Grade retention is one of the most discussed and controversial educational measures, and yet, it is still widely applied in many countries. Research investigating the effects of grade retention on students' psychosocial variables presents mixed findings, partly due to the variables assessed, methodological issues, and the length of the studies. This study aimed to analyse both the short to medium and longitudinal effects of grade retention in grades 7 or 8 on Portuguese students' academic self-concept, self-esteem, goal orientations, and school career. Data were collected continuously over a 3-year span (once a year) and, again, 3 years after the third wave. After matching 477 students on several pretreatment variables using inverse probability treatment weighting with time-varying treatments (i.e., retention), our analytical sample consisted of 85 promoted students, 33 students retained in grade 7, and 32 students retained in grade 8. Our results showed that retained students did not differ from their promoted peers in self-esteem and goal orientations in the short, medium, or long term. The exception was for an increase in the academic self-concept of retained students, but only in short term. Finally, considering students' school career, grade retention was not predictive of further retention.

中文翻译：

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初中教育成绩保留对学生自我概念、自尊、目标取向和学校生涯的影响

保留成绩是最受讨论和争议的教育措施之一，但它仍然在许多国家广泛应用。调查成绩保留对学生心理社会变量影响的研究得出了不同的结果，部分原因是评估的变量、方法问题和研究的长度。本研究旨在分析七年级或八年级的成绩保留对葡萄牙学生的学业自我概念、自尊、目标取向和学校生涯的短期、中期和纵向影响。数据在三年内连续收集（每年一次），并且在第三次浪潮后的三年内再次收集。使用逆概率处理加权和时变处理（即保留）对 477 名学生进行几个预处理变量的匹配后，我们的分析样本包括 85 名升职学生、33 名七年级留级学生和 32 名八年级留级学生。我们的结果结果表明，留校学生在短期、中期或长期的自尊和目标取向方面与升职的同龄人没有什么不同。例外情况是保留学生的学术自我概念有所提高，但只是短期内的。最后，考虑到学生的学业生涯，成绩保留率并不能预示进一步的保留率。