Exit examinations, peer academic climate, and adolescents' developmental outcomes

Journal of School Psychology 51 (2013) 67–80

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Exit examinations, peer academic climate, and adolescents' developmental outcomes Aprile D. Benner Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station A2702, Austin, TX 78712, USA

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Article history: Received 21 November 2011 Received in revised form 30 August 2012 Accepted 9 September 2012 Keywords: Exit examination Peer incongruence Academic achievement Socioemotional well-being Adolescence

a b s t r a c t Implications of high school exit examination performance were examined with a sample of 672 racial/ethnic minority students. Exit examination failure in the 10th grade was negatively linked to subsequent grade point average, school engagement, and school belonging one year later, controlling for outcomes prior to taking the examination. Academically incongruent students–those who failed the exit examination but were in schools where their same-race/ ethnicity peers were performing well academically–seemed to be at particular risk for struggling grades and poorer socioemotional well-being (e.g., experiencing greater depressive symptoms and loneliness). Findings contribute to the limited research base on exit examinations and highlight the links between exit examination performance and developmental outcomes beyond the oft-studied academic domain. © 2012 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction With the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB; 2002), the United States educational system entered a new age of educational accountability. NCLB mandated standardized reading and mathematics achievement tests for all students in grades 3 to 8 as well as testing at one grade level in high school (i.e., grade 10, 11, or 12); performance is reported for all students as well as disaggregated by certain student subgroups (e.g., economically disadvantaged, limited-English proficient, and specific racial/ ethnic groups). The ultimate goal of this testing and reporting is to achieve 100% of students performing at proficient levels by 2014. As an increased accountability mechanism, many states have moved to make high school achievement tests “high stakes,” tying graduation requirements not just to credit accrual but also to passing reading and mathematics standardized tests in high school. The motivation for introducing these high-stakes high school exit examinations is to improve student performance both in high school and in postsecondary institutions as well as to promote stronger secondary school educational standards (Holme, Richards, Jimerson, & Cohen, 2010). Although some researchers have examined the extent to which introducing high stakes exit examinations has improved school instruction and school-wide academic performance, little to no attention has been focused on the possible links between introduction of high-stakes tests and individual students' developmental outcomes. This is a central focus of the current study, which explores how exit examination failure is related to high school students' subsequent academic performance, connections to school, and mental health. A second objective of the study is to understand how the larger academic climate of schools attenuates or exacerbates links between exit examination failure and adolescents' developmental outcomes. Empirical evidence from a host of studies underscores the interconnected nature of adolescents' development across domains. For example, students exhibiting poorer psychological adjustment often perform more poorly academically, in terms of grades, motivation, and exit examination achievement test performance (Jin et al., 2008; Johnson, McGue, & Iacono, 2006; Roeser, Eccles, & Sameroff, 1998; Sznitman, Reisel, & Romer, 2011). Academic struggles are also more pronounced for students with negative

E-mail address: [email protected] ACTION EDITOR: Kathy Moritz Rudasill. 0022-4405/$ – see front matter © 2012 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2012.09.001

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perceptions of school climate, particularly when these feelings center on not fitting in or not receiving adequate support from peers and teachers (Benner & Graham, 2011; Jia et al., 2009; Li & Lerner, 2011; Wang & Holcombe, 2010). On the positive side, strong connections to school can promote academic success and psychosocial well-being (Fredricks & Eccles, 2006). All of this empirical evidence suggests that when considering the experiences of young people, taking a broader view on development is warranted. Consistent with this, the focus of this study centers on how exit examination performance is related to adolescents' subsequent outcomes across three developmental domains—academics, socioemotional well-being, and school connections. 1.1. High school exit examinations and students' developmental outcomes The majority of research studies examining exit examinations and student well-being have focused, not surprisingly, on the academic domain. In one vein of this research, scholars have explored how simple exposure to exit examinations, regardless of personal performance, is associated with students' academic performance. For example, Warren, Jenkins, and Kulick's (2006) state-level fixed effects analyses indicated that rates of high school completion were lower and rates of general educational development (GED) receipt were higher in states with high school exit examination requirements than those without such requirements. Moreover, this difference was magnified for states with more rigorous exit examinations, and the negative associations between exit examination requirements and student achievement were more pronounced in states with more racially/ethnically diverse students and with greater percentages of low-income students. Research at the student-level is generally consistent with these state-level findings (see Grodsky, Warren, & Kalogrides, 2009 for an exception). Students required to take exit examinations for high school graduation had lower math proficiency scores in the 12th grade and made less gains in math proficiency between the 10th and 12th grades than those not subject to exit examination requirements, controlling for a number of student- and school-level variables (Muller, 1998). Similar results were observed for students exposed to high-stakes accountability provisions throughout secondary school. For example, Reardon and Galindo (2002) found that merely being exposed to high stakes promotion test requirements in the 8th grade was strongly linked to students' decisions to drop out of school before the 10th grade, controlling for a host of student and school characteristics tied to school dropout. Similarly, Schiller and Muller (2003) found that African American students in states with higher consequences tied to achievement test performance (e.g., retention and promotion decisions and course placement) tended to earn fewer advanced mathematics course credits than their peers in states with fewer consequences for achievement test failure. Also, a greater gap in mathematics credit accrual existed between White students and racial/ethnic minority students (i.e., African American and Latino) when in states with a greater number of high-stakes testing requirements. A second vein of research is focused on the specific links between exit examination failure and students' subsequent educational performance, and findings suggest that such failures are associated with shifting academic trajectories. Exit examination failure for first-time test-takers has been linked to lower subsequent educational expectations for high school completion, with exit examination failure more strongly related to educational expectations than many potent demographic and educational predictors (i.e., race/ethnicity, family socioeconomic status, prior academic performance and retention in grade, and academic track; Catterall, 1989). Moreover, some research indicates that exit examination struggles can be particularly challenging for higher performing students, showing that students with higher grades in school who failed an exit examination exhibited a greater likelihood of subsequent school dropout than those who failed the exam but had lower grades (Griffin & Heidorn, 1996). And those students who failed exit examinations but go onto postsecondary institutions tend to experience greater academic challenges, earning significantly lower grade point averages in their first year of college than those passing the exit examination (D'Agostino & Bonner, 2009). Taken as a whole, a review of this limited body of research suggests negative associations between exit examination failure and subsequent academic performance and educational attainment, particularly for more educationally vulnerable youth (e.g., racial/ethnic minorities and those economically disadvantaged), although establishing specific causal links was not possible with the aforementioned studies. How exit examination failure is related to students' perceptions of their schools or their socioemotional well-being has received practically no attention despite prior empirical documentation of associations between academic performance, broadly defined, and students' mental health and connections to their schools. As an exception, Cornell, Krosnick, and Chang (2006) identified psychosocial repercussions for Minnesota students who were incorrectly informed that they failed the Minnesota exit examination. 1.2. Congruence with peers during adolescence During adolescence in particular, the peer group becomes a more prominent developmental context, as peers, along with parents, are primary socialization agents during this time in the life course (Steinberg & Morris, 2001). Through interactions with peers, adolescents develop notions of who they are—in essence, their identity development is driven by reflections of how they believe others perceive them and reconciliation between these views and how adolescents view themselves (Cooley, 1902; Erikson, 1968). Adolescence is also a time when individuals are particularly focused on fitting in and establishing connections to others (Baumeister & Leary, 1995), further elevating the importance of peers' evaluations. In determining just who significant others are for adolescents, racial/ethnic homophily in youth friendships–that is, the tendency for young people to form close relationships with racially/ethnically similar others–is documented in numerous studies. Racial/ethnic homophily is consistently observed in both the formation and maintenance of friendships, and this homophily increases from childhood through adolescence (Aboud, Mendelson, & Purdy, 2003; Kao & Joyner, 2004; Quillian & Campbell,

