Research Insights: Do Different Classroom Assignment Strategies in Middle School Matter for Student Performance?

We implemented a large-scale field experiment in 171 public schools in Mexico grouping students based on initial academic performance under two models: tracking (i.e., sorting students by initial performance) and bimodal classrooms (i.e., grouping weak and strong students together in the same classroom). Students in tracking and in bimodal classroom experienced similar average learning gains of about 0.08 of a standard deviation. The treatment effects were larger and more persistent among initially high-achieving students and no significant among low-achievers.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Inter-American Development Bank
Other Authors: Matías Busso
Language:English
Published: Inter-American Development Bank
Subjects:Educational Institution, High School, Standard Deviation, Learning, Test Score, Teacher, Skills, Educational Attainment, Public School, Academic Performance, Student Learning, C93 - Field Experiments, I21 - Analysis of Education, I28 - Government Policy, O15 - Human Resources • Human Development • Income Distribution • Migration,
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0004802
https://publications.iadb.org/en/research-insights-do-different-classroom-assignment-strategies-middle-school-matter-student
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Summary:We implemented a large-scale field experiment in 171 public schools in Mexico grouping students based on initial academic performance under two models: tracking (i.e., sorting students by initial performance) and bimodal classrooms (i.e., grouping weak and strong students together in the same classroom). Students in tracking and in bimodal classroom experienced similar average learning gains of about 0.08 of a standard deviation. The treatment effects were larger and more persistent among initially high-achieving students and no significant among low-achievers.