Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Lit. Review Article 1

Literature Review

Article 1

APA Citation: Westbury, Marilyn (1994). The Effect of Elementary Grade Retention and Subsequent School Achievement and Ability. Canadian Journal of Education/Revue canadienne de l’éducation, Vol. 19, No. 3, 241-50. Retrieved from JSTOR database 31 July 2007.

I. Title: The Effect of Elementary Grade Retention and Subsequent School Achievement and Ability

II. Author: Marilyn Westbury

III. Author’s Purpose for Writing: The prime objective of the researcher is to ascertain whether lower achieving students who were retained once in elementary school perform as well on subsequent achievement and ability tests as a matched group of students who where continually promoted.

IV. What are the points made in the review of the literature? Do they support the need for the study?
• The author concluded that grade retention was ineffective for improving achievement and ability (p.241).
• Retained children appear to score, at best, no better than comparison groups of continually promoted children (p.242).
• When comparing to socially promoted pupils, retained students show both poorer academic results and inferior personal adjustment. (p.242).
• Some studies suggest that occasionally there are short-term gains for students repeating a grade but that the gains diminish in the long run. Moreover, grade repeaters are more likely to drop out of school than continually promoted students (p.242).

V. Author’s Inquiry Question: What are the short-term and long-term effect of grade retention on student achievement and ability?

VI.
A. Author’s methodology:
To isolate two groups of students who are as alike as possible on all recorded variables with one exception-one group repeated one grade in elementary school and the other did not. Second, the subjects are regular program, English-speaking school children without any apparent mental, physical, or social handicaps. Both of these design parameters are important to increase the probability that differences or similarities between the two groups are attributable to failing or passing a grade

B. Who is being studied? 125 elementary school students that where one-time grade repeaters and 84 elementary school students that where continually promoted.

C. Over what length of time? Not specified

D. What data is being collected? Results of the Grade 1 Edmonton Public Schools Reading Comprehension Test, Grade 3 & 6 Canadian Cognitive Ability Test (CCAT), school district achievement test in Science, Mathematics, Social Studies and Language Arts.

VII. How the author collected information: From student record cards in various district schools.

VIII. What the author discovered: Failing a student does nothing to improve readiness on the next grade level. Educators must seek alternatives to grade repetition that correct learning problems early.

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