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2003). In their review of the friendship homophily literature, McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook (2001) identify the particularly strong role race/ethnicity plays in close relationships across the life course, finding that homophily of race/ethnicity is stronger than numerous other personal identifiers, including gender, religion, socioeconomic status, and educational achievement. Moving from interpersonal relations to the larger educational context, schools are a primary setting for peer interactions, and associations between the racial/ethnic composition of schools and students' developmental competencies have been explored in several studies. Here, researchers have documented that adolescents who attend schools with more same-race/ethnicity schoolmates generally feel more accepted and connected to their schools (Johnson, Crosnoe, & Elder, 2001; Postmes & Branscombe, 2002), and they express greater engagement in the educational process (Goldsmith, 2004). Further, positive links between the racial/ethnic diversity of schools and young people's academic achievement are particularly strong when students also have more same-race/ethnic peers at school (Benner & Crosnoe, 2011). The salience of the racial/ethnic composition of schools and adolescents' own racial/ethnic representation is also apparent in the school transition literature; such work suggests that adolescents who experience negative shifts in their same-racial/ethnic representation as they transition from middle to high school feel less connected to their schools, earn lower grades, and report greater school disengagement (Benner & Graham, 2009). Taken as a whole, this vein of literature suggests that race/ethnicity is a key driver of adolescent friendship formation, and young people are keenly aware of the representation of their racial/ethnic group in their schools. As such, when adolescents look to their peers for feedback, it is likely that same-race/ethnic peers are particularly important sources for self-evaluations, particularly when adolescents view themselves as out of step with racially/ethnically similar others. For example, Graham and colleagues (Bellmore, Witkow, Graham, & Juvonen, 2004; Graham, Bellmore, Nishina, & Juvonen, 2009) found that when adolescents have more same-race/ethnicity peers, the consequences of being victimized by peers are particularly detrimental, and they posit that this finding is due, in part, to the fact that these students' victimization is perceived as out of step with the experiences of their similar race/ethnicity classmates. Whether being incongruent academically with same-race/ethnicity peers– the focus of the current study–yields similar challenges for adolescents has yet to be explored, with the exception of research emerging from the oppositional identity literature on the so called “acting White” hypothesis (e.g., Fordham & Ogbu, 1986). A primary focus of this study is the consequences of deviation from same-race/ethnicity peers when those peers are doing better academically. The motivation for this line of inquiry stems, in part, from the broad literature on social comparisons and frog–pond effects. That is, students' academic self-concept suffers when the average performance of others in their schools is higher—specifically, social comparisons lead these “little fish” to get lost in the “big pond” of high performers. On the other hand, equal-ability students in lower achieving schools, the “big fish” in the “little pond,” tend to stand out academically from their struggling peers (see Marsh et al., 2008 for a review). In this line of research, congruence and incongruence with the average performance of all schoolmates generally are examined, yet this comparison group, although important, may not fully capture exactly whom adolescents target when making social comparisons. When considering academic achievement, race/ethnicity is particularly salient for adolescents, especially so for students of color (Farkas, 2003; Fuller-Rowell & Doan, 2010), and in considering the larger contexts in which they are embedded, there is evidence that adolescents and young adults are particularly in tune to the representation (or underrepresentation) of their same-race/ethnicity peers in their academic institutions (Loo & Rolison, 1986; Steinhorn & Diggs-Brown, 1999). Taken as a whole, this work suggests that the academic performance of same-race/ethnicity schoolmates is particularly relevant for young people.

1.3. Current study In the current study, school-wide academic performance of same-race/ethnicity peers is examined to assess the possible implications of incongruence between adolescents' academic performance (i.e., failing the high school exit examination) and the general academic performance of adolescents' same-race/ethnicity schoolmates. Failing a high-stakes exit examination is expected to be stressful in and of itself, but when racial/ethnic minority youth compare their academic achievement to racially/ ethnically similar others and they end up falling short, this event may be particularly difficult to manage. The focus was on how failing the reading portion, mathematics portion, or both portions of the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) was related to adolescents' developmental outcomes across domains—academics (i.e., grade point average [GPA] and teacher-rated engagement), perceptions of school belonging, and socioemotional well-being (i.e., depression and loneliness) especially when same-race/ethnicity peers were doing well academically. The CAHSEE was created in response to state legislation passed in 1999 that required students to pass English-language arts and mathematics tests in order to graduate from a public California high school; the class of 2006 was the first graduating class to be subjected to this mandate (Becker, Wise, & Watters, 2010). This short-term longitudinal study was an examination of the links between CAHSEE failure and adolescents' developmental outcomes across domains in the spring of the 11th grade (approximately one year after taking the exit examination), controlling for outcomes in each developmental domain in the fall of the 10th grade (prior to taking the exit examination). The developmental outcomes explored in the current study were selected because they represent critical competencies that have been consistently tied to negative life course outcomes, including school dropout, impaired close relationships, and antisocial behavior (e.g., Rumberger, 2001; Weissman et al., 1999). In line with the extant exit examination literature, it was expected that CAHSEE failure would be challenging for students' academic performance. Given the links between academic performance and both socioemotional adjustment and perceptions of school climate (such as belonging) documented in prior research, similar negative relations between CAHSEE failure and socioemotional well-being and school belonging were expected.

