Boys' Academic Progress during the Reform of Two Single
Sex Schools into Co-educational Schools

Shlrly M. Yates
Australia

Opportunities to study schools during their reformation from single sex to co-education occur very rarely. Debate as to whether boys and girls should be educated separately or together has raged for some considerable time, with proponents of each system citing various advantages and disadvantages for students. Boys are often considered to be disadvantaged in single sex classrooms (Milligan & Thomson. 1992 : Parker & Rennie, 1995 : Forgasz & Leder, 1996 : Gill, 1996 : Rennie & Parker, 1997 : Jackson & Smith, 2000), and to fare better in co-educational classrooms where, relative to girls they receive more academic support, different feedback patterns and different forms of assigned academic tasks from teachers (Steinbeck and Gwizdala, 1995 : Good, Nichols & Sabers, 1999). However, research evidence has been inconsistent, with some studies supporting co-education, (Marsh, 1989 ; Marsh, Smith, Marsh & Owens, 1988), some favouring single sex schooling (Astin, 1977 ; Lee & Bryk, 1986 ; Riordan, 1985) and yet others reporting no differences in achievement (Miller & Dale, 1974 ; Rutter, Maughan, Mortimer & Outson, 1979). Other evidence has indicated school type does not benefit either boys or girls once other variables are controlled (Marsh, 1989 ; Marsh & Rowe, 1996). All of these studies have focussed on students at the secondary level, but none have considered primary school students.

This paper reports on two longitudinal studies conducted in two South Australian independent single sex boys' schools that became co-educational recently. Academic progress was measured with Word Knowledge Test l, 2, or 3 (Thomdike, 1973), in primary and secondary boys from Grades 3 to 12, attending their respective single sex school immediately prior to the introduction of co-education (School 1 : N = 485, School 2 : N = 428). In the first year (TI) all primary school boys from Grades 3 to 7 were receiving single sex education in both schools, as were secondary level boys in School 1. The same boys were then retested over the next two years (T2 and T3).

A single calibrated scale of student academic progress was formed across each school from the Word Knowledge Tests, using the common items linking procedure. Case estimate scores for boys at T1, T2 and T3, anchored to a file of students who had answered all of their respective test items, were concurrently equated for School 1 and School 2. Student progress was analyzed for each school with Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM5) (Raudenbush, Bryk, & Congdon 2000), with comparisons made over time between students at level 1, and between cohort groups and grades at level 2. Cohort groups consisted of the same students clustered by their initial grade, while Grade groupings were composed of students in that grade level at T1, T2 and T3.

Although the two schools are not comparable directly as they have not been equated, the cohort trends in both schools indicate an overall significant increase in student progress following co-education, as do the Grade analyses, although the average growth over time, reflected in the time slopes, is significant only in School 1. There are some exceptions to these trends, both for individual cohort and grade groupings, but in each instance these exceptions are all the primary school level.

These results make a significant contribution to knowledge about the impact of the reform from single sex to co-education, as they confirm previous findings for secondary school students (Marsh, 1989; Marsh, Smith, Marsh & Owens. 1988; Steinbeck and Gwizdala, 1995), but more importantly suggest the differential effects of the reform are far greater at the primary school level where clearly further research on single sex and co-education is required.