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Abstract

This exploratory investigation employs the National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS:88) to examine equity in tracking from a new, less-studied angle, with the view that tracking may not be all good or all bad, but that its effects are variable. The present study considers how these variable effects might, in part, be produced through a mechanism of social comparison conceptualized by Marsh et al. as the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE). It compares similar students, except that some are in schools that use tracking and some are in schools that do not use tracking. Unlike previous studies of between-track effects, it asks whether tracking works uniformly for males and females within the same track placement in a particular subject area. Analyses yielded significant differences in students' attitudes toward mathematics, educational aspirations, self-esteem, locus of control, and engagement in school. These systematic effects suggest the mechanisms of the BFLPE. Despite the 'reflected glory' of being in a high ability track, when males, in contrast to females, are grouped with peers of similar high ability in a subject area that defines their competence, they seem to lose their competitive edge. Low ability males are positively affected through the mechanism of comparing with their peers because the competition to do well is relatively less keen than in high tracks.

Tracking Effects Depend on Tracking Type

“…Studies of course-by-course tracking within single-stream schools (i.e., when students are tracked within an already narrowed achievement distribution) either found assimilation and contrast effects to be of similar size (Preckel & Brüll, 2010) or contrast effects to be stronger than assimilation effects (Trautwein, Lüdtke, Marsh, & Nagy, 2009). With one exception (Ireson & Hallam, 2009), studies comparing course-by-course tracking to untracked settings mostly observed that low-achieving tracked students had higher (and high-achieving students had lower) academic self-concepts than the corresponding untracked students (Catsambis, Mulkey, & Crain, 2001;Marsh et al, 1995;Mulkey et al, 2005;Trautwein, Köller, & Kämmerer, 2002).…”

A canonical correlation analysis of the influence of social comparison, gender, and grade level on the multidimensional self-concepts of gifted adolescents

“…This phenomenon, known as the Big-Fish-Little-Pond Effect (BFLPE), has led to questions about the potential disadvantage of gifted programming for gifted students. Because the BFLPE has been replicated with other facets of self-concept, including physical self-concept (Margas et al 2006;Marsh 1998), gymnastics self-concept (Chanal et al 2005), and mathematics self-concept (Catsambis et al 2001), the role of social comparison in the development of self-concept warrants further attention. Further, research findings in this area typically assume social comparison, even though social comparison is usually not actually measured.…”