The (heterogeneous) effect of CLIL on content-subject and cognitive acquisition in primary education: evidence from a counterfactual analysis in Italy

ABSTRACT

This article claims to provide evidence on whether content-subject and cognitive achievement vary in CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) and non-CLIL classrooms in the framework of a newly introduced CLIL programme in Italy. A standardized and validated science test (TIMSS) was administered to a sample 988 fourth-grade students. The sample was divided into three groups: one group learning science through English, one group through German, and a control group in which the students’ school language, Italian, was employed. In our study the lack of taking into account causal relations which prevails in many prior studies is reduced by employing a counterfactual design. Results show a slightly negative effect of CLIL on science learning in both treatment groups in comparison to the control group. However, for both CLIL groups the negative effect exclusively pertains to the learning of purely content-related knowledge, while there are no differences between the non-CLIL and the two CLIL groups with regard to two other cognitive domains: application of knowledge and reasoning. Moreover, the paper shows significantly negative CLIL effects only among low language achievers and students from less advantaged parental backgrounds.

KEYWORDS:

• Content and Language Integrated Learning
• science competencies
• cognitive competencies
• counterfactual
• inequality of educational opportunity
• CLIL

Acknowledgements

The project was conducted by the Provincial Institute of Educational Research and Experimentation (IPRASE) and financially supported by the European Social Fund, the Italian State and the Autonomous Province of Trento. The project is part of the actions in support of the ‘Trentino Trilingue’ plan oriented toward the development of professional resources and preparation of learning and assessment tools (project code 2015_3_1034_IP.01).

IPRASE staffs and I are thankful to all teachers, students, school managers and the secretarial staff involved in the project as well as the IEA, which contributed to its realization in allowing the use of its TIMSS test. I am also personally thankful to Dieter Wolff for his precious comments and to Michela Chicco and Roberta Bisoffi for their help throughout the whole project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Classrooms in the CLIL-English group are 21 because one school introduced CLIL teaching while it was already sampled in the non-CLIL group. Since results do not change if we include or exclude students in this classroom, we decided to include it in the CLIL-English group.

2 The TIMSS test is protected by copyright, therefore we cannot show any item used in the text. Nevertheless, few years after each wave IEA releases a few items that can be found freely online (https://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss2011/international-released-items.html).

3 For all statistical analyses we employed the statistical software Stata.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by the European Social Fund, the Italian State and the Autonomous Province of Trento.

Notes on contributors

Simone Virdia

Simone Virdia received his Ph.D in Sociology and Social Research at University of Trento and Tilburg University. Since 2017 he is a research collaborator at IPRASE. His main research interests regard: education, sociology of education, quantitative methods, social inequality and stratification, skills acquisition, comparative sociology, life-course analysis.