Differential Achievement Trajectories in Differential Tracked School Systems? Empirical Evidence From a German Longitudinal Study

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Abstract

Against the background of the still ongoing and intensive debate concerning the ‚proper‘ approach to deal with students with different learning prerequisites (i.e. ‚tracking’ respectively ‘ability grouping’ vs. ‘mixed ability teaching’; cf. Gamoran, 2010), the study presented here focuses on the development of students‘ achievement in differentially tracked secondary school systems. Drawing on representative samples of two federal states of Germany with different secondary school structures, achievement gains in mathematics and reading comprehension were compared across grades five to eight. The results for mathematics indicate differential learning progress according to tracking structures, even when students selective individual intake characteristics were taken into account. For reading comprehension no statistically significant differences in learning gains were found.

Authors

• Marko Neumann, German Institute for International Educational Research

• Michael Becker, German Institute for International Educational Research

• Norman Rose, University of Tübingen

• Kathrin Jonkmann, University of Tübingen

• Ulrich Trautwein, University of Tubingen