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A second aim of this research was to determine the extent to which the consequences of failing the CAHSEE were exacerbated when students attended schools where a majority of their same-race/ethnicity peers fared well academically (in other words, when students' performance was incongruent with that of their peers). Given the importance of peer congruence for adolescents' self-evaluations, it was hypothesized that the negative associations between CAHSEE failure and adolescents' development outcomes would be exacerbated when adolescents were in schools with higher-performing same-race/ethnicity peers. 2. Method 2.1. Participants Participants were 672 African American and Latino 10th grade students (73% Latino, 58% girls) involved in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Peer Relations Project, a larger longitudinal study of peer relations in middle and high school (Benner & Graham, 2009). All students had both parent consent and student assent for participation; consent and assent were originally obtained when students were in middle school, and parent consent and student assent were re-obtained for students once they transitioned to high school, with a re-consent rate greater than 80%. Both the middle and high school components of the study received approval from the university's Institutional Review Board, but only the high school data are used in the current study. Students attended 50 high schools across the greater Los Angeles, California area. The high schools were relatively large, enrolling approximately 1500 students on average, and they reflected the larger neighborhoods in which they were situated in terms of the socioeconomic and racial/ethnic diversity of the student body. On average, the sample included 13 students per school, although this varied by school (range = 1 to 92; SD = 19.3). Table 1 includes a description of the participant and school characteristics. Although the larger study from which the data are drawn (Benner & Graham, 2009) includes a racially/ethnically diverse group of adolescents, only African American and Latino students are included in the current study. First, due to the study focus on exit examination performance, 102 White and 123 Asian American students were excluded due to limited variability in exit examination performance—no White students and only three Asian American students failed the English/language arts portion of the exit exam, and only three White and two Asian American students failed the mathematics portion. Second, due to the central focus on the same-race/ethnicity peer academic performance, 98 biracial/multiethnic students were excluded from the current sample, as the California Department of Education (CDE) does not disaggregate the academic performance of students who are identified as more than one race/ethnicity from those who have no race/ethnicity identification included in their official school records. An additional 10 students were eliminated because the high school they attended could not be determined, and 19 students were eliminated because they did not have exit examination data for the spring of the 10th grade. More than 70% of participants in the final analytic sample had teacher survey data. Missing teacher survey data were not systematically related to

Table 1 Descriptive statistics for study variables. Variable

Full sample (N = 672) N

Percent failing one or both portions of exit exam Academic performance of same-race/ethnic peers Student outcomes — fall of the 10th grade Grade point average Teacher-rated student engagement Depressive symptoms Loneliness at school School belonging Student outcomes — spring of the 11th grade Grade point average Teacher-rated student engagement Depressive symptoms Loneliness at school School belonging Individual control variables Latino Girl Number of biological parents in household School-level control variables School student enrollment % Qualifying for free/reduced-price lunch Academic performance of student body Student body diversity Teaching staff diversity Teacher tenure

