The heterogeneous effects of ability grouping on national college entrance exam performance - evidence from a large city in China

This study attempts to evaluate the achievement effect of ability grouping on student performance on the National College Entrance Exam in China. The context of this study is the ongoing school reform movement occurring in many Chinese municipalities. The current reform movement is striving to achieve educational equity and quality by integrating initial low achievers into high-performing schools. The propensity score matching method is employed as the identification strategy. After controlling for self-selection bias in high school assignment, this study finds that while there is no effect of high ability grouping at the school level on academic achievement, initial low achievers' academic performances can be significantly improved when integrated with high performing students at the school level. In addition, between-class grouping significantly improves student performance in a heterogeneous school-level grouping. Upon analyzing the results, rich information on school level input is reported. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.