Research that Supports Multiage Education
Educational Leadership, November 2001 Vol. 59 No. 3 Pg 84 Understanding Learning Differences
John H. Holloway
Multiage Classrooms: Expecting Differences
"In a study of multiage classrooms, Linley Lloyd (1999) found that classes with a student age range of about three years showed consistently positive results. The overall effect (referred to as the median effect size) on achievement in multiage classrooms was +0.50, which represents a significant correlation between the use of this grouping and observed positive results. Moreover, 3rd graders who had I.Q.s of 125 or higher and had spent three years in a multiage program showed a significant increase (+0.91) in reading achievement. Among all students, Lloyd found smaller effect sizes for socialization (+0.02) and for psychological adjustment (+0.11). These results show a clear academic advantage and no negative social and emotional effects for multiage grouping."
Clearinghouse on Early Education and Parenting, May 1995
Lilian G. Katz
The Benefits of Mixed-Age Grouping
"Single-age groups seem to create enormous normative pressures on the children and the teacher to expect all the children to possess the same knowledge and skills. There is a tendency in a homogeneous age group to penalize the children who fail to meet normative expectations. There is no evidence to show that a group of children who are all within a twelve-month age range can be expected to learn the same things, in the same way, on the same day, at the same time. The wide range of knowledge and skills that exists among children within a single-age group suggests that whole-group instruction, ifoverused, may not best serve children's learning.
On the other hand, the wider the age span in a group, the wider the range of behavior and performance likely to be accepted and tolerated by the adults as well as by the children themselves. In a mixed-age group, a teacher is more likely to address differences, not only between children but within each individual child. In a mixed-age group, it is acceptable for a child to be ahead of his or her same-age peers in math, for example, but behind them in reading, or social competence, or vice versa.
Research on social benefits indicates that children very early associate different expectations with different age groups. Experiments have shown that even a three-year-old, when shown pictures of older and younger children in hypothetical situations, will assign different kinds of behavior to an older child than to a younger child. For instance, younger children assign to older children instructive, leadership, helpful, and sympathizing roles, whereas older children assign to younger children the need for help and instruction. Thus in the mixed-age group, younger children perceive the older ones as being able to contribute something, and the older children see the younger ones as in need of their contributions. These mutually reinforcing perceptions create a climate of expected cooperation beneficial to the children, and to the teachers who otherwise feel they are doing all the giving.
Results of experiments in which children worked in groups of three, either in same-age or mixed-age groups, have shown that in the latter, older children spontaneously facilitated other children's behavior. In a single-age triad, on the other hand, the same children spontaneously became domineering and tended to engage in one-upmanship. When groups of children ranging in age from seven to nine years or from nine to eleven years were asked to make decisions, they went through the processes of reaching a consensus with far more organizing statements and more leadership behavior than children in same-age groups. When the samechildren dealt with identical kinds of tasks in same-age groups, there were more reports of bullying behavior. Other prosocial behaviors such as help-giving and sharing were more frequent in mixed-age groups. Turn taking was smoother, and there was greater social responsibility and sensitivity to others in mixed-age groups than in single-age groups (Chase & Doan, 1994).
Observations of four- and five-year-olds in a group found that when the teacher asked the older children who were not observing the class rules to remind the younger ones what the rules were, the older children's own "self-regulatory behavior" improved. The older children could become quite bossy, but the teacher has a responsibility to curb the children's bossiness in any group."
Multiage Resources
multiage-education.com