%

African American (n = 183) M

SD

36.6

%

M

SD

51.4

Latino (n = 489) %

M

SD

31.1

660

584.68

82.31

559.93

83.99

593.89

79.82

661 485 611 611 615

2.23 2.52 0.25 1.77 3.56

0.81 0.70 0.33 0.63 0.79

2.01 2.44 0.26 1.75 3.45

0.75 0.68 0.32 0.66 0.84

2.31 2.55 0.25 1.78 3.60

0.81 0.70 0.33 0.62 0.77

604 461 618 610 611

2.51 2.53 0.26 1.65 3.66

0.78 0.70 0.32 0.63 0.76

2.42 2.45 0.27 1.65 3.58

0.80 0.72 0.31 0.62 0.82

2.54 2.56 0.26 1.65 3.69

0.78 0.69 0.33 0.63 0.73

– 57.1

72.8 57.6

– 57.7

599

1.57

0.54

1.22

0.55

1.70

0.47

50 50 49 46 50 50

1481.78 64.54 620.41 0.46 0.59 11.78

1035.14 17.34 87.70 0.18 0.08 2.69

1701.79 59.66 611.28 0.48 0.59 11.96

993.56 18.90 88.33 0.18 0.09 2.73

1482.36 64.76 620.41 0.47 0.58 11.88

1028.44 17.73 85.64 0.17 0.08 2.80

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the other developmental outcomes included in the current study; however, teacher survey data were more likely to be missing in schools that were larger, t (668) = 2.44, p = .02, in schools with lower overall student performance, t (663) = − 4.63, p b .001, and in schools where teachers had fewer average years of experience, t (668) = − 3.05, p = .002. As seen in Table 1, there was little attrition across waves (range: 0.7% to 4.9%). 2.2. Measures In this study, data were drawn from student and teacher surveys, school records, and school demographic and performance data. Student and teacher survey data were drawn from the fall of the 10th grade (prior to the first administration of the CAHSEE) and the spring of the 11th grade (approximately one year after the first attempt at the CAHSEE). All measures are widely used in the adolescent literature and have published validity evidence from samples with similar populations as the current study (e.g., Buckner, Mezzacappa, & Beardslee, 2003; Huston et al., 2006; Payne, 2008). School record data (i.e., CAHSEE performance and GPA) were collected for all participating students each semester from school records provided by the school districts. School data (i.e., structural and demographic characteristics) were downloaded from the CDE website (www.cde.ca.gov). Descriptive statistics for all variables appear in Table 1. 2.2.1. High school exit examination performance Whether students met the minimum criteria for passing the English and mathematics tests from the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) was assessed with school records data. To graduate from a California high school, students are required to pass both sections of the high school exit examination, and those who fail one or both portions of the CAHSEE have multiple opportunities to retake the test. The focus of the current study was on whether or not students failed one or both sections of the CAHSEE on their first attempt (in the spring of the 10th grade); families were notified about CAHSEE results approximately 10 weeks after the test was administered. A dichotomous variable was created to identify CAHSEE failure. Those who failed either the English or mathematics portions of the CAHSEE or who failed both portions were coded as one (1); those students who passed both sections of the exam were coded as zero (0). 2.2.2. Educational performance Two measures assessed students' educational performance in the fall of grade 10 and spring of grade 11—GPA in school and school engagement. Grades for all core content and elective courses were drawn from school record data and coded on a 5-point scale (e.g., A = 4 and F = 0). Grades were then averaged to create a composite GPA measure. Teachers rated students' school engagement using six items from the Short Form of the Teacher Report of Engagement Questionnaire (Wellborn & Connell, 1991). A sample item is “This student works hard in my class.” Ratings ranged from 1 (never) to 4 (always), with higher mean scores reflecting greater engagement. The reliability of the measure is supported by previous research with low-income and minority samples (e.g., Leventhal, Fauth, & Brooks-Gunn, 2005), and in the current sample, α = .90 and α = .88 in the 10th and 11th grades, respectively. GPA and teacher-rated engagement were moderately correlated at each data collection wave (r = .43 and .47 at the fall of the 10th grade and the spring of the 11th grade, respectively). 2.2.3. Socioemotional well-being Students' socioemotional well-being was assessed with two measures in the fall of the 10th grade and the spring of the 11th grade. Students' depressive symptoms were measured with the 10-item Children's Depression Inventory (CDI; Kovacs, 1992), a measure that has been extensively used with a variety of youth populations, including students with the same age and demographic background as those in the current study (see Twenge & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2002 for a review). For each item, students were presented with three statements and asked to select the one which best described how they felt in the past two weeks (e.g., “I do not feel alone” [scored as 0], “I feel alone often” [scored as 1], and “I feel alone all the time” [scored as 2]). Higher mean scores indicated greater depressive symptoms. In this sample, α = .86 and α = .85 in the 10th and 11th grades, respectively. Students' feelings of loneliness at school were assessed with a modified version of the 16-item Loneliness Scale (Asher & Wheeler, 1985), a measure with previously published reliability evidence with low-income and minority populations (e.g., Storch, Nock, Masia-Warner, & Barlas, 2003 using a diverse sample of 5th and 6th grade students). Minor modifications were made by UCLA Peer Relations Project researchers to make it more appropriate for adolescents. For example, “I don't have anyone to play with” was changed to “I don't have anyone to hang out with.” For each item, students rated how true the statement was for them, from 1 (always true) to 5 (not true at all). Items were coded such that higher mean scores indicated more loneliness at school. In this sample, α = .92 and α = .93 in the 10th and 11th grades, respectively. Depressive symptoms and loneliness were moderately correlated at each data collection wave (r = .51 and .49 at the fall of the 10th grade and spring of the 11th grade, respectively). 2.2.4. Perceptions of school belonging School belonging was assessed in the fall of the 10th grade and spring of the 11th grade using five items from Gottfredson's (1984) Effective School Battery, which has previously been used in studies with race/ethnic minority and low-income high school students (e.g., Chen, 2008). A sample item is “I feel like I'm a part of this school.” Items were rated from 1 (for sure yes!) to 5 (no way!) and were reverse coded, such that higher mean scores reflected greater feelings of school belonging. In this sample, α = .75 and α = .73 in the 10th and 11th grades, respectively.

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2.2.5. Academic performance of same-race/ethnic peers As part of adequate yearly progress (AYP) reporting requirements tied to the No Child Left Behind school accountability legislation, schools must report academic performance data for the entire school and provide disaggregated performance data for certain groups, including racial/ethnic groups. In California, school performance data center on Academic Performance Index (API) base scores. High schools' API base scores are determined by student performance on California's statewide assessment program, including results on the California Standards Tests (CSTs), which measure progress toward content standards in the core-content areas from 9th to 11th grades, the California Alternate Performance Assessment, administered to students with learning disabilities that exempt them from taking the CSTs, and the CAHSEE; students' GPAs are not included in API calculations. API scores range from 200 to 1000, with the state's target API performance score set at 800 for all schools. The CDE provides an API score for the entire school as well as disaggregated by racial/ethnic group. In the current study, the academic performance of same-race/ethnic peers was determined by identifying the disaggregated API data for the appropriate race/ethnic group matched to student self-reported race/ethnicity. It is important to note that students who passed the CAHSEE can be in schools where the API scores for same race/ethnic peers are low. 2.2.6. Individual and school demographic controls A number of student and school control variables were included. Students self-reported their gender (1 = girl, 0 = boy), race/ ethnicity (1 = African American, 0 = Latino), and family structure (number of non-stepparents in the household). At the school level, analyses controlled for the overall API for the school, the percentage of students at the school receiving free- or reduced-price lunch (FRPL), teacher tenure (total number of years teaching), total student body enrollment, and racial/ethnic diversity of the student body and teaching staff. Diversity scores were computed using Simpson's (1949) index of diversity, which accounts for both the number of race/ethnic groups represented and the relative proportion of each group (see Juvonen, Nishina, & Graham, 2006). The diversity index yields a value ranging from 0 to 1, with higher scores indicating greater racial/ethnic diversity. This value represents the probability that any two randomly selected students or teachers will be from different race/ ethnic groups.

2.3. Procedures All students who had parental consent and provided assent completed the questionnaires. During questionnaire administration, students were generally pulled from elective classes, and survey administration typically occurred in empty rooms in the schools (e.g., libraries and unassigned classrooms). Questionnaires, which took approximately 40 min to complete, were read aloud by trained research assistants as small groups of adolescents provided individual responses on their questionnaires. Each student participant's English teacher also completed the student engagement questionnaire. In the rare case where an English teacher was unable to complete the questionnaire, a teacher in one of the student's other core-content classes (i.e., mathematics, science, or social studies) completed the questionnaire. Participating students and teachers received small monetary compensation for their participation.

