Alternative Education for Children and Youth Ability ...

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Ability Grouping in New Zealand High Schools: Are Practices Evidence-Based? a

Garry Hornby & Chrystal Witte

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University of Canterbury , Christchurch , New Zealand Published online: 04 Mar 2014. To cite this article: Garry Hornby & Chrystal Witte (2014) Ability Grouping in New Zealand High Schools: Are Practices Evidence-Based?, Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 58:2, 90-95 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1045988X.2013.782531

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Ability Grouping in New Zealand High Schools: Are Practices Evidence-Based? GARRY HORNBY and CHRYSTAL WITTE

Downloaded by [Professor Garry Hornby] at 10:49 04 March 2014

University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

There is an extensive international research literature on the effect of ability grouping (e.g., tracking, streaming, banding, setting) on children’s academic and behavioral outcomes. However, it is questionable to what extent the findings of research on this topic have influenced the practice of ability grouping in New Zealand schools. Fifteen high schools in Christchurch were surveyed regarding their policies and practices on ability grouping. Interviews focused on the types of grouping used in academic subject areas, perceived benefits and disadvantages of this grouping, and perceived consequences for average students, gifted students, students with special needs, and M¯aori and Pacific Island students. Reported grouping practices, and views about these, are compared with findings from the literature on ability grouping. The need for schools to adopt more evidence-based strategies for ability grouping are discussed and recommendations for practice and for further research are outlined. Keywords: ability grouping, banding, high schools, setting, streaming, tracking

There is an extensive international research literature about the effect of ability grouping in schools on children’s academic and behavioral outcomes (e.g., Duckworth, Akerman, Gutman, & Vorhaus, 2009; Hallam & Toutounji, 1996; Ireson, Hallam, & Hurley, 2005; Kutnick, Sebba, Blatchford, Galton, & Thorp, 2005; Schofield, 2010; Slavin, 1987, 1990, 1996; Smith & Sutherland, 2006). This literature encompasses ability grouping in the forms of streaming, tracking, banding and setting, which are all forms of between-class grouping, in contrast with mixed-ability classes and within-class grouping. Between-class ability grouping involves placing students in different classes on the basis of ability (typically as assessed on standardized tests) and is typically referred to as streaming in the United Kingdom and tracking in the United States. In its extreme form this involves allocating children to classes within a hierarchy from highest ability in class A, the next highest ability in class B and so on through to a class for those considered to have lowest ability. A less extreme form of steaming is called banding. Banding involves students being allocated to classes in ability bands, such as high-ability, average-ability, and low-ability bands. In contrast, setting refers to the use of ability grouping only for specific curriculum areas, typically literacy and numeracy, for students who therefore spend most of their time in mixedability classes. Within-class grouping involves dividing students who are in mixed-ability classes for most of the school day into groups within the same class for specific tasks, such Address correspondence to Garry Hornby, College of Education, University of Canterbury, PB 4800, Christchurch, 8140, New Zealand. E-mail: [email protected]

as, for example, putting children into groups of similar levels of spelling achievement to work on spelling. The present study focuses on the effects of between-class ability grouping (i.e., streaming, tracking, banding, or setting) compared with mixed-ability classes and within-class grouping. The main reasoning behind the use of between-class ability grouping, according to German researchers Hanushek and Woessmann (2006), is the belief that it produces homogeneous classrooms, that is of children with very similar ability, which therefore allows appropriately paced instruction to focus on specific curriculum content, which is considered to facilitate optimum learning by all students. However, earlier reviews in the United States (Slavin, 1987, 1990) and recent reviews in the United Kingdom (Duckworth et al., 2009; Kutnick et al., 2005) have concluded that the effect of between-class ability grouping on overall student attainment is extremely limited. This conclusion is supported by the results of a metaanalysis carried out by Lipsey and Wilson (1993), who investigated the effects of between-class ability grouping on children’s achievement. Their results found a small overall average effect size of .10. A similar result was recently reported by a New Zealand researcher, Hattie (2009), whose synthesis of the findings of 800 meta-analyses of interventions in the field of education yielded an effect size of .12 for the effect of ability grouping on children’s achievement, compared with an average effect size of .4 for all interventions in the field of education. This suggests that the use of between-class ability grouping has considerably less effect on overall levels of academic achievement than most educational interventions.


