Reconsidering the value of pupil attitudes to studying post-16: a caution for Paul Croll

Reconsidering the value of pupil attitudes to studying post-16: a caution for Paul Croll

Abstract

Are the early expressed attitudes of pupils to staying on in education post-16 a
valuable predictor? This is an important question, because if such attitudes are very
likely to be converted into subsequent revealed actions then the early attitudes provide
a sound basis for planning and intervention. This short paper queries the scientific
accuracy of claims made in a previous paper by Croll (2010) based on a re-analysis of
the British Household Panel Survey. It shows that even if the expressed intentions of
young people to stay on in education post-16 were actually unrelated to their
subsequent participation, the figures used by Croll would still display a substantial
overlap between the two. This is because both reported intentions to stay on and
subsequent participation are heavily imbalanced in favour of staying on. If this
imbalance is taken into account then Croll’s conclusions, that early intentions are
accurate and useful, fall to the ground. On these data, we should take little or no
account of early expressed intentions to study post-16.

Introduction

Are the early expressed attitudes of pupils to staying on in education post-16 a
valuable predictor? This is an important question, because if such attitudes are very
likely to be converted into subsequent revealed actions then the early attitudes provide
a sound basis for planning and intervention. This short paper queries the scientific
accuracy of claims made in a previous paper by Croll (2010). In an analysis of the
Youth Survey data from the British Household Panel survey, Croll (2010) states ‘The
results show that most children can express intentions with regard to future
participation very early in their secondary school careers and that these intentions are
good predictors of actual behaviour five years later’ (p.400). If this strong claim is
true, we should then agree with Croll that a focus on improving intentions to
participate when pupils are years away from making that decision could pay dividends
in terms of later participation. This might be particularly effective for those pupils

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