14 DAY TRIAL // Experts in Sweden were curious to learn precisely what caused average school performances to decline over the past few decades, so they conducted a study aimed at discerning the causes of this. They determined that a wide variety of factors contributed to these modifications in performances, which appeared to be more and more pronounced as the years passed. The work was conducted by investigators at the University of Gothenburg, AlphaGalileo reports.
According to the researchers, some of the determining factors for the declining performances include making schooling a community matter, developing special teaching groups, the possibility for people to freely choose which school to attend, individualization, as well as housing segregation. The UG team compiled the new data for the Swedish National Agency for Education, in its extensive report called “Which factors affect the results of Swedish comprehensive school?”
“One of many conclusions is that class size and student-teacher ratio affect student performance, especially among children in the lower grades and children who receive limited help with their school work at home. But the most important resource factor is teacher competence,” UG Department of Education Professor Jan-Eric Gustafsson explains. Additionally, it was revealed that schools compensated for socioeconomic differences to a very small extent, which is not normal.
Researchers also highlight the fact that the level of segregation has increased considerably. Now that students have the right to choose which school to attend freely, they are more likely to form homogeneous bodies, which affect learning in a negative manner. Moreover, many children have been found to now rely on things they learn at home to keep up with the class schedule, even if they are supposed to hear about the same things from their teachers. Special learning groups have made it possible for professors to give children more free time, and no actual lessons.
“The main explanation to the dwindling average performance in mathematics and natural science is the increased use of independent learning and decreased teacher-led instruction,” Gustafsson adds.