Ability Grouping in New Zealand High Schools A Dutch review of the literature on the effect of ability grouping differentiated between high and low-achieving learners (Houtveen & Van de Grift, 2001). It concluded that, although the mean results of some studies showed higher achievement in between-class ability groups than in mixedability groups, this appeared mainly because high-achieving students benefitted more than did low-achieving students. In addition, the authors cited several other studies in which lowachieving learners performed worse in between-class ability groups than in mixed-ability groups (e.g. Gamoran, 1992; Hallam & Touttounji, 1996). Evidence from further studies (Duckworth et al., 2009; Feinstein & Symons, 1999) supports the conclusion that betweenclass ability grouping practices widen gaps in achievement, with students in high-ability streams doing better than those in mixed-ability groups, and students in low-ability groups doing worse than those in mixed-ability groups, as well as experiencing negative effects on their motivation and attitudes toward school. A major study of setting, a less extreme form of ability grouping, was conducted in the United Kingdom. This investigated the effects of setting in English, mathematics and science on the academic achievement of high school students (Ireson et al., 2005). The authors reported that, instead of betweenclass ability grouping, most high schools in the United Kingdom use mixed-ability grouping along with setting for certain subject areas, typically English, mathematics, and science. This means that students spend most of their time in mixed-ability classes but are allocated to sets of different abilities for one or more of English, mathematics, and science. Ireson and colleagues (2005) surveyed 6,000 students in 45 schools that were classified into three degrees of setting: high levels of setting, moderate levels of setting, and mainly mixedability classes with low levels of setting. They found that, in all schools, there was a wide spread of ability within sets and that, for students with the same levels of ability, those in higher sets did better academically in English, mathematics, and science than did those students in lower sets. However, they found that there was no overall advantage of setting, compared with mixed-ability grouping, on achievement outcomes for schools in any of English, mathematics, or science. In the United States, tracking in various forms has been one of the predominant organizing practices in public schools for the past century (Rubin, 2008). MacIver, Reuman, and Main (1995) pointed out that in U.S. research, there is evidence that low-track classes are much more likely to receive course content that focuses on below-grade-level knowledge and skills than are high-track classes. The National Association of School Psychologists in the United States opposes the use of tracking because of its demonstrated negative effects for many students. The association has claimed that the use of between-class ability grouping disproportionately affects minority students, economically disadvantaged students, and students with low levels of ability (National Association of School Psychologists, 2006). Because of the dubious gains and widely acknowledged disadvantages of tracking outlined earlier, many schools in the United States now implement what is referred to as detracking, which involves students being deliberately placed into classes

91 of mixed ability (Argys, Rees, & Brewer, 1996; Rubin, 2008), or as in the case of one school, offering a high-track curriculum for all students (Burris & Welner, 2005). An extensive review of the research literature on ability grouping by U.K. researchers concluded that no form of grouping benefits all students, but that students placed in lower-ability groups are likely to make less progress, become demotivated and develop antischool attitudes. These students are likely to experience poorer quality of teaching and a limited range of curricular opportunities, which may affect their later life chances. They concluded that, within-class grouping, has a greater potential to raise standards (Kutnick et al., 2005). In summarizing the results of two meta-analyses, of mainly U.S. research, that examined the effect of between-class ability grouping and mixed-ability grouping on student learning at the elementary and high school levels, Slavin (1996) made the following recommendations: (a) use mixed-ability groups for most content areas; (b) encourage learners’ identification with mixed-ability groups in order to promote acceptance of diversity; and (c) use ability grouping only when it will increase the efficacy of instruction or provide more time for instruction on specific skills (such as in learning to read or spell). This brief summary of the vast international literature on ability grouping suggests that there are few benefits of streaming, banding, or setting to the overall academic achievement of students. Some research has found that there can be advantages for students in high-ability classes, which are considered to be due to teacher and curriculum variables. However, there are widely acknowledged disadvantages of ability grouping in terms of lower levels of academic achievement, increased behavioral problems, decreased motivation and lower self-esteem for students who are not in high-ability classes. Furthermore, as Harlen and Malcolm (1997) pointed out, the relative performance of students is affected by many variables other than the mix of ability in their classes, such as class size, teaching methods and materials, the degree of differentiation in learning activities, and curriculum content. The minimal effect of various forms of ability grouping on the educational outcomes of most students, together with the negative effects on many students, including those with special educational needs, have refocused attention on the variables that do make a difference to student achievement. Australian researchers (Shaddock, MacDonald, Hook, Giorcelli, & Arthur-Kelly, 2009) recently suggested that educational researchers should focus their attention on these variables, especially, “how teachers teach in their own classrooms” (p. 86).