2.4. Analysis plan An initial multiple regression model with a maximum likelihood-robust estimator explored the extent to which students' failure on the high school exit examination was linked to subsequent educational performance, socioemotional well-being, and perceptions of school. All developmental outcomes were included in a single analytic model, acknowledging the interconnected nature of adolescents' development across domains. A second multiple regression model introduced an interaction term that examined the extent to which the relationship between exit examination failure and students' developmental outcomes varied according to the overall academic performance of students' same-race/ethnic peers at school. This model also included the main effects of both exit examination failure and same-race/ethnicity peer academic performance and integrated all five outcomes in a single model. To provide more robust coefficient estimates, both regression models included autoregressive paths that accounted for earlier measures of students' developmental outcomes (e.g., GPA in the 11th grade was regressed on GPA in the 10th grade along with all primary predictors and control variables). Finally, separate multiple-group models explored whether observed associations between exit examination failure, same-race/ethnicity peer academic performance, and student outcomes varied as a function of student gender or race/ethnicity. An alpha of .05 was used for all tests of statistical significance. All analyses were conducted using Mplus 6.1 (Muthen & Muthen, 1998–2010). In the current study, students were nested within schools, and the CLUSTER function, in combination with TYPE = COMPLEX and the maximum likelihood-robust estimation method, was used to account for such clustering and produce correctly adjusted standard errors in model estimations. The current dataset also included some missing data. Mplus handles missing data through full-information maximum likelihood (FIML), enabling inclusion of all available data in the analyses. FIML does not estimate missing data, as is the case with mean- or regression-based imputation techniques; rather, it fits the covariance structure model directly to the observed (and available) raw data for each student (Enders, 2001). Missing data are a potential source of concern for all longitudinal studies, and FIML is a preferred method allowing for generalization of results to the population (see Schafer & Graham, 2002) under the assumption that the data are missing at random.

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3. Results 3.1. Exit examination failure and subsequent developmental outcomes The first model used multiple regression to examine the association between failing the high school exit examination on the first attempt and adolescents' subsequent developmental outcomes. This analysis controlled for developmental outcomes prior to taking the CAHSEE as well as a set of individual- and school-level covariates. As seen in the lower portion of Table 2, there were few consistent covariate effects, with two notable exceptions. First, prior well-being (in the 10th grade) was, not surprisingly, strongly related to subsequent well-being in the 11th grade. Gender but not race/ethnicity effects were observed in the academic domain, with girls earning higher GPAs and exhibiting stronger school engagement than boys; neither gender nor race/ethnicity effects were observed for socioemotional well-being or school belonging. The remaining covariate effects reported in Table 2 were sporadic but were retained in the models for both empirical and theoretical reasons. After controlling for all covariates, as is evident in the first row in Table 2, exit examination failure was associated with both educational performance and perceptions of school belonging one year later but was unrelated to socioemotional well-being during the same period. Specifically, when students failed the CAHSEE on their first attempt, they subsequently earned lower grades in school and were rated as less academically engaged by their teachers the following year. Effect sizes for these relations exceeded the size of all other covariate effects. 3.2. Exit examination failure in the context of academic performance of same-race/ethnicity peers The next model examined the extent to which the relations between failing the exit examination and adolescents' subsequent developmental outcomes one year later were more or less pronounced depending on how well adolescents' same-race/ethnicity peers were performing academically. As with the base model, the interaction model controlled for a number of individual and school covariates as well as prior well-being (measured in the 10th grade). It was hypothesized that the links between exit examination failure and adolescents' subsequent outcomes would be more pronounced when adolescents' same-race/ethnicity peers were performing better academically (i.e., when adolescents deviated from the academic norms of similar others). As seen in the lower portion of Table 3, the effects of covariates (individual and school characteristics and developmental outcomes measured before adolescents took the CAHSEE for the first time) were practically identical to those observed in the base model. As expected and as evident in the third row of Table 3, interaction effects between exit examination failure and the academic performance (API) of same-race/ethnic peers emerged as significant predictors of GPA, depressive symptoms, and loneliness at school. The effect sizes of the interactions (i.e., the standardized coefficients in Table 3) generally exceeded those of all other modeled relationships, with the exception of the autoregressive paths for the indicators of socioemotional well-being. As seen in Fig. 1, adolescents who failed the CAHSEE had significantly lower GPAs when they were in schools where their same-race/ethnic peers were performing well academically (0.5 SD above the API mean; see Aiken & West, 1991) versus when in schools where their peers were not performing as well academically (0.5 SD below the API mean). In contrast, adolescents who passed the CAHSEE on the first attempt had similar GPAs regardless of how well their same-race/ethnic peers were performing. As an Table 2 Relation between exit examination failure and student developmental outcomes across domains. Variable

Exit examination failure in 10th grade Prior well-being in 10th grade Individual control variables Gender (girl) Race/ethnicity (African American) Number of biological parents School-level control variables School student enrollment % FRPL Academic performance of student body Student body diversity Teaching staff diversity Teacher tenure

Developmental outcome in the 11th grade Grade point average

School engagement

Depressive symptoms

Loneliness at school

School belonging

β (SE)

β (SE)

β (SE)

β (SE)

β (SE)

−.15 (.05)⁎⁎ .50 (.04)⁎⁎⁎

−.20 (.05)⁎⁎⁎ .26 (.05)⁎⁎⁎

.13 (.04)⁎⁎⁎ −.01 (.05) .02 (.05)

.13 (.04)⁎⁎⁎ −.02 (.05) .05 (.05)

.01 (.03) .01 (.03) −.01 (.05)

−.02 (.04) −.06 (.04) −.09 (.04)⁎

−.01 .04 −.10 .11 .05 −.03

−.06 (.04) .14 (.06)⁎⁎ −.13 (.06)⁎ .14 (.09) −.16 (.07)⁎

.04 (.03) .06 (.04) .10 (.06) .01 (.04) .03 (.05) −.13 (.05)⁎⁎

.03 (.02) .02 (.04) .01 (.07) .07 (.05) .08 (.04)⁎ −.06 (.06)

(.04) (.04) (.06) (.07) (.05) (.04)

.08 (.05)

.03 (.03) .59 (.04)⁎⁎⁎

−.01 (.04) .62 (.04)⁎⁎⁎

−.05 (.03) .57 (.03)⁎⁎⁎ .05 (.03) .04 (.05) .02 (.03) −.09 .03 −.01 −.03 −.00 .06

(.03)⁎⁎⁎ (.04) (.06) (.06) (.05) (.05)

Note. N = 672. Exit examination failure is a dichotomous indicator indicating failure on one or both portions of the high school exit examination. All student outcomes measured in the spring of the 11th grade. Prior outcomes = the construct of interest measured prior to exit examination administration (e.g., for GPA, prior outcome is the GPA in the fall of the 10th grade). Race/ethnicity is a dummy variable for African American (versus Latino). Gender is a dummy-coded variable for girl (versus boy). FRPL = free- or reduced price lunch. ⁎⁎⁎ p b .001. ⁎⁎ p b .01. ⁎ p b .05.

