Navarro Juan-José, García-Rubio Javier, Olivares Pedro R
Instituto de Estudios en Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Santiago de Chile, Chile; Individual differences, Language and Cognition LAB, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, España.
Instituto de Actividad Física y Salud, Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Santiago de Chile, Chile.
PLoS One. 2015 Oct 30;10(10):e0141895. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0141895. eCollection 2015.
The policy of school organisation for grouping students in the same academic year is based on date of birth. The differences in the experiences and maturation of older students involve a relatively better performance in academic settings, which is known as the relative age effect (RAE). This effect is more important the younger the student is. The goal of this study is to identify the connections of influence that RAE, socioeconomic status (SES), and type of institution have on academic performance in a school population of eighth graders.
The study is based on a population-based, representative sample of 15,234 8th graders (50.4% female; average age = 13.61 years) in the 2011 National System of Quality Assessment in Education Survey (SIMCE) from Chile. The SIMCE for global academic performance consists of 4 tests: reading, mathematics, social studies, and science. All tests consist of multiple-choice and closed questions. In addition, in order to have the information of general academic performance, an extra variable expressing the average score of each student was created. Also, the SIMCE includes additional variables for the evaluation process such as SES or type of school. Students were assigned to one of five age groups in terms of date of birth (G1, G2, G3, G4, and G5), in which students belonging to G1 are the oldest and students belonging to G5 are the youngest.
The results achieved in the structural equation modelling indicate a good global fit. Individual relationships show significant effects of the three variables observed on academic performance, although SES received the highest values. The influence of RAE took place both in the full sample and sub-samples composed according to the SES and academic performance, showing higher values for students with lower scores. Although the influence of RAE decreases when SES is controlled, its effect is still significant and contributes to additionally explain the performance.
The RAE remains, even with residual values, an explanatory factor in academic performance even in eighth graders. Since the RAE decreases as the influence of schooling increases, the potential adverse effects for some students would be placed in previous and initial moments of formal schooling. These findings may be useful into taking steps towards flexibilisation on age of entry in compulsory schooling. Moreover, the need to implement early, comprehensive evaluation systems which include aspects related to neurodevelopment in order to provide maximum information to parents and educators is also drawn.
学校按照出生日期将同一年级的学生进行分组的组织政策。年龄较大的学生在经历和成熟度上的差异使其在学业环境中的表现相对更好，这被称为相对年龄效应（RAE）。学生年龄越小，这种效应越显著。本研究的目的是确定相对年龄效应、社会经济地位（SES）和学校类型对八年级学生学业成绩的影响关联。
该研究基于智利2011年全国教育质量评估系统调查（SIMCE）中15234名八年级学生（女生占50.4%；平均年龄 = 13.61岁）的基于人群的代表性样本。全球学业成绩的SIMCE包括4项测试：阅读、数学、社会研究和科学。所有测试均由多项选择题和封闭式问题组成。此外，为了获取总体学业成绩信息，创建了一个表示每个学生平均分数的额外变量。SIMCE还包括用于评估过程的其他变量，如SES或学校类型。根据出生日期，学生被分为五个年龄组（G1、G2、G3、G4和G5），其中G1组的学生年龄最大，G5组的学生年龄最小。
结构方程模型得出的结果显示整体拟合良好。个体关系表明，观察到的三个变量对学业成绩均有显著影响，尽管SES的影响值最高。相对年龄效应在全样本以及根据SES和学业成绩组成的子样本中均有体现，成绩较低的学生的效应值更高。虽然在控制SES时相对年龄效应的影响会降低，但其影响仍然显著，并有助于进一步解释学业成绩。
即使存在残差值，相对年龄效应仍是八年级学生学业成绩的一个解释因素。由于相对年龄效应会随着学校教育影响的增加而降低，对一些学生潜在的不利影响可能出现在正规学校教育的先前和初始阶段。这些发现可能有助于采取措施使义务教育入学年龄更加灵活。此外，还得出需要实施早期、全面的评估系统，该系统应包括与神经发育相关的方面，以便为家长和教育工作者提供最大信息。
