Does School Tracking Have an Impact on the Development of Students’ Intelligence?

• In Event: On the Effectiveness of Educational Factors: Do Tracking, Teaching, Caring, Equity Promotion, and Policy Matter?

Abstract

This paper focuses on the effect of ability grouping (tracking) on students’ psychometric intelligence. We obtained longitudinal data from a German sample of N = 6,830 grade 5 and 9 students in 190 schools. Intelligence was measured by a nonverbal reasoning test. We used propensity score matching to control selection bias. Confirming previous findings by Becker et al. (2012) from a sample of students two years older, after four years, students in the academic track show higher mean intelligence scores than students in nonacademic tracks. Furthermore, students in the academic tracks also outperform students in comprehensive schools. Our findings underline the impact of school quality not only on domain-specific knowledge but also on general cognitive abilities.

Authors

• Karin Guill, Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education

• Olaf Koeller, Leibniz Institute for Science and Math Education