Education Insights • 2024 • Volume 2 • Issue 1 11 must make for their school and/or individual classrooms. If ability grouping is used, it should be thoughtfully implemented and data driven. Levin and Datnow agreed with Moss and Piety that it is important for administrators to use data to guide educational decision-making.63 Stroud conducted a study to discover factors middle school principals in East Tennessee considered when deciding whether to implement homogeneous instruction.64 Data was collected through a series of 20 taped interviews with principals. Her results revealed that “the impact of student achievement, standardized test accountability, social factors that affect students, the perception of teachers and parents, the impact of educational research” and many more factors influenced their decisions to implement sorting based on ability.65 Recommendations from principals in Stroud’s study included flexible scheduling that allowed for movement between groups based on objectives and standards.66 Rogers stated there are five approaches that administrators use to make decisions concerning implementation of sorting students.67 The approaches consisted of using past personal experiences to make current decisions, analyzing research, utilizing staff development to motivate staff members to implement change, establishing committees to support the change, and reevaluating grouping practices to decipher the best approaches.68 Given the impact of results that are involved in sorting of students, it is important that principals and teachers adequately examine the perceptions and factors that influence the process of deciding upon grouping.69 Conclusion After reviewing the literature related to research concerning practices of grouping, the effect of ability grouping on students and their achievement, and the perceptions of administrators and teachers, there is a need for additional research on current experimental and descriptive approaches toward grouping students. As Dr. Hendricks’ Law of the Teacher explains, if teachers stop growing today, teaching stops.70 If ability grouping is going to be used to build American public schools, barriers must be 63 James A. Levin and Amanda Datnow, “The Principal Role in Data-Driven Decision Making: Using Case-Study Data to Develop Multi-Mediator Models of Educational Reform,” School Effectiveness and School Improvement 23, no. 2 (2012): 179–201. 64 Linda B. Stroud, “To Group or Not to Group: A Qualitative Study of Middle School Principals' Decision Making Processes Concerning Ability Level Grouping,” (Doctoral Thesis: East Tennessee State University, 2002), 27-33, Electronic Theses and Dissertation. 65 Stroud, “To Group or Not to Group,” 2. 66 Stroud, “To Group or Not to Group," 105. 67 Karen B. Rogers, “Using Current Research to Make ‘Good’ Decisions about Grouping,” NASSP Bulletin 82, no. 595 (1998): 38–46, https://doi.org/10.1177/019263659808259506. 68 Rogers, “Using Current Research,” 38-46. 69 Stroud, “To Group or Not to Group,” 105. 70 Hendricks, Teaching to Change Lives.
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