A New Zealand Example New Zealand is an interesting country for which to consider the issue of ability grouping in schools. Results of international surveys (e.g., Programme for International Student Assessment [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2009]) have consistently found that New Zealand school students rank in the top ten in the world in terms of overall academic achievement, but that the gap between the

Hornby and Witte


92 highest and lowest performers is one of the biggest of all countries surveyed. It is therefore interesting to consider what forms of ability grouping are used in New Zealand schools and what the rationales for these are among school personnel. The Ministry of Education in New Zealand has established three priority areas for improving education in schools: ensuring quality teaching, improving parent and family involvement, and implementing evidence-based practices (Ministry of Education, 2005). Evidence for the importance of the first two of these priority areas is provided by the above-average effect sizes for teaching quality and parent involvement, reported by Hattie (2009), whereas the evidence base for the effect of ability grouping, with well-below-average effect sizes noted earlier, is much less convincing. It is therefore questionable to what extent findings of the international research on ability grouping have influenced the practice of ability grouping in New Zealand schools. Overall, this study aimed to investigate grouping policies and practices in one sector of the school system in New Zealand (i.e., high schools). This small-scale study aimed to conduct an exploratory investigation of ability grouping in high schools. The findings of the study are intended to establish the extent to which the policies and practices of ability grouping in high schools are consistent with research evidence on this issue.

Method A survey was conducted of policies and practices of student grouping in high schools in Christchurch, a city of around 400,000 people, in the South Island of New Zealand. New Zealand has one of the most highly devolved education systems in the world with each school governed by a Board of Trustees made up mainly of parents of children attending the school, plus the principal, as well as teacher and student representatives. The New Zealand Ministry of Education has established a set of National Education Guidelines but schools’ Board of Trustees determine school policies on issues such as ability grouping, and school senior management teams, led by principals, decide how to implement these policies.

decile one schools are the 10% of schools that have most students from low socioeconomic status families and decile 10 are the 10% of schools which have the most students from high socioeconomic status families. Decile ratings of the 15 schools involved in the study ranged from 2 to 9, with a mean of 5.93, indicating that the schools were serving communities with a wide range of socioeconomic statuses. Interviews Interviews were conducted by the second author at each of the schools. Interviewees were six school principals, four deputy or associate principals, and five deans of years 9 or 10 (which were the focus of the survey). A structured interview schedule was used to conduct the survey. The schedule focused on whether schools had a written policy on ability grouping; types of student grouping used in academic subject areas; what principals considered to be the benefits and disadvantages of this grouping; and what they considered to be the consequences of these arrangements for students with special educational needs, average students, gifted students, English-as-a-secondlanguage students, and M¯aori and Pacific Island students. The following questions were asked: 1. Does the school have a written policy or procedure around student grouping? Who is this available to? 2. What types of student grouping does the school use in academic subject areas: e.g., in terms of banding, streaming, setting, etc. 3. What do you consider to be the benefits of these arrangements? For: scheduling, teachers, students, etc. 4. What do you consider to be the disadvantages? For: scheduling classes, teachers, students, etc. 5. What are the consequences of these arrangements for students in the following groups: that is: How do these arrangements impact learning and behavior for the following groups: students within the average range; gifted and talented; special educational needs; M¯aori; Pacific Island; English as a second language.

