interact and new classmates from around the city."
That makes his team's proposed intervention all the more potentially valuable, especially given its low price tag -- mainly just printing costs -- and its ability to be scaled up districtwide easily.
"Rather than wholesale changes, or closing down all the middle schools, this intervention is a productive, targeted way to help kids more effectively and productively negotiate this transition, and for only a couple of dollars per kid," says Borman, who now is working on replication studies in two other districts. "Schools could easily replicate this kind of intervention across the country."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190729164630.htm