Investigating the Relationships Between Grade Configurations and Student Educational Experiences at the Middle School Level

• In Event: 61.052 - An Analytic Examination of Current Issues in the Middle School Education

Abstract

Since the 1960s, school grade configurations in the United States have shifted away from an eight-year primary and four-year secondary model and moved toward a separate model of secondary education grade span from sixth through eighth grades referred to as the middle school configuration, or seventh through eighth grades referred to as the junior high school configuration. The creations of these grade configuration models were intended to foster a transitional period between the placid elementary school and the more academically demanding high school environment (Eccles & Roser, 2009). The debates around these middle school organization and grade configuration continue to be pronounced for middle school educators, researchers, policymakers, and scholars.

Through the peak years of the middle school movement in the 1960s and 1990s, to the current trend toward K-8 schools, states and school districts across the nation debate about how to best organize schools regarding various models of middle-grade configuration for young adolescents. Furthermore, research that has examined the development and adoption of different grade configurations has not generated much consensus as to which model works best for which demographic groups of students in meeting their specific intellectual and developmental needs (Rockoff & Lockwood, 2010; Byranes & Ruby, 2007; Weiss & Kipnes, 2006).

The present study provides a meta-analysis of current research examining grade configurations at the middle school level. More specifically, the present study focuses on three main grade configuration models: 1) the grades 6 through 8 configurations as the middle school model, 2) the grades 7 through 8 configurations as the junior high school model, and 3) the K-8 model without a transitional period. Guided by research on these models in the U.S. education systems, this study analyzes the strength and weakness of each grade configuration model. Coupled with historical data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) eighth-grade assessments with the associated contextual questionnaires and data tables provided by the Conditions of Education, the present study examines how grade configurations have changed over time and how these changes relate to student educational experiences and outcomes at the middle school level. In addition, the present paper analyzes demographic variables at the school level (i.e., school type and school location) as well as at the student level (i.e., gender and race/ethnicity) to explore possible group differences. Students’ responses about their attitudes toward learning from the NAEP student contextual questionnaires are also examined and compared between these grade configuration models.

Findings and discussions from this paper aid in gaining clearer insights about the grade configuration models may relate to student educational experiences and how to better serve different and diverse student populations in our nation.

Authors

• Kavemuii Murangi, Westat

• Elisha Lubar, Westat

• Lisa Hamilton, Westat