About our Research
Theory and Objective:
The objective of this project is to test the relationship between grade retention at the primary and secondary education levels and poor academic achievement.
The literature suggests that grade retention does not help a student improve his/her academic performance. Some texts say that it is actually prejudicial. To test this proposition we compared retention rates with PISA scores for those countries participating in PISA.
If grade retention rates lead to lower academic achievement, it is expected that the countries with higher grade repetition will have lower PISA scores.
Hypothesis: Higher grade retention rates lead to lower PISA scores.
Null Hypothesis: Higher grade retention rates do not lead to lower PISA scores.
Dependent Variable: PISA Scores Key Independent Variable: Grade Retention Rates
PISA Scores represent the country's mean for each area tested (math, literacy, and science). For instance, a nation's math score is the average score of all students taking the math exam in that country.
For the purpose of the research, we created a variable called "average PISA score." We used the mean between the math, literacy, and science scores of each country to create one unified PISA score for each country.
We began the research using the "average PISA score" as the dependent variable to see the impact of grade retention on overall PISA results. As the study progressed we also tested the impact of grade repetition on each area tested by PISA individually. Therefore, we ran different tests where the dependent variable was either PISA math scores, PISA literacy scores, or PISA science scores.
For the dependent variable, we used data from the last three editions of PISA (2006, 2009, and 2012) to arrive at a good enough number of observations (N=176).*
Our independent variable, "grade retention rate" is calculated as a share of the student population repeating a grade in each country at a given year. The data was available for the primary and secondary levels separately. We created a variable ("total grade retention") to represent the total retention rates of each country without separation between primary and secondary levels. This variable was created by calculating the mean between the two levels of education.
Once again, we began our study looking at the total retention rates but moved to see if repeating a grade in the primary level of education had a different impact on PISA scores than repeating a grade during secondary education. Our findings show that indeed the effect is very different.
For the independent variable and all our control variables we used data from years 2005, 2008, and 2011.
Data Sources: OECD, World Bank, and UNESCO.**
The objective of this project is to test the relationship between grade retention at the primary and secondary education levels and poor academic achievement.
The literature suggests that grade retention does not help a student improve his/her academic performance. Some texts say that it is actually prejudicial. To test this proposition we compared retention rates with PISA scores for those countries participating in PISA.
If grade retention rates lead to lower academic achievement, it is expected that the countries with higher grade repetition will have lower PISA scores.
Hypothesis: Higher grade retention rates lead to lower PISA scores.
Null Hypothesis: Higher grade retention rates do not lead to lower PISA scores.
Dependent Variable: PISA Scores Key Independent Variable: Grade Retention Rates
PISA Scores represent the country's mean for each area tested (math, literacy, and science). For instance, a nation's math score is the average score of all students taking the math exam in that country.
For the purpose of the research, we created a variable called "average PISA score." We used the mean between the math, literacy, and science scores of each country to create one unified PISA score for each country.
We began the research using the "average PISA score" as the dependent variable to see the impact of grade retention on overall PISA results. As the study progressed we also tested the impact of grade repetition on each area tested by PISA individually. Therefore, we ran different tests where the dependent variable was either PISA math scores, PISA literacy scores, or PISA science scores.
For the dependent variable, we used data from the last three editions of PISA (2006, 2009, and 2012) to arrive at a good enough number of observations (N=176).*
Our independent variable, "grade retention rate" is calculated as a share of the student population repeating a grade in each country at a given year. The data was available for the primary and secondary levels separately. We created a variable ("total grade retention") to represent the total retention rates of each country without separation between primary and secondary levels. This variable was created by calculating the mean between the two levels of education.
Once again, we began our study looking at the total retention rates but moved to see if repeating a grade in the primary level of education had a different impact on PISA scores than repeating a grade during secondary education. Our findings show that indeed the effect is very different.
For the independent variable and all our control variables we used data from years 2005, 2008, and 2011.
Data Sources: OECD, World Bank, and UNESCO.**
* N varies according to the model.
**World Bank Education Statistics:
http://databank.worldbank.org/data/views/variableSelection/selectvariables.aspx?source=world-development-indicators
**UNESCO Institute for Statistics:
http://data.uis.unesco.org/
**OECD Education GPS:
http://gpseducation.oecd.org/IndicatorExplorer
**World Bank Education Statistics:
http://databank.worldbank.org/data/views/variableSelection/selectvariables.aspx?source=world-development-indicators
**UNESCO Institute for Statistics:
http://data.uis.unesco.org/
**OECD Education GPS:
http://gpseducation.oecd.org/IndicatorExplorer