The decision not to promote a student is a critical one; it could affect the rest of the student's academic career. It is imperative that such a decision be based on the best available research. This study reviews research that has been done on nonpromotion, dropouts, and the relationship between the two. Results from an examination of 1,024 dropouts' records show that 87.8% of dropouts had experienced nonpromotion one or more times. Recommendations for developing retention criteria and preventing dropouts are listed.

While a single residential move is a common experience for many families with children, residential moves that occur in higher frequency may serve as disruptive events in a child’s life. The present study draws upon data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study of children from birth to 15 years of age to examine associations between residential moves and five measures of health and cognition: emergency room utilization, body mass index, incidence of asthma attack or asthma episode, repeated school grades, and scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Age-dependent, cumulative, and differential associations by sex and race are explored. Finally, the present study examines potential moderation of these associations by neighborhood context of a child’s city of birth. Cumulative analyses from the present study suggest that residential mobility is significantly associated with increased emergency room utilization over time, decreased body mass index over time, and a higher likelihood of a experiencing a repeated grade over time, and an increase in PPVT score over time. Age-dependent analyses of all children suggest that mobility in early childhood is significantly associated with emergency room usage and body mass index outcomes, while moves later in life are associated with increased body mass index and higher odds of repeating a school grade. The study further reveals significant sex and racial differences in both age-dependent and cumulative analyses. Evidence for age-dependent and cumulative associations between mobility and odds of an asthma attack emerged only when sex differences were examined. Several racial differences were observed in analyses. Notably, mobility was not a significant predictor of emergency room utilization for Black children at any time point examined nor in longitudinal analyses. Finally, evidence of consistent moderation effects by a child’s birth city neighborhood context was not found; however, significant moderation effects by neighborhood context were found for associations between mobility and emergency room utilization at age 1, BMI at age 3 and BMI at age 5. A central aim of the present study is to contribute to the growing body of empirical research about housing mobility and correlates to developmental outcomes for children. Results from the present study’s analysis can help inform housing-centered strategies to mitigate adverse outcomes for children from families experiencing housing hardship.

This study was conducted to investigate the nonpromotion message's affective impact on parents. An interview guide was developed to collect data on parents' reactions to several aspects of public schools: Elementary schools in general; Messages received from elementary schools; Current practices (nonpromotion) in schools; Parents' feelings as a result of their child being retained; Information about their family. Interviews were conducted with parents of 180 children who attended public schools. Ninety interviews were conducted with parents of children who had been retained in either second, third or fifth grade and 90 were conducted with parents of children who had been identified as low achievers in second, third or fifth grade. Statistical and ethnographic analyses were completed to investigate parents' feelings about nonpromotion. There was little statistical evidence to indicate that parents perceived the nonpromotion message as an evaluation of themselves and the level of parents' affective reaction to the nonpromotion message was fairly neutral. Grade level at which a child was retained and socio-economic status of the family were unrelated to parents' affective reaction and self-evaluation scores. Also parents tended to blame the teacher and the child for a nonpromotion more than they blamed the school programs, the principal or themselves. One emerging concept revealed by the ethnographic analysis was that the school's strategy for working with parents had an influence on the parents' reaction to their child's nonpromotion. Parents' compliance with the need for nonpromotion seemed to be influenced by what the school personnel said rather than a personal response to what they felt would be the best for their child's future. Parents did what the school told them to do, they believed that the school provided them with accurate information, and that nonpromotion was the best alternative for their child. The exploratory data analyzed by this study provided some insight into the parents' emotional readiness and reaction to the academic failure of their child and provided suggestions for improved parent-school communications. A need for open and honest communication and cooperation between parents and educators was indicated. The use of parental contact had a positive influence on the parents' perception and support of the nonpromotion decision.

The significance of this project was to incorporate specific tasks into a classroom setting that would be used to enhance retained student's self-regulatory efficacy. The interns hypothesized that group interventions could help children who were retained to increase their belief in themselves and their abilities.

Policy Evidence by Design: International Large-Scale Assessments and Grade Repetition Links between international large-scale assessment (ILSA) methodologies, international organization (IO) ideologies, and education policies are not well understood. Framed by statistical constructivism, this article describes two interrelated phenomena. First, OECD/ PISA and UNESCO/TERCE documents show how IOs’ doctrines about the value of education, based on either Human Capital Theory or Human Rights, shape the design of the ILSAs they support. Second, quantitative analyses for four Latin American countries show that differently designed ILSAs disagree on the effectiveness of a specific policy, namely, grade retention: PISA’s achievement gap between repeaters and nonrepeaters doubles TERCE’s. This matters and warrants further research: divergent empirical results could potentially incentivize different education policies, reinforce IOs’ initial policy biases, and provide perverse incentives for countries to modulate retention rates or join an ILSA on spurious motivations. In summary, ILSA designs, shaped by IOs’ educational doctrines, yield different data, potentially inspiring divergent global policy directives and national decisions. When ILSAs met policy: Evolving discourses on grade repetition. This study explores phenomena of ordinalization and scientization of policy discourse, focusing on the case of grade retention in publications by OECD’s PISA and UNESCO’s ERCE (2007-2017), from a sociology of quantification perspective. While prior research shows these ILSAs yield divergent data regarding grade retention’s effectiveness, this study shows similarities in their critical discourse on grade repetition’s effectiveness. Genre analysis finds similarities in how both ILSAs structure their discourse on grade repetition and use references solely to critique it, presenting a partial view of the scholarly landscape. However, horizontal comparisons also find differences across ILSAs in the use of ordinalization (e.g., rankings) in charts, as well as differences in the extent to which their policy discourse embraces scientization. The ILSAs converge in singling out grade repetition as the policy most strongly associated with low performance; this should be interpreted in the context of one key similarity in their design. Policymaking to the test? How ILSAs influence repetition rates Do international large-scale assessments influence education policy? How? Through scripts, lessons, or incentives? For some, they all produce similar outcomes. For others, different assessment data, shaped by different designs, and mediated by international organizations’ policy directives, prompt different policy decisions. For some, participation in these assessments may be linked to lower repetition rates, as per the policy scripts hypothesis inspired by world society theory (WST). For others, assessments’ comparison strategies (age vs. grade) influence repetition in participating countries, according to policy lessons or incentives hypotheses, respectively inspired by educational effectiveness research (EER) and the sociology of quantification, and particularly the notion of retroaction. Fixed-effects panel regression models of eighteen Latin American countries (1992-2017) show that participation in assessments is associated with changing repetition rates in primary and secondary, while controlling for other factors. The findings show statistically significant differences between some assessment types. The conclusions spur new questions, delineating a future agenda.

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University of Macau / Faculty of Education

The National Curriculum Statement (NCS) Grades 10 to 12 (Schools), implemented from 2006, led to changes in promotion requirements and assessment practices. The investigation aimed at acquiring information about the extent to which the differences in the promotion requirements and assessment practices contributed to the high retention rate of learners in the FET Band. An explanatory mixed method strategy was followed to obtain reliable and valid results in this research. Quantitative research consisted of questionnaires and a survey to investigate OBE, assessment practices, the Grade 12 examinations and the impact of changes in promotion requirements since 2006. Qualitative research consisted of an interview with an official from the National Department of Education that contributed to a better understanding of policy changes. Based on the findings of the research, recommendations were constructed to improve assessment practices and to provide scientific data on the consequences of policy changes on the promotion of learners. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Educational Management)

University of Macau / Faculty of Education

University of Macau / Faculty of Education