Advocates of grouping pupils by measured ability for instructional purposes claim that ability-homogeneous classrooms increase the attainment of high-ability pupils without detriment to the attainment of pupils judged to be of lower ability. Opponents of ability grouping, in contrast, argue that high-ability pupils do at best only marginally better in ability-homogeneous classrooms than they would have done in mixed-ability settings, whereas low-ability pupils do significantly worse. One mechanism posited by the critics of ability grouping is that this practice causes psychological harm to those labelled low-ability, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy of low attainment. Most previous studies have measured this posited psychological impact of ability grouping in terms of pupils’ “academic self-concept”, a term which refers to pupils’ perceptions of how good they are in relation to particular subjects or to academic study generally. This paper explores the related but distinct concept of “academic enjoyment”, which refers to the extent to which pupils like the particular subjects they study, and like school generally, which has been shown to be positively correlated with academic engagement and achievement. While academic self-concept may change over time as pupils become aware of their level of academic performance, as indicated by test scores and/or their placement in particular ability groups, this need not be the case for change over time in pupils’ enjoyment of their studies which could, in theory at least, remain stable or change in a uniform direction regardless of the ability group in which pupils are taught. In this paper we explore whether pupils’ enjoyment of Maths, English, and school generally, changes in a differential manner between the ages of 7 and 11 depending on the ability group in which pupils were placed at age 7. We do so by drawing on data from the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) which has followed a nationally representative sample of children in the UK born between 2000 and 2002. Compared to pupils in the high ability group, those in the low ability group were less likely to come to enjoy, continue to enjoy, or increase their enjoyment of Maths between the ages of 7 and 11, both before and after controlling for pupils’ measured ability in Maths at age 7 and the key demographic variables of gender and social class background. Similar divergences with respect to enjoyment of English and school generally were evident before controlling for these additional factors, but were largely statistically insignificant after the inclusion of these controls. Overall our findings suggest that ability grouping in primary schools does more harm than good, at least in relation to pupils’ enjoyment of Maths.

出于教学目的，通过衡量能力对学生进行分组的倡导者声称，能力均一的课堂提高了高能力学生的成绩，而不会损害被判断为低能力学生的成绩。相反，能力分组的反对者认为，高能力学生在能力均一的课堂中的表现至多仅比他们在混合能力环境中的表现好一点，而低能力学生的表现要差得多。能力分组的批评者提出的一种机制是，这种做法会对那些被标记为低能力的人造成心理伤害，从而导致低成就的自我实现预言。以前的大多数研究都根据学生的“学业自我概念”来衡量能力分组的这种假设的心理影响，一个术语，指的是学生对他们在特定科目或一般学术研究方面的表现的看法。本文探讨了“学术享受”的相关但不同的概念，它指的是学生喜欢他们所学习的特定科目和一般学校的程度，这已被证明与学术参与和成就呈正相关。虽然学业自我概念可能会随着学生意识到他们的学业成绩水平而改变，如考试成绩和/或他们在特定能力组中的位置所表明的那样，但学生对学习的享受不一定会随着时间的推移而发生变化。他们的学习至少在理论上可以保持稳定或朝着统一的方向变化，而不管学生在哪个能力组中学习。在控制这些额外因素之前，在享受英语和学校方面的类似差异通常很明显，但在纳入这些控制后，在统计上基本上不显着。总的来说，我们的研究结果表明，小学的能力分组弊大于利，至少在学生对数学的享受方面如此。