To Repeat or Not to Repeat

A précis of 2006 research paper by Dr Helen McGrath

"Over the last 75 years, a pool of research-based knowledge about the effects on students of repeating a year level has been accumulating. It now overwhelmingly indicates that there are neither academic nor social advantages for the majority of students who repeat a year of their schooling. There is probably no other educational issue where there is such a huge gap between what the research says and the practices that schools continue to adopt.

Paradoxically this discrepancy between evidence and practice has never been more apparent than in recent times when evidence-based approaches are being strongly promoted by educational systems across Australia. The practice of students repeating a year level is widely accepted in Australian schools but there are few statistics available on rates of repeating. Kenny (1991) has estimated that approximately 14% - 18% of all Australian students repeat a year, especially in the first four years of schooling.

Jimerson (2004) and Owens and Magliaro (1998) have argued that there are significant risks for schools in continuing to follow the unsupported practice of repeating students in the face of such unambiguous research which directs otherwise and warn that such practice may constitute ‘ educational malpractice’.