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Table 3 Relation among exit examination failure, same-race/ethnic peer academic performance, and students' developmental outcomes across domains. Variable

Developmental outcome in 11th grade School engagement (R2 = .20)

Grade point average (R2 = .37) β (SE) Exit examination failure in 10th grade Academic performance (API) of same-race/ethnic peers Exit exam failure-by-same-race/ethnic peer API interaction Prior outcome in 10th grade Individual control variables Gender (girl) Race/ethnicity (African American) Number biological parents School-level control variables School student enrollment % FRPL Academic performance of student body Student body diversity Teaching staff diversity Teacher tenure

Depressive symptoms (R2 = .38)

β (SE)

.46 (.22)⁎ −.19 (.20)

−.13 (.35) .24 (.19)

−.59 (.22)⁎⁎

−.08 (.35)

Loneliness at school (R2 = .42)

β (SE) −.31 (.13)⁎ .23 (.17)

β (SE) −.45 (.24) −.15 (.19)

.32 (.12)⁎⁎

.43 (.22)⁎

.59 (.05)⁎⁎⁎

.62 (.04)⁎⁎⁎

.50 (.04)⁎⁎⁎

.25 (.05)⁎⁎⁎

.14 (.03)⁎⁎⁎ −.03 (.04) .02 (.05)

.13 (.04)⁎⁎⁎ −.00 (.05) .05 (.05)

.01 (.03) .03 (.03) −.02 (.05)

−.02 (.04) −.04 (.04) −.10 (.04)⁎

−.00 (.04) .03 (.04) .17 (.20) .07 (.06) .05 (.05) −.07 (.04)

−.65 .14 −.38 .15 −.18 .10

.03 (.02) .06 (.03) −.18 (.20) .03 (.04) .02 (.05) −.10 (.05)⁎

.02 .03 −.20 .08 .07 −.04

(.04) (.05)⁎⁎ (.20) (.09) (.07)⁎ (.05)⁎

(.02) (.04) (.20) (.05) (.04) (.06)

School belonging (R2 = .35) β (SE) .17 (.23) −.03 (.18) −.21 (.23) .57 (.03)⁎⁎⁎ .05 (.03) .04 (.05) .02 (.03) −.08 (.03)⁎⁎⁎ .02 (.04) .05 (.22) −.03 (.06) −.00 (.05) .05 (.06)

Note. N = 672. Exit examination failure is a dichotomous indicator indicating failure on one or both portions of the high school exit examination. All student outcomes are measured in the spring of the 11th grade. API = Academic Performance Index. Prior outcome = the construct of interest measured prior to exit examination administration (e.g., for GPA, prior outcome is the GPA in the fall of the 10th grade). Race/ethnicity is a dummy variable for African American (versus Latino). Gender is a dummy-coded variable for girl (versus boy). FRPL = free- or reduced price lunch. ⁎⁎⁎ p b .001. ⁎⁎ p b .01. ⁎ p b .05.

additional check of the group differences, the test of simple slopes (Aiken & West, 1991) revealed that the slope was significant for GPA for those who failed the CAHSEE (p b .001) but was nonsignificant for those who passed the CAHSEE (p = .28). A similar pattern was observed for adolescents' socioemotional well-being (see Fig. 2). As seen in the left panel of Fig. 2, adolescents who failed the CAHSEE reported significantly more depressive symptoms when in schools with more high-performing same-race/ethnicity peers (as measured by the API). In contrast, the depressive symptoms of adolescents who passed the CAHSEE on the first attempt were less dependent on how well their same-race/ethnicity peers were doing academically. Tests of simple slopes identified a significant slope for depressive symptoms for those who failed the CAHSEE (p = .007) but a nonsignificant slope for those who passed the CAHSEE (p = .10). Findings for feelings of loneliness at school mirror these results (see the right panel of Fig. 2). However, the slopes for loneliness were nonsignificant for both students who failed and students who passed the CAHSEE (p = .15 and .78, respectively).

Grade Point Average

2.9 2.7 2.5 2.3 2.1 Low same-race API passed exit exam

High same-race API failed exit exam

Fig. 1. Grade point average for students who passed versus those who failed the high school exit examination and who vary on the academic performance of their same-race/ethnic peers. Note. API = Academic Performance Index. High same-race/ethnic peer API is 0.5 SD or more above the mean; low same-race/ethnic peer API is 0.5 SD or more below the mean.

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Loneliness at School

Depressive Symptoms

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0.3 0.2 0.1 0

2.1 1.9 1.7 1.5 1.3

Low same-race API passed exit exam

High same-race API failed exit exam

Low same-race API passed exit exam

High same-race API failed exit exam

Fig. 2. Socioemotional well-being for students who passed versus those who failed the high school exit examination and who vary on the academic performance of their same-race/ethnic peers. Note. API = Academic Performance Index. High same-race/ethnic peer API is 0.5 SD or more above the mean; low same-race/ ethnic peer API is 0.5 SD or more below the mean.

