Abstract
Educational reformers all around the globe are continuously searching for ways to make schools more effective and efficient. In Germany, this movement has led to reforms that reduced overall school time of high track secondary schools from 9 to 8 years, which was compensated for by increasing average instruction time per week in lower secondary school (Grades 5–10). Based on prior research, we assumed that this reform might increase gender disparities in STEM-related outcomes, stress, and health because it required students to learn similar content in less amount of time. Therefore, we investigated how the school time reform affected gender disparities at the end of upper secondary school between 2011 and 2013. Specifically, we considered representative data of the last two cohorts who completed lower secondary school before the reform (N = 2,405) and the first two cohorts after the reform (N = 2,413) from the National Educational Panel Study. Potential differences in gender disparities were investigated for upper secondary school outcomes of subject-specific standardized test performance, self-concept, and interest in mathematics, biology and physics, as well as outcomes of school-related stress and health. Overall, we found substantial disparities between girls and boys, which seemed to change little after the reform. Exceptions were the statistically significant gender × reform interactions for one stress dimension (Overload) and two health dimensions (Overburdening and Achievement-related fear) which increased for both boys and girls, but more strongly for girls.
Highlights
The optimal amount of time needed to learn has a longstanding history of research and critical socio-political discussions (Pischke, 2007; Cuban, 2008)
We investigated the effects of the G8-reform on gender disparities in STEM achievement, self-concept, and interest, as well as school-related stress and health
Our findings extend prior findings in three regards: They are based on a later period in the education system, a broadened set of outcomes, and a more fine-grained investigation of school-related stress and health
Summary
The optimal amount of time needed to learn has a longstanding history of research and critical socio-political discussions (Pischke, 2007; Cuban, 2008). Considering further studies, findings on the effect of increasing instructional time on student achievement seem to be mixed, with some studies suggesting positive effects (e.g., Lavy, 2015; Andersen et al, 2016) and others finding zero or even negative effects (e.g., Allensworth et al, 2009; Nomi and Allensworth, 2009; Domina et al, 2015) In contrast to these findings and intentions to increase instructional time, discussions regarding the optimal degree of time to learn went in a slightly different direction in Germany, where reforms from the past two decades were focused on making schools more efficient, for instance the “Gymnasium [high track secondary school] in 8 years”-reform (G8-reform). Further studies are needed to investigate potential causes of these reported differences which may result from different samples (e.g., from different states) and relate to the timeframe examined over which effects might accumulate or dissipate
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