Learners’ attitudes to mixed-attainment grouping: examining the views of students of high, middle and low attainment

Abstract

There is a substantial international literature around the impact of different types of grouping by attainment on the academic and personal outcomes of students. This literature however is sparse in student voices, especially in relation to mixed-attainment practices. Research has indicated that students of different attainment levels might have different experiences and views of grouping structures. This paper represents a significant contribution to this literature.Drawing on the data collected as part of a large study on student grouping and teaching in England, we analyse the attitudes of students of different attainment levels to mixedattainment practice, focusing on their explanations for their preferences or aversion to mixedattainment classes. The dataset is drawn from group discussions and individual interviews with 89 students age 11/12 (Year 7) from eight secondary schools practicing mixed-attainment grouping in mathematics and English. Our analysis identifies some broad patterns in student attitudes, including a strong preference for mixed attainment among those at lower prior attainment. The analysis of the explanations students give for their opinions on mixedattainment practice demonstrates how the learner identities of different groups of students are constituted in various ways by the discourses around 'ability', and constrained by the dominant ideology of 'ability' hierarchy.

“My math lessons are all about learning from your mistakes”: how mixed-attainment mathematics grouping affects the way students experience mathematics

“…A potentially significant difference was that School S was co-educational whilst School M was an all-girls school and this is a limitation of the study. A pragmatic issue was that there were relatively few secondary schools which operate mixed attainment grouping in mathematics across a number of years (Tereshchenko, et al 2018) whilst having similarities in other aspects. As Gorard (2013) notes, it is never possible to match comparator groups on all factors and we return to this particular difference between the schools later within our conclusions.…”

Tackling Educational Inequalities with Social Psychology: Identities, Contexts, and Interventions

“…Teachers, with support from school leaders, can reduce the impact of bias in academic assessment by using clearly defined and objective evaluation criteria (Quinn, 2020). They can also reduce the impact of bias in academic tracking by using objective criteria for and increasing the frequency of tracking allocations (Francis, Taylor, & Tereshchenko, 2019b; Francis, Hodgen, Tereshchenko, & Archer, 2018; B. Taylor et al., 2019), by improving the richness of the curriculum and quality of the teaching in low‐attainment tracks (Dunne, Humphreys, Dyson, Sebba, Gallannaugh, & Muijs, 2011; Francis et al., 2018), or by replacing tracking with mixed‐ability groupings or groupings by specific activity (Boaler, 2008; Francis et al., 2019b; Mijs, 2016; Tereshchenko et al., 2019). Teachers can also reduce the impact that unconscious bias might have on the trust that students place in them.…”

‘Even though it might take me a while, in the end, I understand it’: a longitudinal case study of interactions between a conceptual change strategy and student motivation, interest and confidence

“…Researchers suggest that the greatest collective benefit to students is when discussion occurs in mixed-ability small groups (Cohen, 1994;Lou et al, 1996). In particular, students with low prior achievement recognise the benefits of participating in mixed ability groups (Tereshchenko et al, 2018) and have been shown to benefit in recall and problem solving (Hooper & Hannafin, 1988) and higher order thinking (Tudge, 1990). Higher order thinking occurs in small group interactions when the problems chosen are illstructured, involving conceptual learning and production of hypotheses and argumentation to find elaborated answers (Cohen, 1994;King, 2002).…”