3.3. Variation in patterns of relations across gender and race/ethnicity The final set of analyses examined variation by adolescents' gender or race/ethnicity in (a) the main effects of exit examination failure or academic performance of same-race/ethnicity peers on subsequent developmental outcomes or (b) the effects of the interaction of the two constructs. Per the recommendations of Bollen (1989), these multiple-group analyses involved a stepwise process that included running a fully unconstrained model and then introducing constraints on model parameters (e.g., constraining a parameter to be the same across girls and boys) and observing whether doing so led to a significant decline in model fit. Satorra–Bentler strictly positive robust chi-square difference tests (Satorra & Bentler, 2010) were used to test the changes in model fit. The strictly positive difference test integrates an exact scaling correction into the difference testing, which is necessitated by the use of maximum likelihood-robust estimations; the exact calculation ensures that the scaling correction factor is always positive, an improvement over previous calculations that only approximated the scaling correction (i.e., Satorra & Bentler, 2001). Results from multiple-group analyses revealed no differences in the strength of relations between the primary predictors and adolescents' developmental outcomes by gender, Δχ 2SB = 15.4, p = .63, suggesting that the pattern of main effects and the interaction operated similarly across girls and boys. A separate multiple-group analysis examined the possible differences in the main or interaction effects as a function of adolescents' race/ethnicity. The fully constrained model fit the data significantly more poorly than the unconstrained model, Δχ 2SB = 247.2, p b .001, suggesting that group differences existed. Each main effect and interaction effect were then constrained separately to identify exactly where differences existed across the five outcome variables measured in the 11th grade. Difference tests were significant for the main effects of same-race/ethnic peer academic performance on teacher-rated engagement and loneliness at school. For African American students, same-race/ethnic peer performance (API) was significantly linked to engagement (β = − .29, p b .001) and loneliness (β = − .15, p b .001); these relationships were not significant for the Latino students in our sample (β = .03, p = .63 and β = .07, p = .06, for engagement and loneliness, respectively). No group differences emerged for the interactions, the primary relations of interest. 4. Discussion The goal of this study was to identify the possible correlates of exit examination failure across developmental domains and the extent to which such associations were contingent on the academic performance of adolescents' same-race/ethnic peers. A significant relation was observed between exit examination failure and adolescents' subsequent grades in school, academic engagement, and feelings of school belonging approximately one year later, with these analyses controlling for an extensive set of individual and school characteristics as well as academic and socioemotional well-being prior to taking the exit examination. Results for grades were consistent with the limited prior research on exit examinations' negative associations with adolescents' academic performance and school persistence (see Holme et al., 2010 for a review). This previous work is extended by the current study through the exploration of a neglected academic domain (i.e., school engagement) and expansion of the developmental focus to identify other developmental outcomes related to CAHSEE failure (i.e., mental health and connections to school). Although the results reported here suggest that failing the exit examination on the first attempt seemingly contributes to poorer academic performance, disengagement from academic pursuits, and feelings of a lack of belonging to the school, the mechanisms through which exit examination failure exerts its influence are unknown. At the individual level, a strong link between academic efficacy and motivation and students' academic performance is consistently found in prior research (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Pajares, 2009). It is possible that when adolescents failed the exit examination, they subsequently felt less efficacious and more dissuaded from academic pursuits, leading to the academic struggles and school disconnection observed here. In addition to this more internalized mechanism, school-level mechanisms may also be at play in the link between CAHSEE failure and academics. For example, lower teacher expectations are associated with poorer student academic performance and competency beliefs (Benner & Mistry, 2007; Smith, Jussim, & Eccles, 1999), and it is posited that one mechanism by which low

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expectations exert their influence is through teacher actions (e.g., provision of less feedback and support and assignment of less challenging classwork and homework; Diamond, Randolph, & Spillane, 2004; Rubie-Davies, 2007). It is possible that such mechanisms operate similarly for the relations under consideration in the current study—when students failed the exit examination, teachers may have adjusted their expectations for these students' educational promise, and teachers' subsequent interactions with and instruction of these students may have reflected their lowered expectations, which then ultimately contributed to the self-fulfilling prophecy of poor academic performance (Jussim & Harber, 2005). Along similar lines, schools may implement various interventions to ensure that students pass the CAHSEE on subsequent attempts; to the extent that these interventions single out failing students, making their CAHSEE performance more apparent to their peers, the interventions may have unintended negative consequences for students' subsequent developmental outcomes. These possible mechanisms should be explored in future research. 4.1. The role of academic performance of same-race/ethnicity peers In the current study, of primary interest was whether the observed links between CAHSEE failure and developmental outcomes were exacerbated by mismatches in academic performance between adolescents and their same-race/ethnicity peers. Support for the initial hypothesis was found—when adolescents were in schools where their same-race/ethnicity peers performed well academically (as measured by the API), CAHSEE failure was particularly problematic for GPA and socioemotional well-being. Such incongruence, however, was not related to adolescents' school engagement or belonging. Regarding socioemotional well-being, no direct links between CAHSEE failure and either adolescents' loneliness or depressive symptoms were observed. Instead, it appears that these associations were conditioned by how same-race/ethnic peers were performing academically. That socioemotional well-being indicators seemed to be particularly sensitive to incongruence between adolescents' own academic performance and that of their same-race/ethnicity peers was expected for both theoretical and empirical reasons. Theoretically, the life course perspective stresses the import of person–context interactions and the matches between individuals and their environments (Elder, 1985). Mismatches or incongruence between individuals and their environments can take a negative toll developmentally (see Schulenberg & Maggs, 2002 for an example related to alcohol use). Empirically, researchers have documented that when adolescents' self-identified crowd affiliations were corroborated by their peers, socioemotional advantages were conferred, in terms of higher self-esteem and lower depression, particularly for high status crowd affiliations (Brown, Von Bank, & Steinberg, 2008). Similarly, in the realm of peer norms, Masten, Juvonen, and Spatzier (2009) observed that perceptions of peer norms were related to adolescents' social behavior, and deviation from peer norms was found to heighten emotional distress (Crosnoe, Muller, & Frank, 2004). In the current study, the exact mechanisms by which deviating from peer norms influenced adolescents' developmental outcomes could not be determined, but the victimization literature may provide insights. Graham et al. (2009) observed that when an adolescent was victimized in a school at which that adolescent belonged to the racial/ethnic majority group, such experiences were particularly challenging for socioemotional adjustment and arose due to self-blaming attributions. That is, adolescents seemed to attribute victimization to something about themselves, believing that the victimization represented social misfit with the majority's experience. In the context of the current study, it may be that when adolescents failed the exit examination but were surrounded by high-performing same-race/ethnicity peers, they may have been more likely to attribute the failure to something internal (“I'm just not smart enough”), and such self-blaming attributions may have exacerbated the negative academic and psychological toll of exit examination failure. It is widely documented in attribution research that failure attributed to low ability is related to low expectations and reduced persistence on academic tasks (see Graham & Weiner, 2011), which could explain the links observed between exit examination failure and subsequent academic performance and engagement in the current study. Taken as a whole, the findings reported here, in concert with the extant literature, suggest that scholars should place greater attention on the incongruence between adolescents and their proximal developmental contexts and the mechanisms by which such incongruence exerts its influence. 4.2. Caveats, limitations, and implications for future research Although findings from the current study contribute to the nascent literature base on the implications of exit examinations and highlight the critical nature of person–context interactions, some limitations and caveats should be noted. First, in determining incongruence in academic performance of same-race/ethnicity peers, a school-wide measure of peer academic performance was used. Ideally, data would be specific to students' more immediate peer networks in order to gauge the academic performance of adolescents' close friends, but such data were not available with this data set. However, given consistent evidence of racial/ethnic homophily in adolescents' friendship patterns (Aboud et al., 2003) and the associations of incongruence between adolescents and their peers and developmental outcomes observed in the current study (even after taking into account performance of all schoolmates), same-race/ethnicity peers' achievement appears to be a reasonable, albeit not perfect, proxy. A second limitation of the current study is the limited focus on African American and Latino adolescents. Although these race/ ethnic minority groups are at particular risk for academic difficulties across the life course (Chapman, Laird, Ifill, & KewalRamani, 2011), a broader focus on the implications of exit examination failure for other racial/ethnic groups would be ideal. The White and Asian American students in the current sample passed the CAHSEE almost universally, thus requiring their exclusion from analyses. As such, the extent to which the relations observed in the current study generalize to these populations is an unknown, as is whether the strength of the relations observed would be similar for these race/ethnic groups. One could hypothesize, for

