| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 教育學系 === 98 === Tracking is a crucial and controversial issue and has been investigated frequently in past researches. Most of the researches focused on the impact of tracking on student performance. However, findings about tracking are inconclusive due to research design and the quality of the data. Because real experiment is almost impossible, it is hard to determine the impact of tracking. Fortunately, with the latest development in the method for statistical analysis, we use propensity score to tell the difference between the treated and untreated groups (i.e. tracking and de-tracking)
Latest finding shows that the effect of tracking varies by national contexts. Tracking has positive impact on student performance in countries with high-stake testing, such as South Korea, Israel and Taiwan. It would be informative to examine the impact of tracking using Taiwan’s case.
In sum, the research questions to be addressed are as follows:
1. What is the impact of tracking on the match achievement of junior high school students in Taiwan?
2. Who benefits most from tracking and de-tracking?
3. What suggestions can we make regarding the practice of tracking?
The data is obtained from Taiwan Education Panel Survey (TEPS). The data used for the analysis was collected from national representative sample of junior high school students. They were surveyed in 7th grade and then again in 9th grade. For the outcome variable, math scores in the 7th and 9th grade were used for investigation.
As to the analytical method, propensity score matching method was used to determine the differences between the treated and untreated group.
In order to analyze tracking effects, this article investigates the causal effects of tracking on students’ 9th of math performance within a counterfactual framework. With counterfactual framework, we are able to overcome some of the biases traditional survey data and analytical method would cause.
Our findings indicate that students who were assigned to high-track classes increase 5 points compared to students who attended school with no tracking. Students who were assigned to middle/low-track classes would decrease 2 points, comparing with students who attended school with no tracking. Consequently, tracking has a positive impact on students’ grades.
The people who benefit most from tracking are those who could not have gone to high-ability groups. For those students with high ability in math, staying in high ability class or not does not make a lot of differences. Reflections on current tracking practices are discussed.
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