Grade Retention
What is Grade Retention
Grade Retention is the practice of holding a student in the same grade level for an additional year, usually because of poor academic performance or emotional immaturity.
What the Literature Says About Grade Retention*
Supporters of grade retention believe that the threat of repeating a year motivates children to study more. Grade repetition is also expected to provide an extra year for low-achieving students to catch-up on prerequisite skills, reducing their risk for failure in the future.
However, the literature suggests that grade retention alone is unsuccessful in fostering learning, and many studies show a negative impact of grade retention in different areas of a student’s life.[1]
When it comes to retention as motivation to study, empirical data was inconclusive on whether fear of repeating a grade prompts pupils to study more. While several studies reported positive attitudinal outcomes, a few others found insignificant, or even negative effects on student attitudes.
As for the academic impacts of repeating a grade, a few studies report short-term academic gains among retained students. However, while retained students may show improved learning during the retention year, those gains are seldom enough to bring them to the same performance level of promoted peers.
Moreover, studies that followed students for four or more years found that those gains faded in subsequent years and retained students eventually fell behind again. In a few studies that found positive academic outcomes among retained students, the pupils received targeted interventions to help them overcome individual difficulties.
It is believed that repeating a grade can hurt students’ self-esteem, cause emotional distress, and decrease peer acceptance. Studies on the impact of retention on self-esteem and self-concept are inconclusive. Yet, all five studies that measured emotional health indicated negative effects. Retained students exhibited more emotional problems like distress and depression.
Research on the impact of grade retention on behavior presented mixed results. Findings were also inconclusive regarding inattention and absenteeism. However, both studies that focused specifically on aggression reported that retained students were rated by their teachers as being significantly more aggressive than their peers in the years following grade repetition.
Frymier (1997) found that retained students were more likely to have used drugs and/or alcohol in subsequent years after retention than not retained students. Resnick et al. (1997) reported higher levels of tobacco use after retention.[2]
There was extensive research on whether retained students are more likely to drop out of school. Twelve studies reported that students who repeated one or more grades were more likely to drop out of school than those who never repeated a grade.
Of those 12 reports, 4 said grade retention is one of the strongest predictors of school drop out, compared to other personal and school characteristics such as gender, race, academic achievement, student misbehavior, attendance, school transfers, socioeconomic status (SES), family income, parental education, being from a single-parent family, student body composition (proportion of minority groups or ratio of low-SES students), being at public or private school, and school location.
The likelihood of dropping out was greater for students who had been retained more than once.[3] Another finding was that retained students are less likely to enroll in postsecondary education. According to Fine and Davis (2003), retained students were “less than half as likely to enroll in a four-year college than were their low-achieving but promoted peers” (p. 408).[4]
Many believe that the age at grade retention matters and that younger kids tend to benefit from an additional year in the same grade early in their academic careers. The extra year is expected to give them time to reach the maturity level required for school.[5]
Nonetheless, the majority of research on the academic effects of retention in kindergarten and 1st grade shows that retention at that level usually fails to improve academic performance and often has an adverse impact on student achievement in the long run.[6] Retention can also have a negative effect on the attitudes of kindergartners towards school.[7]
Research on the impact of grade retention looks at academic outcomes and other consequences that repeating a grade can have in a student’s life. A number of other studies focused on the characteristics of retained students prior to their experience with grade repetition, and examined factors that contribute to the likelihood that a student will have to repeat the school year.
Studies show that retained students were more likely to be male, from minority groups, of lower social economic status (SES), and younger than their classmates. Their parents, on average, had lower cognitive functioning, lower educational levels, lower occupational levels, lower parental value of education, lower expectations of their children’s educational attainment, and were less involved in school than parents of promoted students. Also, children in single-parent families were more likely to repeat a grade than were kids in two-parent homes.
