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S ummary . Longitudinal data contained in the National Child Development Study (NCDS) cohort was used in a Department of Education and Science (DES) funded investigation of whether changes of school adversely affect children's attainment and behaviour. There have been a number of studies which have investigated these effects but the results have been conflicting and confusing. Recently a series of major studies has shown that it may be especially dangerous to draw conclusions based on ex post facto data in this field. This research note discusses some aspects of the research methodology adopted in this study to overcome the deficiences of some of the earlier mobility projects. The findings, based on a series of multivariate analyses, support the view that differences in the academic attainment of children who change school generally existed prior to the move.
Blane et al. (Fri,) studied this question.