Relative Age Effects in Mathematics and Reading: Investigating the Generalizability across Students, Time and Classes.

Katharina Thoren,Elisa Heinig,Martin Brunner

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00679

Abstract

A child's age in comparison to the age of her or his classmates (relative age) has been found to be an influential factor on academic achievement, particularly but not exclusively at the beginning of formal schooling. However, few studies have focused on the generalizability of relative age effects. To close this gap, the present study analyzes the generalizability across students with and without immigrant backgrounds, across three student cohorts that entered school under a changing law of school enrollment, and across classes. To this end, we capitalized on representative large-scale data sets from three student cohorts attending public schools in Berlin, the capital of Germany. We analyzed the data using a multilevel framework. Our results for the overall student sample indicate relative age effects for reading and mathematics in favor of the relatively older students in Grade 2 that become somewhat smaller in size in Grade 3. By Grade 8, relative age effects had vanished in reading and had even reversed in favor of the relatively young in mathematics. Furthermore, relative age effects were not found to be systematically different among students with and without immigrant backgrounds, student cohorts, or across classes. Taken together, these results empirically underscore the broad generalizability of the findings as found for the overall student population and replicate the pattern of findings on relative effects as identified by the majority of previous studies.

Highlights

Effects of age on various outcomes such as academic achievement (e.g., Fertig and Kluve, 2005; Puhani and Weber, 2005), educational attainment (e.g., Angrist and Krueger, 1992; Black et al, 2011), or earned wages (e.g., Mayer and Knutson, 1999; Bedard and Dhuey, 2006) have been addressed in many studies in education and economic research
We investigate the generalizability of relative age effects by focusing on the extent to which relative age effects hold over different student groups, time, and classes
Young vs. old Results refer to the Target Cohort. 95% confidence intervals are displayed in square brackets

Summary

Introduction

Effects of age on various outcomes such as academic achievement (e.g., Fertig and Kluve, 2005; Puhani and Weber, 2005), educational attainment (e.g., Angrist and Krueger, 1992; Black et al, 2011), or earned wages (e.g., Mayer and Knutson, 1999; Bedard and Dhuey, 2006) have been addressed in many studies in education and economic research. In most OECD countries, education administrations define one Generalizability of Relative Age Effects cut-off date for school enrollment, stipulating that children who have reached a defined age (usually 6 or 7 years) by that date are eligible for school. This procedure usually results in an age range of up to 12 months within a school entrance cohort that coincides with differences in maturity as well as different learning experiences prior to school enrollment in preschool or in the family. Studies have shown that relatively older students might show between 0.45 and 0.49 of a standard deviation better results in literacy at the beginning of formal schooling (Crone and Whitehurst, 1999; Gold et al, 2012). The importance of studying the relationship of relative age on educational outcomes results from the fact that it affects children and teachers in their everyday lives

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion