One of the major gripes with education research is that it tends to be short term and small in scale. This makes the results less reliable and means it is difficult to say with any certainty what works when it comes to improving pupils’ outcomes.

An example: instinctively, most teachers will tell you that reducing class sizes makes a difference - attend any teaching union conference and this issue will likely be on the agenda. But the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) Teaching and Learning Toolkit - which aims to summarise the bang you get for your buck from interventions in education - says that reducing class sizes is expensive and the evidence that it has a positive impact on attainment is weak.

However, one of the academics who has carried out research in this area, Peter Blatchford, a professor at the UCL Institute of Education, has said in the past that there is a lack of good-quality evidence from which to draw any conclusions.

One major study in Scotland that does offer reliably sturdy information for the education system is Growing Up in Scotland (Gus) - and there might even be some evidence that small class sizes do improve outcomes. It is also likely to give us far more insight into the impact of the cancellation of this year’s exams on young people, now and in the future, given that the majority of the 5,000-strong cohort Gus has been following since 2005 missed their National 5 exams as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Years and years

For more than a decade, the Scottish Centre for Social Research (ScotCen), which runs Gus, has been following a nationally representative sample of 5,217 children living in Scotland and born in 2004-05. They have explored their language ability, their experience of school and their life aspirations; not to mention their weight and whether they think they are the right size, their social media use and activity on the internet, and their involvement in risky behaviour - which, incidentally, is way down on those born a decade earlier (see box, below).

Now, in 2020, that original cohort is in S4 or S5 - Gus has also collected data on two other nationally representative cohorts - and three-quarters of them were directly affected by the cancellation of exams this year. That happened just as Gus was conducting its tenth round of interviews about myriad aspects of their lives. This means that the researchers had to move from meeting their subjects in person to carrying out interviews remotely. But it also means the survey has data on how some of these 15- and 16-year-olds rated their mental health and wellbeing, as well as their life satisfaction, before Covid struck, and how a sizeable number - about 900 - rated them afterwards.

“This will allow us to see if there is a notable difference in the wellbeing of kids pre- and post-Covid,” explains ScotCen director Paul Bradshaw. The organisation also added in Covid-related questions for about 600 of the teenagers, covering the cancellation of exams and how they found home learning; questions on this theme were put to their parents, too.

Feedback from pupils, as well as families, will arguably provide valuable information for educators given that schools may yet have to revert to a blended-learning model - or potentially close again - if community transmission of Covid-19 continues to rise. Even if this is avoided, the need for pupils and teachers to self-isolate will see online learning continue for the foreseeable future. But it is not just the immediate impact of coronavirus on pupils and families that Gus will measure, explains Bradshaw.

“With future sweeps of the study we get, we will be able to look at whether that disruption to their schooling has had an impact on their later school education and outcomes, or post-school destinations,” he says. “We will also be able to look at the longer-term impact on mental health and wellbeing. From an education perspective, it will give us some understanding of which kids it appears to have affected more.

“Other datasets would be able to tell us how this cohort performed in relation to other cohorts, but what that won’t show us is which kids are resilient and what’s different about those kids. Is it something about their previous attitude to school, or something about their background? We can then learn from that in case we find ourselves in a similar situation in the future.”

Another key area that this latest data sweep will provide good information on is what was arguably the most heated debate in Scottish education last year - the debate over the perceived narrowing of subject choice - as Gus has also been gathering information about why these pupils opted for the courses they did in S3.

While we have heard the thoughts of teachers and heads, education directors and academics, as well as politicians on this heated topic, this will be the first time that a sizeable number of students gets the opportunity to have their say. In particular, Gus will be attempting to find out whether there is anything in the fear that, while students are generally studying fewer subjects in S4, the trend is more marked among those who are more disadvantaged.

“Concerns have been raised about whether that is a choice based on ability, or is it something these kids are encouraged to do?” says Bradshaw. “We hope to collect data from the kids themselves about why they chose the subjects they did. That might allow us to understand some of that a bit better because the decisions that kids make at this point have major implications for what they then go on to do.”

Impact of transition

Before Christmas, Gus will also be hoping to shed light on a problem that has preoccupied schools for many years: how do you smooth the transition into secondary?

Gus has been asked by the Scottish government to analyse data collected when its original cohort was in the second term of S1. A recent review of existing research by University of Dundee professor Divya Jindal-Snape emphasised the importance of longitudinal research in analysing the impact of transitions on children. The researchers reviewed 96 studies and found that we “still don’t have conclusive evidence”; only 21 studies looked at the impact of transition beyond the first few months of S1. This, the researchers wrote, made it “difficult to know whether the effects are sustained or what the longer-term impact of transition is”.

They recommended that “future studies use a longitudinal design commencing in the penultimate year of primary school, and at least follows pupils through the completion of their second year at secondary school”.

Bradshaw says: “Hopefully, for most kids the transition [between phases] was a positive experience, but what we are going to try to do is understand a bit more about the factors associated with more positive and more negative experiences - is it about better information and support for parents? Is it about things that happen at primary beforehand? Or the things that happen in S1 as pupils arrive to keep them informed?”

Ask him what he thinks the key message from the Gus research to date is for teachers, though, and prepare to be depressed - but perhaps not surprised.

“As the children continue to get older, we continue to see the association in terms of how they were doing at preschool and how they are doing now,” says Bradshaw. “We see that in their language ability - the kids who enter primary with better skills in terms of language are doing better at the end of primary school.”

In other words, the attainment gap did not close as pupils progressed through school; instead, when Gus tested pupils as they entered P1 and again in P6, the researchers found the gap had, if anything, widened. So far so depressing - especially as the Scottish government has been pumping money into schools to close the attainment gap. Do the Gus findings mean that the government should instead redirect those millions into the home?

Bradshaw cites ways that the government is trying to influence this already through initiatives such as Bookbug, which provides free story and song sessions, usually in libraries, as well as the free book bags for babies, toddlers and three- and five-year-olds. But the home environment is hard to influence, which is why he sees the logic in investing in schools.

“There’s certainly a question mark over whether all that support needs to be delivered via school, but I would not remove it and attempt to influence the home environment exclusively,” says Bradshaw. “Influencing that home environment is very difficult to do without seeming intrusive. The government, I would think, doesn’t want to be seen as interfering too heavily, or influencing too heavily, people’s private lives.”

Gus has some hopeful messages for schools around the attainment gap, though: while the researchers found that social background was “an important factor”, they also said it was “not the only driver influencing language ability”, that there were other potential ways to help bridge the gap.

They wrote in a paper published last year on changes in language ability over the primary school years: “Although being from a disadvantaged social background increases the risk of poorer language skills, it does not equate to poorer language skills for all children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Similarly, coming from a more advantaged background does not guarantee more advanced language development.”

Gus discovered four “experiences and circumstances” that were associated with a relative improvement in children’s expressive vocabulary over the primary school years. These were having parent(s) educated to degree level or above; living in a small town or rural area; not having above-average levels of social, emotional or behavioural difficulties; and reading or looking at books at home at least six days per week.

Past experience

Gus also found that the attainment gap is greatest between the children of parents with degrees and those with lower Standard Grade qualifications (the precursors to the National 4 and 5) or below. But it is too simplistic to say that because parental qualifications seem to matter so much, that we simply need to have “more-qualified parents”, says Bradshaw. What the research is picking up, he explains, is that there is a greater understanding among better-qualified parents that “they need to invest some of what they know, and time, in supporting their children’s development”.

“It’s not just the qualifications, it’s the level of understanding and knowledge that comes with it,” he says.

“It’s also about knowing where to go to get the support for that. These parents just have a bit more experience dealing with these sorts of things. They can be more proactive. They know who to ask - that’s what that level of education is picking up. Those who are less qualified are a bit less certain.”

And while we might assume that reading with a parent would improve outcomes in early primary but have less impact in late primary, that is not what the Gus research has found: it continues to make a difference later on, stresses Bradshaw: “Whether you grow up in a household with degree-educated parents or in one with parents who have lower qualifications, these activities that parents engage in, that promote better development, are universally beneficial for all children.”

When it comes to why children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties do worse, it probably reflects the issue that teachers have been highlighting for years: schools do not have the resources to support these children properly.

Finally, the finding that pupils do better in rural schools - of which, of course, there are many in Scotland - is something Bradshaw hopes might be explored further. But it could be that children thrive because these schools have smaller rolls and class sizes, he suggests.

So are all these findings being acted upon? Undoubtedly there is more emphasis than ever before on schools working with families. It is one of the aspects Education Scotland inspectors look at when they visit schools and survey parents before an inspection: parents are specifically asked about whether or not their child’s school organises activities where children and parents can learn together, or whether the school gives them advice on how to support their children’s learning.

The measures that the Scottish government uses to monitor the performance of the education system - contained in the National Improvement Framework - include parental engagement as one of the so-called “key drivers”. And the Scottish Education Awards now include a prize for the school that does family learning best.

There are examples of good practice, too: Todholm Primary in Paisley won the family learning award last year, thanks in part to having run a bedtime story club and a reading café, as well as cooking classes, samba and chess for families. But budgets can tend to put the brakes on what the research tells us would be good for pupils, says Bradshaw.

Teachers and heads report that budget pressures lead to pupils with additional needs not being properly supported; authorities close rural schools wherever possible because they are not cost-effective; and financial constraints also often stand in the way of schools engaging better with families. Many lack the staffing to do this well - although the Scottish Attainment Challenge has seen more money invested in this area.

Bradshaw, however, is optimistic about the impact Gus is having. The government has agreed to fund two further sweeps of the survey - one when the children reach S6 and the age of 17, and another when they are 20.

“That demonstrates the strong commitment of the government to this research and the recognition from them of the value of the study as a source of evidence,” he says. “With each sweep, it becomes more powerful, interesting and relevant.”

Emma Seith is a reporter for Tes Scotland

This article originally appeared in the 16 October 2020 issue under the headline “Getting the gen”