Summary of predictors and effects of grade retention in Europe

Many European countries rely on grade retention to deal with low student achievement despite a lengthy debate on its ineffectiveness and unfairness. This report focuses on the predictors and effects of grade retention in the 37 national units that will be part of the Eurydice Network in 2023 (including 27 member states of the European Union and 10 associated states). Two complementary approaches were used to gain insight into these predictors and effects: a systematic literature review and a secondary analysis of data from the 2018 international large-scale PISA and TALIS studies.

Regarding the effects of grade retention in Europe, our literature review seems to indicate that, overall, effects are slightly adverse, with students’ health behaviours and school careers being impacted the most and students’ psychosocial functioning being impacted the least. European repeaters, as compared to their promoted peers, seem to achieve worse (in terms of grades, standardized test scores, etc.), consume more drugs, use electronic devices more often, are at a higher risk of subsequent grade retention, school mobility, special education placement, school dropout, and non-enrolment in tertiary education, and have fewer job opportunities and lower wages. Altogether, this suggests that grade retention is less effective than often believed or hoped for by European educational practitioners.

Concerning the predictors of grade retention in Europe, our literature review and our secondary analysis of PISA/TALIS data seem to show that several student-level, classroom-level, and school-level characteristics matter jointly in a complex and country-unique way.

Overall, the more considerable odds of grade retention seem to be found at the student level. More specifically, according to our literature review, some learning factors (i.e., prior achievement and attitudes), some background factors (i.e., age and SES), and some psychological factors (i.e., wellbeing, self-concept, and behaviour) seem to play a role. Yet, more significant odds of grade retention are also found (at least in part) at the classroom level. In particular, according to both our literature review and our secondary analysis of PISA/TALIS data, one class environment characteristic (i.e., learning environment), one teacher background characteristic (i.e., teachers’ grade retention beliefs), and one teaching quality characteristic (i.e., teachers’ stimulation of students’ reading engagement) seem relevant concerning grade retention, contrary to the class composition, which does not seem to matter.

Finally, more considerable odds of grade retention also seem related to specific school characteristics. More specifically, according to our secondary analysis of PISA/TALIS data, some school composition characteristics (i.e., school size, school resources in terms of shortage of educational staff, school ethnicity composition, and the proportion of early school leavers) and some school policy characteristics (i.e., teaching policy, and specifically the use of student assessment data) seem related to grade retention, but no school environment characteristics.

This sheds light on potential venues for reducing grade retention rates in Europe. For instance, schools might put extra effort into identifying students at risk for developing learning and psychological difficulties at an earlier stage by monitoring students’ progress better. Schools might also benefit from promoting warm learning environments (characterized by cooperation, strong social relationships, and non-conflictual student-teacher relationships), challenging teachers’ beliefs regarding grade retention effectiveness, and supporting teachers in their reading pedagogical practices.

Finally, schools might also consider changing the purposes of student assessment data use (preferably internal quality control instead of grade-retention-decision-making). Changing the school’s composition, for instance, in terms of ethnicity, maybe (too) hard or even impossible. But keeping in mind its impact, for instance, the unfairness that is tied to one student having different odds of grade retention in a high versus low ethnically diverse school, is already a first step.

Title
Summary of predictors and effects of grade retention in Europe

Institution
Alternatives for Grade Retention – AlteR – Network funded by the European Commission

Authors

• Joana Pipa (ORCID) – Ispa-Instituto Universitário (ROR)
• Janneke Pepels (ORCID) – Maastricht University (ROR)
• Sérgio Gaitas (ORCID) – Ispa-Instituto Universitário (ROR)
• Mieke Goos (ORCID) – School for Educational Sciences of UHasselt (ROR)
• Francisco Peixoto (ORCID) – Ispa-Instituto Universitário (ROR)
• Barbara Belfi (ORCID) – Maastricht University (ROR)
• Fabian Meissner – Medical School Berlin (ROR)
• Florian Klapproth (ORCID) – Medical School Berlin (ROR) 

DOI (digital version)
https://doi.org/10.26481/mup.rep.alter.2502.en

Copyright and licensing
© 2025 AlteR – CC BY-NC
The content of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 International License.

Access to this publication 

• Flipbook (read online)
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Publication Type and Language
Report – English – Version 1

Publication date
28 February 2025

Subject

Keywords
grade retention, grade repetition, repeating a grade, predictors, effects, literature review, secondary analysis, PISA/TALIS, Eurydice, Europe

Related works and translations

• German translation – Zusammenfassung der Prädiktoren und Auswirkungen der Klassenwiederholung in Europa
• French – Résumé des facteurs prédictifs et des effets du redoublement en Europe

Citation for this work
Pipa, J., Pepels, J., Gaitas, S., Goos, M., Peixoto, F., Belfi, B., Meissner, F., & Klapproth, F. (2025). Summary of predictors and effects of grade retention in Europe. Maastricht University Press. https://doi.org/10.26481/mup.rep.alter.2502.en

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