On average, retained students fared poorly on cognitive and academic tests in comparison with their promoted peers. They also had lower IQ or cognitive test scores, and lower academic achievement prior to retention. They often had a lower self-concept, and lower confidence. Additionally, “they were usually rated less favorably by teachers on classroom conduct, peer relations, and school adjustment and were often reported to exhibit higher levels of inattention, absenteeism, and behavior problems.”[8]
Studies that analyzed the health conditions of retained students found that disability status and poor health are associated with an increased risk of grade retention. Some conditions include deafness, speech problems, low birth weight, enuresis, and depression.[9]
*The Full Literature Review can be found at http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR678.html
[1] This section is based on a rigorous literature review conducted by the RAND Corporation. To be included in the review, studies had to be relevant to the topic of grade retention and its impact on students’ academic and socio-emotional outcomes, together with longer-term effects on education and employment. In addition, they had to follow high standards of methodological rigor, and present a date of publication between 1980 and 2008. Ninety-one out of 178 studies met all three criteria and were included in the review. The great majority of the studies were conducted in the United States and hence observed North American schools. Studies included in the RAND Corporation’s literature review included three types of comparison strategies: same-age comparison, same-grade comparison, and “across-year” comparison. Same-age comparison looked at retained students and their peers who are of the same age but were promoted to the next grade level. Same-grade comparison used performance of retained and promoted students measured at the same grade as the basis of comparison. Within each type of comparison strategy, three types of comparison groups can be used. The first is the nonattached group of regularly promoted students. In this kind of evaluation, the group is often randomly selected from all promoted students. The second approach is the low achieving but promoted comparison group, which consists of promoted students with a same level of low achievement as retained students. Finally, “the matched comparison group uses statistical procedure (for example, propensity score matching) to ensure that the comparison group is statistically comparable to the retained group on a number of selected variables, such as gender, race, age, grade, socioeconomic status, prior academic achievement, and family background” (pp. 8, 9).
[2] RAND Corporation 2009, p. 25.
[3] IBID p. 26.
[4] IBID p. 27.
[5] This is a common practice in the U.S. with kids typically in kindergarten or 1st grade.
[6] The RAND Corporation literature review examined 11 empirical studies on the specific topic of the effects of grade retention during kindergarten and 1st grade on the academic performance of students.
[7] A study by Shepard and Smith (1987, 1989) compared 40 retained kindergartners with a matched group of 40 same-grade promoted peers and found the retained group tended to have a more negative perception of school (RAND Literature Review, pg. 24).
[8] RAND Corporation 2009, p. 16.
[9] IBID pp. 16-17.
[1] This section is based on a rigorous literature review conducted by the RAND Corporation. To be included in the review, studies had to be relevant to the topic of grade retention and its impact on students’ academic and socio-emotional outcomes, together with longer-term effects on education and employment. In addition, they had to follow high standards of methodological rigor, and present a date of publication between 1980 and 2008. Ninety-one out of 178 studies met all three criteria and were included in the review. The great majority of the studies were conducted in the United States and hence observed North American schools. Studies included in the RAND Corporation’s literature review included three types of comparison strategies: same-age comparison, same-grade comparison, and “across-year” comparison. Same-age comparison looked at retained students and their peers who are of the same age but were promoted to the next grade level. Same-grade comparison used performance of retained and promoted students measured at the same grade as the basis of comparison. Within each type of comparison strategy, three types of comparison groups can be used. The first is the nonattached group of regularly promoted students. In this kind of evaluation, the group is often randomly selected from all promoted students. The second approach is the low achieving but promoted comparison group, which consists of promoted students with a same level of low achievement as retained students. Finally, “the matched comparison group uses statistical procedure (for example, propensity score matching) to ensure that the comparison group is statistically comparable to the retained group on a number of selected variables, such as gender, race, age, grade, socioeconomic status, prior academic achievement, and family background” (pp. 8, 9).
[2] RAND Corporation 2009, p. 25.
[3] IBID p. 26.
[4] IBID p. 27.
[5] This is a common practice in the U.S. with kids typically in kindergarten or 1st grade.
[6] The RAND Corporation literature review examined 11 empirical studies on the specific topic of the effects of grade retention during kindergarten and 1st grade on the academic performance of students.
[7] A study by Shepard and Smith (1987, 1989) compared 40 retained kindergartners with a matched group of 40 same-grade promoted peers and found the retained group tended to have a more negative perception of school (RAND Literature Review, pg. 24).
[8] RAND Corporation 2009, p. 16.
[9] IBID pp. 16-17.