School-based uniformed youth group participation showed no evidence of benefit for pupils' academic attainment, with small negative but low-quality effect estimates¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2016 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? In a school-level RCT, there was no evidence that access to uniformed youth group activities improved KS2–KS3 progress in English or maths; attainment effect estimates were small and negative but of very low data quality. → Gorard et al. 2016

Evidence¶

Gorard et al. 2016¶

Stephen Gorard, Beng Huat See, Nadia Siddiqui, Emma Smith and Patrick White. (2016). Youth Social Action Trials: Youth United — Evaluation report and executive summary. Education Endowment Foundation. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED581107

q3 · i? · causal · r2

Two-group school-level randomised controlled trial with 71 schools; primary attainment outcomes were KS2–KS3 progress in English and maths. The report concludes "no evidence that the intervention had any benefit" and that the negative suggestion rests on data too weak for confidence.

"There is no evidence that the intervention had any benefit in terms of pupils’ academic performance. Although the attainment data suggests a small negative impact, the quality of this data is too low to draw this conclusion with confidence."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Prior evidence on uniformed youth group impacts lacked robust designs, with no comparison groups and reliance on self-report — related
• For FSM-eligible pupils there was no evidence of positive impact on attainment or self-reported character attributes — related
• Participation in uniformed youth groups is associated with small improvements in self-reported self-confidence and teamwork — related
• Pupils, teachers and parents held very positive views about the uniformed youth group intervention — related