Abstract
Given the commonly accepted view that having a mathematically well-educated populace is strategically important, there is considerable international interest in raising attainment, and increasing participation, in post-compulsory mathematics education. In this article, multilevel models are developed with the use of datasets from the UK Department for Education's National Pupil Database (NPD) in order to explore (1) school effects upon student progress in mathematics from age 11–16 in England and (2) student participation in advanced-level mathematics over the following 2 years. These analyses highlight between-school variation in the difference between mathematical and general academic progress. Furthermore, the between-school differences in post-compulsory mathematics participation are large. Importantly, there is no evidence to suggest that schools/departments with higher “contextual value added” from 11–16, a key measure in government accountability processes in England, are also more effective in recruiting and retaining students in post-16 advanced mathematics courses.
Highlights
School mathematics is of central importance in school curricula across the world
Notwithstanding the criticisms of school effectiveness research, this paper reports multilevel models to explore the extent to which mathematics departments impact pupil progress from 11-16
Mathematics attainment variance is reduced by 60% and of the remaining residual variance slightly more is attributable to the student (86%) than in the empty model and 12% and 2% to the school and cohort levels of the model
Summary
School mathematics is of central importance in school curricula across the world. Its inclusion in major international comparison studies such as the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS) have resulted in successive UK governments using mathematics as a barometer for judging the efficacy of the education system as a whole. Notwithstanding the criticisms of school effectiveness research (see Luyten, Visscher, et al, 2005, for a recent discussion), this paper reports multilevel models to explore the extent to which mathematics departments impact pupil progress from 11-16 Such differences will have a knock-on effect on the likelihood of further participation in mathematical study (Noyes, 2009). Year on year trends for schools vary slightly the following analysis assumes that there is an underlying school effect, i.e. there are general school characteristics that effect pupil progress and that these do not change that quickly With this level of missing data the imputed model makes very small reductions in some of standard errors for estimates that were already highly significant.
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