Ability Grouping

Types and Prevalence of Ability Grouping

The most common forms of ability grouping are within-class and between-class groupings. Within-class grouping occurs when teachers sort students into homogeneous small groups within the same class. A common grouping configuration within a classroom places students who can breeze through a children's novel into one group (e.g., the redbirds) and students with limited comprehension skills into the other group (e.g., the bluebirds). Between-class grouping, commonly referred to as tracking, occurs when the school sorts students into different classes and/or curricula. Examples of different tracks of classes include advanced placement (AP), honors, regular, and remedial. Examples of different curricular tracks include college preparatory, general, and vocational.

Ability groups are present in virtually all elementary schools (Loveless, 1999). Within-class grouping practices are most prevalent during reading instruction, closely followed by mathematics instruction. While most grouping is within-class, there are limited instances of between-class and across–grade-level groupings.

As students progress through the K–12 curricula, grouping practices begin to shift toward between-class tracking in middle school and become highly pronounced in high school. In middle school, students frequently remain in heterogeneous social studies and science classrooms, but are usually assigned to ability-level classrooms for English and math.

By high school, all students experience a form of tracking. In the past, tracking was typically divided [Page 2]into separate curricular tracks that would either prepare students for college or for the workforce. Today, at least in principle, high schools have moved from static curricular tracks to a flexible multiple pathways model within each discipline, where students are grouped independently in each subject (Loveless, 1999). For example, a student who is weak in social studies, but strong in the sciences can be assigned to general social science courses while advancing to AP physics or chemistry courses. This independent grouping is not without its flaws, however. These flaws are usually the result of scheduling difficulties; a student's placement in one course can and does influence his or her placement into another course. Therefore, a student who is placed in one honors class is likely to be placed in another honors class.

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