Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Lit. Review Article 2

Literature Review

Article 2

APA Citation: Peterson, Sarah E., DeGracie, James S., & Ayabe, Carol R. (1987). A longitudinal Study of the Effects of Retention/Promotion on Academic Achievement. American Educational Research Journal, Vol 24, No. 1, 107-18. Retrieved from JSTOR database 31 July 2007.

I. Title: A longitudinal Study of the Effects of Retention/Promotion on Academic Achievement.

II. Authors: Sarah E. Peterson, James S. DeGracie and Carol R. Ayabe

III. Author’s Purpose for Writing: To examine the long-term impact of retention/promotion decisions on the academic achievement of primary grade students.

IV. What are the points made in the review of the literature? Do they support the need for the study? The researchers discovered that students who were retained would outperform their counterparts in the firs year following retention. There results are contrary to what has typically been found in other research literature. Previous research has indicated that promoted students generally perform better than retained students at the end of one year following retention.

V. Author’s Inquiry Question: How does the performance of retainees compare to the performance of non-retainees in the same year and how does performance of retainees on a given grade level test compare with the performance of non-retainees on the same grade level test?

VI.
A. Author’s methodology: The original sample was selected by identifying first-,
second-, and third- grade students who were retained at the end of the 1980-81 school year and by selecting a matched comparison group of non-retainees. The final sample included only those students who had test scores in at least one area for all 4 years.

B. Who is being studied? Primary grade students at the Mesa Public Schools

C. Over what length of time? 4 years

D. What data is being collected? Achievement test scores results in Reading, Language and Math for students retained in first, second and third grades and their matched counterparts

VII. How the author collected information: By analyzing and recording the data from the achievement test scores.

VIII. What the author discovered:
•First, retention does not have a favorable long-term impact on academic achievement of primary students as measured by relative class standing in the same year. This is especially true considering that promoted students scored nearly as well as retained students by the third year after retention, but they were taking a test that was one grade level higher than the retained students and thus were answering questions concerning more advanced material.
•A second point that should be considered is that although they failed to find convincing evidence that retention is beneficial, in terms of same-year comparisons, their results do not seem to indicate that retention is harmful academically as other studies have found.
•In terms of same-grade comparisons, evidence was found that second- and third-graders gain more than non-retainees, even though they are delayed a year in doing so. The fact that this effect was found for second- and third-graders retainees, but not for first-grade retainees, is somewhat surprising. Past research has generally shown that it is best to retain students as early as possible if retention is to occur.
•Finally, there is more evidence that social promotion with remediation may be more effective than retention with remediation. Based on Leinhardt’s (1980) results, one promising option would be the use of individualized educational plans in conjunction with social promotion.

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