Keeping on track: Performance profiles of low performers in academic educational tracks

Abstract

In countries with high differentiation between academic and vocational education, an individual's future prospects are strongly determined by the educational track to which he or she is assigned. This large-scale, cross-sectional study focuses on low-performing students in academic tracks who face being moved to a vocational track. If more is understood about these students, measures could be taken to improve their performance and keep them within academic education. The study investigates performance patterns in academic tracks in the first three years of secondary school in the Netherlands. By identifying patterns that reveal how competence levels in different domains are related at different stages of development and by comparing low performers with other students, the study sheds light on individual and educational aspects that may be amenable to intervention. School grades were analysed for 1596 students. School performance was found to reflect three domains-languages (language of schooling and modern foreign languages), social studies and science and math-that appear to interact in a process of co-construction. General language skills were robustly related to performance in other domains-particularly social studies-throughout the first three years of secondary school. By comparison, proficiency specifically in the language of schooling was less strongly related to social studies and science and math performance after the first year. Suggestions are given as to how educators and curriculum developers could use these insights to accommodate individual and developmental differences and to develop learning materials that may help low performers keep on track. IntroductionIn countries with educational systems that are stratified according to general scholastic ability, an individual's future occupational status and employment prospects are strongly determined by the educational track to which he or she is assigned at school. This is particularly so where there is high differentiation between academic and vocational education. In contrast to those in academic tracks, individuals in vocational tracks often have no direct access to higher education or professional employment and attain lower occupational status (Shavit & M€ uller, 2000;Wolbers, 2007;Andersen & Van de Werfhorst, 2010 Vol. 41, No. 1, February 2015, pp. 48-71 DOI: 10.1002 tracks with lower-level skills face a future with lower wages and higher levels of unemployment (Oesch, 2010;OECD, 2012).In stratified systems, students are often placed in designated educational tracks from early on in secondary school, with initial track allocation depending on performance in the final years of primary school and subsequent movement between tracks depending on on-going performance in the first years of secondary school. In consequence, students who perform poorly in academic tracks may be moved to a vocational track. This considerably impacts their future prospects in an economic climate where higher educational levels are needed to compete in an increasingly in...

Teachers taking perceptions of student attributes into consideration when formulating track recommendations?

“…In some countries with tracked educational systems, such as Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, primary school teachers formulate track recommendations to determine the allocation of students to these tracks (Glock et al., 2012; Korpershoek et al., 2016; Timmermans et al., 2015). These track recommendations are extremely important in students’ educational career and beyond as they largely determine the level of secondary education students will be allocated to, and thereby the educational qualifications that students will acquire (Boone & Demanet, 2020; Contini & Scagni, 2011; Klapproth et al., 2012; Reed et al., 2015; Rodrigues et al., 2018; Strand, 2020; Timmermans et al., 2015).…”