The Effect of Ability-based Tracking in Secondary School on Subsequent School Achievement: A Longitudinal Study

Aims: Using propensity-score matching, we matched students with similar prior-school achievement and demographical data who attended either an academic or vocational track during the first two years of secondary school.
Methodology: In a two-factorial between-subject analysis of variance, we compared standardised school achievement test scores of propensity-score matched prior high- and low-achieving students who attended either an academic or vocational track.
Results: Results showed that for the subjects German and French, prior high-achieving students performed significantly better than prior low-achieving students, and students who attended the academic track performed significantly better than students who attended the vocational track. For the subject Mathematics we found a main effect of prior-achievement level. However, we did not find an interaction between prior-achievement level and track-level.