With Euro 2012 coming up next summer, we should be aware of this issue and see what kind of support schools can provide to help students’ concentration.
School students who take their GCSEs during a major international football tournament - such as the FIFA World Cup or the UEFA European Championship - get worse exam results than they would in a football-free summer. That is the central finding of new research published by the University of Bristol. Professor Simon Burgess and Steven Proud of the University of Bristol's Centre for Market and Public Organisation (CMPO) and Robert Metcalfe of the University of Oxford have analysed the GCSE records of around three and a half million school students over seven years. Their study finds that: · School students who sat their exams in even-numbered years when there was a big summer football event tended to put in less effort and get worse results on average than those who took their exams in years without major tournaments. The size of the effect on students' educational outcomes varies a great deal depending on the degree to which students reduce effort, which in turn depends on their interest in football. The average effect on specific exams taken during the tournament is about a quarter of a grade per subject. This is equivalent to half of the effect of having an ineffective teacher as opposed to an effective teacher.
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