Results

Participants

Policies on Ability Grouping

Of the 32 high schools in Christchurch, 17 were randomly selected for the survey by ticking every second school on a list of all Christchurch high schools. Two schools declined the invitation to be involved, leaving a sample of 15 schools. This included 12 state schools, two state-integrated Catholic schools and one progressive state school which uses an enquiry learning approach rather than following a traditional curriculum. Of these, 9 were coeducational schools and 6 were single-sex schools, including three boys’ schools and three girls’ schools. Schools ranged in size from 381 to 1,663 students with a mean of 990 students. The socioeconomic status of communities from which schools drew their students was estimated using the New Zealand decile system. This involves a 10-point scale in which

Out of the 15 surveyed schools, 10 did not have a written policy statement on student ability grouping. Five schools had a written statement on ability grouping and were able to supply the interviewer with a copy of this. These included two state coeducational schools, two single-sex schools (one for boys and one for girls) and one state-integrated Catholic school. However, these statements were apparently written to inform staff of the schools’ procedures for ability grouping, rather than for informing parents of the policy, such as by including statements in the school prospectus or handbook that is typically given to parents of all children at enrolment. Therefore, it appears that most schools did not have written policies on ability grouping, and those that had them did not customarily make these available to parents.

Ability Grouping in New Zealand High Schools


Types of Ability Grouping for Academic Subjects Only one school did not group for ability. This school had all mixed-ability classes along with Individualized Educational Programs for each student (the progressive school). Another school had one special educational needs class in each year group with all the others being mixed-ability classes (a state coeducational school). One school had high-ability classes for each year group with all other classes being mixedability classes (a state-integrated Catholic school). The other 12 schools had a mix of high-ability classes, low-ability or special educational needs classes, and mixed-ability classes. The typical pattern of these schools was to have three ability bands: a band of high-ability or gifted and talented classes, a band of low-ability or students with special educational needs, and a middle band of mixed-ability classes (i.e., comprising students who were not considered to fall into the other two categories). The number of classes in each band varied between schools, and in some schools, also varied between years 9 and 10. So it was clear that all but 1 of the 15 schools used some form of between-class ability grouping. Perceived Benefits of Ability Grouping Several benefits of ability grouping were identified by interviewees. At four schools, interviewees suggested that ability grouping was used in order to target teaching to meet the educational needs of students. Four interviewees suggested that ability grouping enabled more able students to be challenged or extended. At four schools, it was reported that ability grouping was used because parents wanted or liked it. Three interviewees suggested that ability grouping enabled teachers’ strengths or interests to be optimized. At three schools, it was reported that teachers believed that ability grouping created homogeneous groups. Two interviewees thought that ability grouping enabled schools to better target their use of resources. At two schools, it was considered that ability grouping enabled the provision of work experience for low-ability groups. One interviewee, when asked about the benefits of ability grouping, opined that mixed-ability classes increased overall academic performance more than streaming.

93 ideas of their ability level, students are placed in wrong ability bands as a result of inaccurate data, students do not have the same level of ability across all curriculum areas, and parents are anxious about which ability level that their children have been placed in. Perceived Consequences of Ability Grouping Several positive consequences of between-class ability grouping were noted for gifted and talented students. Three interviewees noted that grouping them together enabled the use of extension activities, two suggested that this was the case with enrichment activities, two with acceleration, and one with providing challenges for students. At two schools, it was suggested that gifted and talented classes made it easier to provide more differentiated and competitive programs that were especially geared for these students. One interviewee noted that such classes provide more opportunities for these students. Another noted that parents of students who had been in highability classes at their previous school complained when their children were put in mixed-ability classes at high school. Positive consequences of between-class ability grouping were also noted for students with special educational needs. Five schools noted that having separate classes for students with special educational needs enabled the provision of additional help with basic skills such as literacy and numeracy. Four schools noted that this also enabled them to assign teacher aides to these classes. Two schools noted being able to place students with special educational needs in smaller classes. No specific consequences of between-class ability grouping were noted for M¯aori and Pacific Island students, those with English as second language, or students considered to be in the average range of abilities. No advantages for any of these groups of students could be identified from the many somewhat bewildering responses from schools, such as the classic, “It seems to work OK, we have no evidence to the contrary.”

