Students' Transition from Primary to Secondary School: Cognitive Determinants and Prognostic Validity of Teachers' Transition Decisions - TRANSEC
Coordinating Institution:
Université du Luxembourg
Contracting Partner(s):
Ministère de l'Education et de la Formation Professionnelle ,
University of Wuppertal (D)
From: 01/05/2009
To: 30/04/2012
Budget: 622,801.00€
Contact(s):
Böhmer Matthias
,
Glock Sabine
,
Klapproth Florian
,
Krolak-Schwerdt Sabine
,
Martin Romain
Summary
This project addresses the transition of Luxembourgish students from primary to secondary school. We investigate the cognitive processes of teachers which determine the choice of future school types and the prognostic validity of teachers’ transition recommendations. The decision is frequently predominated by the social background of the student, and achievement differences between students get even more pronounced after the transition depending on the selected school type. The project consists of two complementing research lines. We analyze the cognitive processes underlying the transition decision. In three series of experiments, teachers’ task is to read the information provided by vignettes, to select information cueing the transition decision and to decide upon appropriate school type. We adapt experimental paradigms from cognitive psychology and social judgment formation, e.g., the “Mouselab”- and “Think-aloud”-technique. In a fourth experiment we use the “simulated classroom” paradigm to investigate teachers’ judgments about students’ ability and motivation. In 2009, we elaborated a questionnaire to collect cues for the vignettes and developed three different instructions under which teachers will work on the vignettes.
The cues as well as the instructions are still under validation by teachers (WP3). To analyze prognostic validity, we are tracking the progress of a sample of 6th graders across the transition into the following three school years in a school monitoring project. In 2009, we collected the results of the standardized tests, school marks, and the transition decisions. Furthermore, we developed a parents’ questionnaire assessing migration and socioeconomic status. All the data (N=3177) were inserted into a single data base and processed for further analyses.
We computed descriptive statistics for the whole sample like the number of students assigned to the different school types and did the same analyses for different migration and socioeconomic background. First results indicate a higher number of migration background students assigned to EST and Preparatoire than ES. Socioeconomic status is highly related to migration status; students without migration background have higher socioeconomic status (WP2) than students with migration background. These analyses allow an understanding of the distributions and relationships between variables and provide a basis for more detailed analyses. In 2009, we thoroughly reviewed the literature concerning the effects of tracking systems as well as teachers’ achievement and transition judgments. Subsequently, we extracted the major results and conclusions in literature and integrated them into a conceptual framework for our planned review article (WP1).
Refereed Scientific Publications:
- Burton, R. & Martin, R. (2008). L’orientation scolaire auf Luxembourg: “Au-delà de l’égalité des chances… le gâchis d’un potentiel humain“. In R. Martin, C. Dierendonck, C. Meyers & M. Noesen (Eds.), La place de l’école dans la société luxembourgeoise de demain (pp. 165-186). Bruxelles: De Boeck.
- Fiske, S. T. & Neuberg, S. L. (1990). A continuum of impression formation from category-based to individuating processes: Influences of information and motivation on attention and interpretation. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 23, pp. 1-74). New York: Academic Press.
- Krolak-Schwerdt, S. & Rummer, R. (2003). Goal-dependent processing of pupils’ attributes. Another facet of teachers’ expertise. In L. Mason, B. Arfe & L. Del Favero (Eds.), 10th European conference for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI), August, 26-30, 2003, University of Padova, Italy, p. 186. Krolak-Schwerdt, S. & Rummer, R. (2005). Der Einfluss von Expertise auf den Prozess der schulischen Leistungsbeurteilung. Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie, 37, 205-213.
Other Publications: --