Education Insights • 2024 • Volume 2 • Issue 1 2 Law of Education as using the way people learn to determine how you teach.3 The implementation of properly executed ability grouping practices and consideration of individual gifts for learning opens broader doors for education. Ability grouping seems to be a simple way to provide the needed individualized instruction by reducing the range of adaptations that a teacher must make among his or her students. However, several studies demonstrate that the effects of ability grouping are inconsistent, varying across different countries, periods, and in a variety of schools.4 The practice of grouping students based purely on ability level endeavors to predict achievement solely on one type of intelligence across multiple subjects.5 Although this seems to offer an easy, rational solution, several factors contribute to the academic effectiveness of sorting students by their ability. Some include selecting and placing students accurately and in accordance with the expectations and ethos of students, parents, teachers, and administrators.6 Though resurging, ability grouping is not a new practice. As educators prepare to respond to the educational crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, implementation of ability grouping has resurged. COVID-19 created the largest disruption to the education system in history, affecting almost 1.6 billion students and over 200 countries.7 Despite the heroic efforts of educators, COVID-19 has taken a toll on students’ academic performance and mental health.8 The impact is far-reaching and will take time before researchers understand the pandemic’s full impact on students. Developments of Educational Instructional Practices 3 Howard G. Hendricks, Teaching to Change Lives: Seven Proven Ways to Make Your Teaching Come Alive (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Press, 1987), 31. 4 Chen-Lin C. Kulik and James A. Kulik, “Effects of Ability Grouping on Secondary School Students: A Meta-Analysis of Evaluation Findings,” American Educational Research Journal 19, no. 3 (1982): 415–28, https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312019003415; see also Kulik & Kulik, “Meta-Analytic Findings on Grouping Programs,” 73-77; Adam Gamoran and Mark Berends, “The Effects of Stratification in Secondary Schools: Synthesis of Survey and Ethnographic Research,” Review of Educational Research 57, no. 4 (1987): 415–35, https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543057004415; Robert E. Slavin, “Cooperative Learning,” in The Social Psychology of the Primary School, 1st ed., ed. Colin Rogers and Peter Kutnick (London: Routledge, 1992), 226-245; Susan Hallman and Inji Toutounji, “What Do We Know About Grouping Pupils by Ability?” Education Review London 10 (1996): 62-70; Judith Ireson and Susan Hallam, “Raising Standards: Is Ability Grouping the Answer?” Oxford Review of Education 25, no. 3 (1999): 343–58, https://doi.org/10.1080/030549899104026. 5 Judith Ireson and Susan Hallam, Ability Grouping in Education (London: Paul Chapman Publishing, 2001); Robert E Slavin, Educational Psychology Theory and Practice, 8th ed. (Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2006). 6 Ireson and Hallam, Ability Grouping in Education. 7 Sumitra Pokhrel and Roshan Chhetri, “A Literature Review on Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Teaching and Learning,” Higher Education for the Future 8, no. 1 (2021): 131, https://doi.org/10.1177/2347631120983481. 8 Jorge V. Verlendenand et al., “Association of Children’s Mode of School Instruction with Child and Parent Experiences and Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic — COVID Experiences Survey, United States, October 8–November 13, 2020,” MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 70, no. 11 (2021): 369–76, https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7011a1.
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