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example, that exit examination failure (and deviation from the academic achievement of their same-race/ethnicity peers) might be particularly challenging for the developmental outcomes of Asian American youth who, in addition to facing incongruence with their schoolmates, could also face additional repercussions of failure to conform to the model minority stereotype (Lee, 1996) and upending the academic expectations of and academic obligations to their families (Chao & Tseng, 2002). Whether the relations (and strengths of relations) under study here can be replicated with more racially/ethnically diverse samples should be explored in a future inquiry. Also related to sampling, only those students who persisted in school following exit examination failure were included in the current study, introducing possible issues of selection bias and limiting the generalizability of the findings reported here. This limitation is mitigated by the short-term longitudinal nature of the study and inclusion of autoregressive pathways that purge much of the intra-individual or omitted error bias inherent in observational data (Mayer & Carroll, 1988; Singer & Willett, 2003). These techniques allow one to better deal with issues of selection bias, a significant improvement over more traditional ordinary least square regression-based analyses. Although a link between exit examination failure and students' school attachment and performance is suggested by the current study, causal inferences cannot be drawn. In prior research, the negative associations between exit examination exposure and math proficiency levels and rates of school completion have been documented (Muller, 1998; Warren et al., 2006), but it is possible that a third variable is at work here. For example, states implementing exit examinations may have other shared characteristics that influence student success (e.g., higher curriculum standards and policies limiting or eliminating social promotion). Similarly, in line with the findings presented here, prior scholarship has highlighted a negative link between exit examination failure and adolescents' educational expectations and school persistence (Catterall, 1989; Griffin & Heidorn, 1996), but critics of this research suggest that contrasting students failing exit examinations to those who pass, regardless of actual passing performance, does not provide a compelling comparison group and such analyses may be overestimating the effects of exit examination failure. Such critics highlight the utility of regression discontinuity designs that compare students who are just above and just below the exit examination proficiency cut-off. Limited work using regression discontinuity designs has yielded some evidence of links between exit examination failure and school dropout (Ou, 2009; Papay, Murnane, & Willett, 2010), but inconsistencies in these associations also have been documented (Reardon, Arshan, Atteberry, & Kurlaender, 2010). Clearly, additional exploration of issues of causality using advanced statistical methods such as regression discontinuity designs is warranted. In future research, scholars could also take advantage of natural experiments tied to the timing of exit examination implementation, comparing student performance and school persistence and dropout rates (a) before and after exit examinations were implemented or (b) before and after implementation of the high-stakes requirements of exit examinations. (Some states, such as California, implemented exit examinations but delayed tying exit examination passage to graduation until a few years after initial implementation.) The associations between subsequent exit examination performance and adolescents' developmental outcomes should also be explored. Development is structured by turning points, which can deflect life course trajectories (Elder, 1998). In the current study, negative educational and socioemotional outcomes were observed for exit examination failure, and it is possible that this failure deflected adolescents' life course trajectories not only in the short-term but also in the long-term. In future inquiry, researchers should examine the long-term implications of exit examination failure. This should include not only links between academic performance and failure on subsequent exit examination attempts but also whether deflected academic trajectories ultimately result in more abridged educational pursuits (e.g., high school dropout or limited or no postsecondary school attendance). Also important is additional attention to whether passing exit examinations on a subsequent attempt facilitates getting students back on track both educationally and socioemotionally. 4.3. Implications for school-based practices The findings reported here suggest that implementation of high-stakes testing, which was established to prevent students from being left behind and ensure better college readiness, may have unintended negative costs for adolescents across developmental domains. And these costs are seemingly conditioned on the academic incongruence between adolescents and their peers. Clearly, school accountability and testing requirements are going to continue to be a mainstay in the public education arena, and thus educators and policymakers must focus instead on strategies to provide both academic and emotional support to those students who struggle to perform at proficiency levels. School psychologists and other school personnel may benefit from professional development that enhances their awareness of the possible associations between failing high-stakes exit examinations and students' well-being beyond the more expected academic difficulties, particularly when in schools where poor academic performance deviates from the norm. Schools generally provide academic support for students who fail exit examinations, but the research reported here suggests that such failures may permeate other aspects of students' well-being as well, lending credence to the need for more multifaceted interventions following exit examination failure. Moreover, recognizing the particular repercussions of exit examination failure in the context of academic incongruence can help school psychologists better target students most in need of support following exit examination failure, both in schools where such failures are rare or more rampant. This action may be particularly pertinent in schools where exit examination is more common because, although school psychologists likely recognize the general problem of exit examination failure, they may be less attuned to the particular challenges of what such failure means for students whose performance is incongruent with their same-race/ethnicity peers. Interventions should be similarly sensitive to these issues and how students make meaning of their failure in comparison to similar others. Interventions should integrate methods that help students maintain hope, recognize the exit examination failure

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as a temporary setback, and reference prior histories of similar others who initially failed the exit examination but passed on their subsequent attempt. Such work also suggests that the ramifications of school policies that make relative academic performance more salient, such as academic tracking and class rankings, may extend to exit examinations, as these policies establish clear delineations among students in a school, thus making students more aware of their relative position in the academic stratum. Such policies have been under criticism for some time (Oakes, 2005), and evidence from the current study can further contribute to this policy debate. 4.4. Conclusion Overall, the work reported here suggests that greater attention to the repercussions of failing high stakes exit examinations, particularly in the face of the academic performance of similar others, is warranted. 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