What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

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Methodology
Vocabulary test
We expected that students’ level of knowledge and
understanding of the Holocaust would be influenced
to some extent by their ability level, including their
vocabulary and comprehension skills. The survey
included a series of questions to tap into this by
using a subset of questions from the vocabulary
test used in the 1986 Birth Cohort Study (Centre
for Longitudinal Studies 2015), and informed by the
Age of Acquisition Databases (Centre for Reading
Research 2012).
Seven ‘target words’ were used, and for each
target word five other words were presented (survey
questions 17 to 23). Within these five words was
a synonym for the target word, and students were
asked to identify this. For example, for the target
word ‘begin’, the five synonyms presented were:
‘ask’, ‘start’, ‘plain’, ‘over’ and ‘away’. Students
therefore had to correctly identify that ‘start’ meant
the same as ‘begin’. Students were given a total
score (out of 7) for this scale, where a higher score
demonstrates a larger vocabulary.
How did we select schools to
participate?
For the survey element of the research, we
developed a sampling frame using a database of
schools in England obtained from the Department for
Education (DfE) in 2013. Schools were targeted to
ensure the sample was broadly representative of:
1. the number of schools in the nine government
regions
2. academic performance
3. the composition of different ethnic groups within
each region.
These criteria were used because this was a national
study and so it was important to include schools
from across the country and ensure they were
representative of the proportion of ethnic groups in
England. Moreover, as the research primarily aimed
to examine students’ knowledge and understanding,
it was important to include schools with a wide range
of attainment levels. Student success in gaining
five pass grades at GCSE (grades A*–C, including
in maths and English), was used as an indicator of
schools’ academic performance.
We aimed to recruit at least 5,000 students for the
study to reduce sampling bias and to increase the
power of the statistical analyses. The 2011 Census
data from the Office for National Statistics was
used to ascertain the breakdown of ethnic groups
within the nine regions, enabling us to calculate the
aggregate percentage of individuals in each region
who described themselves as being: from mixed/
multiple ethnic groups; Asian / Asian British; Black
/ African / Caribbean / Black British; and from other
ethnic groups – a large collective group henceforth
referred to as BME (Black and minority ethnic). Using
DfE data, the ethnic composition of every school
was identified to determine whether it was above or
below the BME proportion for its region.
At the time of developing the sampling frame,
Table 2.1 Number of students and schools included in the research analysis (by sampling-frame criteria)
Above National
GCSE pass rate;
above regional rate
of BME groups
Above National
GCSE pass rate;
below regional rate
of BME groups
Below National
GCSE pass rate;
above regional rate
of BME groups
Below National
GCSE pass rate;
below regional rate
of BME groups
Totals
Region Students Schools Students Schools Students Schools Students Schools Students Schools
East Midlands 0 0 109 1 90 1 361 3 560 5
East of England 229 2 260 3 374 3 252 3 1,115 11
London 620 5 43 1 207 2 107 1 977 9
North East 0 0 184 2 106 1 210 2 500 5
North West 269 2 385 3 190 2 0 0 844 7
South East 84 1 332 4 284 2 419 5 1,119 12
South West 125 1 298 3 296 3 219 2 938 9
West Midlands 388 2 212 2 361 3 157 2 1,118 9
Yorkshire & the Humber 418 3 171 2 99 1 93 1 781 7
Totals 2,133 16 1,994 21 2,007 18 1,818 19 7,952 74