The advantages and disadvantages of ability grouping for student achievement are strongly contested, with studies presenting different results. However, much of this research has focused on class-level or subject-level ability grouping. Relatively less research has focused on school-level ability grouping. More importantly, the role of teacher…

The research was conducted in Sydney and Hong Kong using students, from grades 5 to 9, whose first language or teaching medium was English, learning to read Chinese as second language. According to cognitive load theory, the processing of single Chinese characters accompanied by pictures should impose extraneous cognitive load and thus hinders…