ABILITY GROUPING IN SCHOOLS: A STUDY OF ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN FIVE SCHOOLS IN ESTONIA

Abstract. The paper deals with the questions of the quality of schooling and the effect of ability grouping on students ’ achievement. One hundred and forty seven children from five schools participated in the study. Two schools were usual mainstream town schools, one a usual rural school, one Step-by-Step school and one “elite ” private school. All children were studied twice: at the beginning of the first (age 7) and third grade. First, children’s cognitive abilities were assessed; second, their academic achievement in Estonian language and mathematics was assessed. Both the battery of cognitive tests and tasks in achievement test were developed specifically for this study. It was shown that attending an elite private school was related to abilities and higher academic performance of children. However, when both school and average cognitive ability of a school a child was attending were entered into the Multiple Regression analysis for predicting Academic Achievement, attending Elite school had negative impact on Achievement