Discussion Perceived Disadvantages of Ability Grouping Several disadvantages of ability grouping were identified by schools. Three interviewees said that ability grouping lowered teacher expectations of student achievement for all but those in high-ability classes. Three considered that there was still a wide range of abilities when ability bands were used. Three interviewees noted that children in low-ability classes did not have more able students to act as models. Two interviewees expressed concern about the stigmatization of students in lower band classes. Other disadvantages of ability grouping noted by one school each were that the use of banding by their schools made arranging school subject schedules more difficult, teachers think that there is no need to differentiate work because they assume they are working with homogeneous groups, students in low-ability classes are less focused and exhibit more behavior problems, students in high-ability classes get inflated

Out of the 15 surveyed high schools, 14 used some form of between-class ability grouping. In general, this was in the form of three ability bands with classes for high-ability or gifted and talented students, classes for low ability or students with special educational needs, with the remaining students in mixed-ability classes. However, schools did not report substantial benefits of the ability grouping that they used and identified a range of disadvantages. Furthermore, it is notable that most of the benefits that were reported by interviewees were benefits for teachers and schools, whereas most of the disadvantages concerned the negative effect of ability grouping on students. Some positive consequences or specific advantages of between-class ability grouping were reported for gifted and talented students and for those with special educational needs, but none were identified for average students, M¯aori and

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94 Pacific Island students, or those with English as a second language. It appears that grouping practices in most schools were not based on research evidence but instead on the views of those responsible for school management and governance, who are probably unaware of the extensive research literature on the topic. Thus, in contrast with the widespread practice of between-class ability grouping in these high schools, the bulk of research evidence suggests that is not an effective strategy for facilitating the optimum overall academic achievement of students. As stated earlier, the Ministry of Education in New Zealand (Ministry of Education, 2005) has made the implementation of evidence-based practice a priority for schools. It is clear from the literature reviewed earlier in this article that research evidence suggests that between-class ability grouping has limited effectiveness in improving overall academic achievement. Therefore, schools using between-class ability grouping are not implementing evidence-based practice with regard to the effective use of ability grouping. The findings of this study therefore reinforce the need for schools to adopt more appropriate practices for ability grouping. While this small-scale study has provided some information about the policies and practices of ability grouping in high schools it is realized that this is based on only fifteen schools from one city in New Zealand. Further research is required to ascertain whether this state of affairs is also the case in other parts of New Zealand and other countries around the world. It would also be useful to investigate the views of students, teachers, parents and Ministry of Education officials on this topic. If further research confirms the findings of this study, then it will be important to consider what steps can be taken to reverse current school policies and encourage high schools to base the grouping of students on research evidence regarding effective practices rather than on their current practices. Several levels of influence will need to be considered. First, Ministries of Education have an important role in providing guidance to schools about using effective evidence-based practices for grouping students, such as that provided by Slavin (1996) referred to earlier. Educational and school psychologists employed by Ministries of Education have an important role to play in getting this message across to schools and in helping them develop effective policies and practices with regard to student grouping. Second, since, in New Zealand, each school’s Board of Trustees is responsible for setting its policy on student grouping and the school’s principal and senior management team is responsible for implementing this, it will be important to provide Boards of Trustees and senior management teams with the relevant information from the research literature on ability grouping. This will enable schools to develop policies and practices for ability grouping, and other key features of school organization, that are based on sound evidence of effectiveness in optimizing the achievement of all students (Hattie, 2009). Third, there is a need for teachers to be aware of the heterogeneity of students in their classes and to develop their skills in teaching classes with wide ranges of ability. That is, they need to learn the skills necessary for teaching mixed-ability groups (Ireson et al., 2005). These include implementing universal de-

sign for learning, adaptation and differentiation of instruction and curriculum materials, and use of effective inclusive teaching strategies such as cooperative learning and peer tutoring (see Salend, 2011). Last, there are important implications for teacher education and the in-service training of teachers. Teacher education needs to emphasize the importance of teachers being able to select and use teaching strategies and interventions that are based on sound evidence of effectiveness and avoid those that are not evidence-based.

Author notes Garry Hornby is a professor of education in the College of Education at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. His teaching and research is in the areas of educational psychology, special education, counselling, and parental involvement in education. Chrystal Witte is a research associate at the University of Canterbury and a school counselor.

Acknowledgement The authors wish to thank Dr. David Mitchell for his assistance in preparing the literature review for this article.

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