“I was told it would help with my Psychology”: Do post-16 Core Maths qualifications in England support other subjects?

Figures & data

Table 1. Participating institutions (pseudonyms) and type, geographical location, awarding body, course length.

Case study	Institution type	Region of England	Core Maths specification^1	Course length (years)
Ball Comprehensive School	11–18 schools	North East	AQA	2
Bismut Academy		East Midlands	OCR	1
Donaldson High School		West Midlands	AQA	2
Lions Academy		East Midlands	OCR	1
Mumford High School		Yorkshire and Humberside	OCR	2
Palis High School		London and the South East	Edexcel	2
Coates Studio	14–19 studio school	North West	AQA	1
Rousseau UTC	14–19 UTC	West Midlands	AQA	2
Arnold College	General FE colleges	West Midlands	AQA	1
Jones College		North West	AQA	1 and 2
Dickenstein SFC	Sixth Form Colleges (16-19)	Yorkshire and Humberside	OCR	1
Mori SFC		North East	Edexcel	1
Viana SFC		North West	AQA	2

Table 2. Sample sizes for attainment comparison (NPD).

Qualifications with highest number of entries for Core Maths students (2018)	Had a Core Maths qualification?			Total in cohort
	No	Yes	% With Core Maths
Psychology A-level	43,844	936	2.1%	44,780
Biology A-level	25,591	800	3.0%	26,391
Business Studies A-level	20,760	632	3.0%	21,392
Geography A-level	20,869	551	2.6%	21,420
Chemistry A-level	12,212	446	3.5%	12,658

Table 3. Comparison of raw attainment in five qualifications (NPD, 2018).

Qualification	Had a Core Maths qualification?	N	Mean points	Std. deviation	Std. error mean	CI lower	CI upper	Difference as % of grade = 100 × points difference/10	p-Value	Cohen’s d
Psychology	No	43844	31.90	13.67	0.065	31.77	32.03	−4.6	0.308	0.02
	Yes	936	31.44	12.49	0.408	30.63	32.26
Biology	No	25591	28.52	14.50	0.091	28.34	28.70	−16.2	0.002	0.08
	Yes	800	26.90	13.86	0.490	25.92	27.88
Business Studies	No	20760	31.94	12.61	0.087	31.77	32.12	−12.9	0.011	0.07
	Yes	632	30.65	12.64	0.503	29.64	31.65
Geography	No	20869	34.84	12.82	0.089	34.66	35.01	−18.0	0.001	0.10
	Yes	551	33.03	12.11	0.516	32.00	34.06
Chemistry	No	12212	27.41	14.56	0.132	27.14	27.67	−22.9	0.001	0.11
	Yes	446	25.11	13.86	0.657	23.80	26.43

Data source: NPD, 2018.

Table 4. Core Maths coefficient in multi-level model comparing A-level attainment (NPD, 2018).

A-level subject	Core Maths estimate				Std. error	df	t	p-Value
	Points	% of grade	95% Confidence interval for points
Psychology	0.17	1.7	−0.64	0.99	0.42	35197	−0.42	0.68
Biology	0.37	3.7	−0.58	1.31	0.48	16369	−0.76	0.45
Business Studies	−1.28	−12.8	−2.27	−0.29	0.50	15605	2.54	0.01
Geography	−0.46	−4.6	−1.46	0.55	0.51	14821	0.89	0.37
Chemistry	−0.04	−0.4	−1.38	1.30	0.68	7724	0.06	0.95

Data source: NPD, 2018.