@Connelly2016

(2016) - Roxanne Connelly, Vernon Gayle, Paul S. Lambert

Journal: Methodological Innovations
Link::
DOI:: 10.1177/2059799116638001
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Tags:: #paper #Attainment #Education
Cite Key:: [@Connelly2016]

Abstract

This article is a review of issues associated with measuring education and using educational measures in social science research. The review is orientated towards researchers who undertake secondary analyses of large-scale micro-level social science datasets. The article begins with an outline of important context, which impinges upon the measurement of education. The United Kingdom is the focus of this review, but similar issues apply to other nation states. We provide a critical introduction to the main approaches to measuring education in social survey research, which include measuring years of education, using categorical qualification based measures and scaling approaches. We advocate the use of established education measures to better facilitate comparability and replication. We conclude by making the recommendation that researchers place careful thought into which educational measure they select, and that researchers should routinely engage in appropriate sensitivity analyses.

Notes

“social and population change. Education is a powerful explanatory factor influencing a number of economic phenomena, most notably both participation and success in the labour market (e.g. Card, 1999; Hartog, 2000; Jenkins and Siedler, 2007).” (Connelly et al., 2016, p. 1)

“We advocate the use of established education measures to better facilitate comparability and replication.” (Connelly et al., 2016, p. 1)

“The ‘raising of the school leaving age’ (ROSLA) is a term used in the United Kingdom to describe an act brought into force when the legal age that a young person is allowed to leave compulsory education increases (Ainley, 1988; Blackburn and Jarman, 1992; Bolton, 2012; Paterson, 2003; Trowler, 2003)” (Connelly et al., 2016, p. 2)

“United Kingdom, the compulsory school leaving age was increased from 14 to 15 years in 1947, as a result of the 1944 Education Act. It was raised again in 1973 to 16 years, and more recently in England the school leaving age has been further extended.3 Many researchers include a measure of years of full-time education completed within their analyses (Eikemo et al., 2008; Kunovich and Slomczynski, 2007). I” (Connelly et al., 2016, p. 2)

“The 1944 Education Act sought to provide compulsory secondary education for all, free of charge through a school system that was highly selective (Blackburn and Jarman, 1992). On the basis of an ability test taken at the age of 11 years (the 11-plus exam), most children were allocated to one constituent of a tripartite system of schooling (Ainley, 1988). Children who passed the 11-plus examination were generally allocated places at grammar schools, whereas pupils who failed the 11-plus were generally allocated places at secondary modern schools. In some regions, education was also provided at technical schools” (Connelly et al., 2016, p. 2)

“The United Kingdom has since moved away from the tripartite school system. The ‘11-plus’ was abolished in most regions by the early 1970s” (Connelly et al., 2016, p. 3)

“In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level (O’ Level) was introduced in the 1950s and was the normal examination, at the end of compulsory education, for pupils attending grammar Schools. The Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) was introduced in the 1960s and was designed for pupils performing at a lower level, but its highest grade was considered to be equivalent to a low grade O’ Level. These qualifications were replaced by the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in the late 1980s (Department of Education, 1985; Mobley et al., 1986; North, 1987).” (Connelly et al., 2016, p. 3)

“The Scottish education system has always had a different set of school-age qualifications. The Ordinary Grade of the Scottish Certificate of Education (commonly known as O-Grades) was usually taken at the ages of 15 or 16 years until the late 1980s when they were replaced by Standard Grades. A new system of National grades was introduced in Scotland in 2014 (see Kidner, 2013)” (Connelly et al., 2016, p. 3)

“e. The General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (A’ Level), usually requiring 2 years of study, has been undertaken by pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland since the early 1950” (Connelly et al., 2016, p. 3)

“The chequered history of both lower and higher tier school qualifications, means that care is required when undertaking secondary analyses of school-level qualification measures” (Connelly et al., 2016, p. 3)

“. Gaining five or more GCSEs at grades A*–C is a standard benchmark and it is used in official reporting (see Leckie and Goldstein, 2009). This benchmark is routinely employed in a wide variety of social science applications (e.g. Connolly, 2006; Gayle et al., 2003; Sullivan et al., 2011). A limitation of this measure is that it treats an A* in” (Connelly et al., 2016, p. 3)

“history, a C in maths and a B in geography equally in determining whether or not a pupil has five GCSEs at grades A*–C (Gorard and Taylor, 2002)” (Connelly et al., 2016, p. 4) Super important. The distinction between quantitative results and qualitative results is an important one. I wonder if a measure of qualtiative status of each qualification subject could be produced?

“A plausible alternative strategy for measuring GCSE attainment is to construct measures based on scores. There are many possible scores that could be assigned to the alphabetical grades ascribed to the levels of GCSE attainment. In line with a Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) scoring method, Croxford et al. (2007: 52) calculated a measure of GCSE attainment by allocating 7 points for an A*/A, 6 points for a B, 5 points for a C, 4 points for a D, 3 points for an E, 2 points for an F and 1 point for a G, and therefore producing an overall score for each pupil’s attainment. M” (Connelly et al., 2016, p. 4)

“The expansion in participation in higher education was uneven, with general patterns of increase punctuated by two periods of accelerated expansion. The first period was between 1963 and 1970 (Walford, 1991). The second period was between 1988 and 1992 (Bathmaker, 2003).” (Connelly et al., 2016, p. 4)

“There has been further expansion in British higher education, for example by the mid-1990s around 30% of 18- to 19-year-olds in the United Kingdom were participating in higher education, but this increased to 36% by the end of the 2000s (Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), 2010)” (Connelly et al., 2016, p. 4)