A 5-Year Longitudinal Study About the Effect of School Change on Grades.

Abstract

Previous research suggests that individual changes of school that are not part of general school transitions are associated with lower grades. School grades in German language and mathematics of a sample of N = 814 (407 school remainers and 407 school changers) were assessed in a nationwide 5-year longitudinal study. School changers were older and more likely to attend vocational (blue collar) and administrative (white collar) school tracks with shorter education, while school remainers were more likely to attend comprehensive schools and academic school tracks. Also, parents of school changers had been in education for a shorter time. Migration background was not different between the two groups. School changers who attended a school with an academic track were at particular disadvantage. Path modeling showed that language grades were more affected by school change than mathematics. Effects of primary school changes on language grades cascaded into secondary school but then diminished. Parental background and more mature age yielded significant effects and exhaustively explained remaining variance in school grades but did not change the significant effects of primary and secondary school changes.