TY - JOUR A1 - Kretschmann, Julia A1 - Vock, Miriam A1 - Lüdtke, Oliver A1 - Jansen, Malte A1 - Gronostaj, Anna T1 - Effects of grade retention on students’ motivation: A longitudinal study over 3 years of secondary school JF - The journal of educational psychology N2 - Despite the fact that grade retention is now seen as controversial in many quarters, it remains common practice in numerous countries. Previous research on the effects of grade retention on student development has, however, generated ambiguous results, particularly in terms of motivational outcomes. This ambiguity has been attributed in part to a lack of high-quality studies including a longitudinal design, a suitable comparison group, and adequate statistical control of preretention differences. Based on longitudinal data of N = 3,288 German students over 3 years of secondary school, we examined differences in their academic self-concept, scholarly interests, learning motivation, and achievement motivation between those being retained in the 6th grade (n = 61) and those of the same age being promoted annually. To account for confounding variables, we applied full propensity score matching on baseline measures of the dependent variables, as well as various other covariates that have been found to be associated with the risk of retention (e.g., cognitive ability, academic performance, and family background variables). Results reveal a steep decline in students’ academic self-concept, interests, and learning motivation during the last months spent in the original class, just before retention. For those measures that were available, negative effects were still partly significant after 1 year, but had diminished 2 years after grade retention. Contrary to predictions suggested by the big-fish-little-pond effect, we found no positive effects of retention on students’ academic self-concept. KW - grade retention KW - secondary school KW - academic self-concept KW - motivation KW - propensity score matching Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000353 SN - 0022-0663 SN - 1939-2176 VL - 111 IS - 8 SP - 1432 EP - 1446 PB - American Psychological Association CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kretschmann, Julia A1 - Vock, Miriam A1 - Luedtke, Oliver T1 - Acceleration in elementary school: using propensity score matching to estimate the effects on academic achievement JF - The journal of educational psychology N2 - Using German data, we examined the effects of one specific type of acceleration-grade skipping-on academic performance. Prior research on the effects of acceleration has suffered from methodological restrictions, especially due to a lack of appropriate comparison groups and a priori measurements. For this reason, propensity score matching was applied in this analysis to minimize selection bias due to observed confounding variables. Various types of matching were attempted, and, in consideration of balancing the covariates, full matching was the final choice. We used data from the Berlin ELEMENT Study, analyzing, after matching, the information of 81 students who had skipped a grade over the course of elementary school and up to 1,668 nonaccelerated students who attended the same grade level as the accelerated students. Measurements took place 3 times between the 4th and 6th grades, including the assessment of reading, spelling, and mathematics performance. After matching, the results of between-group comparisons regarding performance indices showed no significant effects of skipping a grade, other than a small positive effect found on spelling performance. Theoretical implications and methodological limitations are discussed. KW - grade skipping KW - academic performance KW - propensity score matching KW - acceleration KW - elementary school Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036631 SN - 0022-0663 SN - 1939-2176 VL - 106 IS - 4 SP - 1080 EP - 1095 PB - American Psychological Association CY - Washington ER -