A study by academics at UCL compared the mental wellbeing of students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA View image in fullscreen A study by academics at UCL compared the mental wellbeing of students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA GCSEs Compulsory GCSE resits in England harm teenagers’ mental wellbeing, study finds UCL researchers warn repeated exam attempts may dent students’ confidence and raise risk of dropping out
Prefer the Guardian on Google Forcing teenagers who fail GCSEs into multiple resits has a negative impact on their mental health, according to research to be published as pupils receive their grades on Thursday.
The study by academics at University College London (UCL) compared the mental wellbeing of students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who failed to reach a grade 4 or equivalent in maths or English GCSEs – and found that only those in England, where resits are mandatory, showed significantly lower wellbeing.
Read more Robbie Maris, a research fellow at UCL and one of the authors, said the dent to teenagers’ self-confidence when faced with resits could be a contributing factor to the rise in young people not in education, employment or training, known as Neets.
Maris said: “Some [resitting] students will not turn up for their exams, they won’t enter them or they will drop out of education – these are the kids at highest risk of dropping out of education and becoming Neets.
“It could be leading to further disengagement, which is a worrying thing. People need to pay more attention to this, because if you demotivate or demoralise young people it puts them at risk of dropping out of the education system entirely.”
The resits policy in England was introduced in 2014 and requires students who have not achieved a grade 4 pass in English or maths GCSE at age 16 to continue to study those qualifications as a condition of their further education or college places being funded.
This year, about 180,000 students who sat GCSEs last year will retake GCSE English and about 175,000 are expected to retake maths, after record numbers of 16-year-olds last year received grades below 4.
View image in fullscreen This year, about 180,000 students will retake GCSE English and 175,000 GCSE maths. Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Reuters Maris said the comparison between students with similar academic records in Wales and Northern Ireland and those in England, after adjusting for other factors, left the resits policy as a major difference between the two groups.
“We see no impact really at all for failing English and maths in Wales or Northern Ireland but in England there’s a relatively large negative impact. This is strong evidence that it’s something to do with England’s policy setting that is generating these impacts,” Maris said.
The study, to be published as a working paper by UCL’s centre for education policy and equalising opportunities , also found considerable differences between girls and boys. The biggest impact on girls was on those who narrowly missed out on a grade 4 in maths, while for boys the biggest impact was among those who were “substantially below” the threshold for a passing grade in English.
In contrast, boys who failed to get a 4 in maths, and girls who failed in English, showed little or no downturn in wellbeing.
“Girls already have low self-efficacy and anxiety in maths, on average, and we’ve got similar issues with boys doing English, ane…