Academic Streaming Could Be Bad For Children’s Health, Study Finds

Streaming students by ability could be bad for children’s health, according to a new study.

Mixed ability classes reduce the prevalence of risky behaviour, including drug-taking, improves students’ social networks and leads to higher levels of school engagement, particularly among boys, researchers found.

Streaming by ability – or academic tracking – is widely used in schools to teach children with different levels of attainment in different classes, the idea being that it is then easier for the teacher to tailor the material at the appropriate level for the class.

Evidence on the effectiveness of streaming, however, suggests it has little or no impact on levels of achievement. Where these is a positive impact, this seems to be confined to higher-attaining students, while middle and lower-achievers do worse than they would in mixed-ability classes.

But a new study suggests that streaming by ability can damage more than just student’s grades, it can damage their health as well.

Teens who were taught in mixed ability classes had better social networks and were less likely to take drugs, according to a study by researchers at UCLA.

Male students taught in mixed ability classes also had lower levels of stress and higher levels of school engagement than their peers taught in classes streamed by ability.

“Untracking” lower-performing students by mixing them in with higher-performing peers may lead to better physical and psychological health, said lead author Dr. Rebecca Dudovitz, associate professor of pediatrics and director of pediatric health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Researchers looked at the impact of a college preparatory program running in almost 5,000 U.S. high schools – around one in five public high schools – in 46 states for the study, published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program targets mid-performing students (averaging B or C grades) and encourages them to enrol in college preparatory courses for high-performing students.

Previous studies have found that students on the AVID program have higher high school graduation and college enrolment rates than their peers.

But UCLA researchers wanted to found out if exposure to higher-achieving students also had any health benefits, particularly in levels of well-being and risky behaviors.

The study looked at 270 students in five high schools in Southern California, who were divided into two groups: those who took the AVID program and those who were in a conventional school program involving academic streaming.

The students completed surveys at the end of 8th grade or beginning 9th grade, and again at the end of 9th grade.

The findings showed that students on the AVID program had a 33% lower risk of using substances and were 27% less likely to associate with substance-using peers than those on the standard trajectory.

They were also 1.7 times more likely to socialize with peers who were following a more academic route.

Male students on the AVID program also reported lower levels of stress and higher levels of engagement with school than peers who were in academically-streamed classes.

This last finding was not observed among female students, however. Researchers suggest it may be because supportive academic environments have a greater impact on male students, particularly students of colour.

“AVID positively impacts social networks, health behaviors, and psycho-social outcomes suggesting academic untracking may have substantial beneficial spillover effects on adolescent health,” the researchers write.

“It’s really exciting to see that this program that was designed to help open up educational opportunities for kids, also improved their health,” Dudovitz added.

The researchers report some limitations on their study. Participants were from a single school district that predominantly serves low-income Latino students. The nature of the study also meant that students knew whether they were on the AVID program or not, and may have responded to surveys in ways they thought the researchers would want.

Nevertheless, the study suggests that mixed ability classes not only lead to better grades for middle and low-ability students, but also has a positive impact on their health.