In recent studies, the existence and relevance of achievement composition effects on students' individual achievement have been called into question because of the methodological challenges arising in multilevel analyses. Our study examined how class-average achievement is related to students' achievement development across one school year. We used data from Germany, which has a secondary school system with large achievement differences between schools and classrooms due to rigid, explicit betweenschool tracking practices. We accounted for two methodological challenges, controlling for both selection bias and measurement error. Adopting an approach based on integrative data analysis (IDA), we systematically (re)analyzed five German longitudinal large-scale data sets. This IDA approach allowed us to quantify the extent to which results vary across (a) different longitudinal data sets and (b) different analytical strategies (i.e., ways of accounting for confounding variables and measurement reliability). Overall, we found both general achievement composition effects and narrower peer spillover effects (i.e., effects of student composition above and beyond the effects of tracking) in the German setting, even after controlling for measurement error and selection bias. Our results counter recent suggestions that composition effects on achievement development may be mere phantom effects due to methodological misspecifications. However, estimates of composition effects varied substantially based on the analytical approach. We conclude with considerations regarding how to interpret composition effects in multilevel modeling and which effects are of interest for educational research.
Educational Impact and Implications StatementThe study investigates whether students experience better achievement development when they have high-achieving classmates, an effect that is known as the achievement composition effect. This question has been controversial in the literature, and several researchers who used a new analytical strategy to analyze compositional effects have recently suggested that achievement composition effects may be mere "phantom effects," meaning that being in a classroom with higher-achieving peers may not have any beneficial effect on students' achievement development or may even have detrimental effects on it. We (re)analyzed five longitudinal studies from Germany, which allowed us to examine the extent to which results varied across studies using different longitudinal data sets and different analytical strategies. Overall, we found positive achievement composition effects. However, they differed based on the analytical strategies used and how they operationalized the effect. The results support the argument that being surrounded by higher-achieving peers can be beneficial for students' learning gains and, at the same time, being surrounded by lower-achieving peers may negatively affect students' learning gains.
Zusammenfassung. Im Zuge schulischer Inklusionsbemühungen werden Kinder mit sonderpädagogischem Förderbedarf (SPF) zunehmend gemeinsam mit Kindern ohne SPF an allgemeinen Schulen unterrichtet. Während die damit verbundenen Auswirkungen auf Kinder mit SPF bereits vielfach untersucht wurden, hat die Forschung Konsequenzen des gemeinsamen Unterrichts auf Kinder ohne SPF in Deutschland bislang kaum systematisch analysiert. Sich dieser Forschungslücke annähernd, geht der vorliegende Beitrag daher der Frage nach, inwieweit sich schulische Kompetenzen (Lesen und Zuhören im Fach Deutsch, Mathematik), Merkmale der schulischen Motivation (akademisches Selbstkonzept, Lernfreude und Langeweile) und die soziale Integration von Kindern ohne SPF in Abhängigkeit davon unterscheiden, ob in ihrer Klasse auch Kinder mit SPF lernen. Zudem wurde untersucht, ob die Ergebnisse zwischen den verschiedenen Förderschwerpunkten ( Lernen, Sprache, Emotionale und soziale Entwicklung) der Kinder mit SPF variieren. Mehrebenenanalysen von Daten des am Ende der vierten Jahrgangsstufe durchgeführten IQB-Ländervergleichs 2011 weisen darauf hin, dass der gemeinsame Unterricht von Kindern mit und Kindern ohne SPF förderschwerpunktübergreifend nicht mit differenziellen Kompetenzständen und Ausprägungen motivationaler sowie sozio-emotionaler Merkmale einhergeht. Allerdings ergaben sich förderschwerpunktspezifisch Hinweise darauf, dass insbesondere der gemeinsame Unterricht mit Kindern, die einen SPF im Bereich Emotionale und soziale Entwicklung aufweisen, in ungünstiger Weise mit einigen der untersuchten Outcomes von Kindern ohne SPF zusammenhängt, wobei die Effektstärken jedoch gering waren.
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