The school transition recommendation – Analysis of the determinants and stability of teachers’ transition recommendation over seven years

Abstract

Transitions are a central feature of the Central European school system and are important stages for a child. For school systems with different achievement-based secondary school tracks, the entry into the secondary school is particularly important, because the assignment to one of the tracks is implicitly also connected to the allocation of educational opportunities. For the tracking, the teacher recommendation is a widespread criterion. This paper investigates whether the determinants of teachers recommendations from seven consecutive years differ and if a stable model of the teacher recommendation can be found.
The data stem from 5,332 pupils in the transition process from primary to secondary school of the German-speaking schools in the canton of Freiburg (Switzerland). Taking into account the nested data on the class level the same model is specified for seven consecutive years. The model of the teachers’ recommendations does not differ statistically significant. Teachers consider the performance evaluation more than the process evaluations. The strongest predictors are the Mathematics and German grades, as well as the estimated cognitive skills.