A huge body of data gathered from users of the Oak National Academy online school could shed light on why pupils find it harder to learn in some subjects than others, experts claim.

Data analysts have examined responses from 100 million pupil subject quizzes in what is thought to be the biggest survey of learning behaviour across the national curriculum.

The data is taken from the answers that pupils gave to pre- and post-lesson quizzes last year and has been analysed to reveal variations in comprehension and knowledge retention across subjects and all year groups.

Matt Hood, principal of Oak National Academy, said he hopes the analysis of the data, by analytics firm SchoolDash, could ultimately lead to better pupil outcomes.

This morning, SchoolDash released some headline findings of its analysis, including:

Younger pupils are top performers

The study shows young primary pupils in key stage 1 performed the best out of all ages in terms of lesson comprehension, as measured by looking at quiz scores at the end of online lessons.

The study showed comprehension declined with age - primary pupils performed better than secondary pupils in post-lesson quizzes.

The trend was particularly noticeable in maths where KS1 pupils understood topics including money, mass and multiplication whereas pupils in KS2 and KS3 then found the subject more challenging.

There are differences across the subjects

Knowledge retention rates were high in maths across all key stages, while pupils performed worse in history and religious education. Science and geography were generally somewhere in between.

Pupils tended to score higher in post-lesson quizzes than in the same questions posed in quizzes at the start of the next lesson, suggesting an element of forgetting in between lessons. However, some pupils did not complete lessons in a sequence and may have missed the previous lesson.

Humanities consistent across age groups

Maths and science showed relatively large declines in comprehension between primary and secondary age groups, whereas geography and religious education were more consistent across age groups.

An ’invaluable source of information’

Dr Timo Hannay, founder of SchoolDash, said: “Oak gave us full and free access to its quiz results, which are an invaluable source of information and for everyone’s benefit.

“The anonymous, aggregated data has helped us to identify areas in which pupils may need extra support, both during the current post-lockdown catch-up period and, perhaps, in the longer term, too.”

Matt Hood, principal of Oak National Academy, said he hopes the data leads to better pupil outcomes.

“This analysis by SchoolDash will allow teachers and experts to not only explore comprehension and retention across a range of subjects and key stages but explore individual topics within each subject using the interactive dataset,” he said.

“We hope it will add to the existing research about why particular concepts are harder to understand or retain than others.

“When we set up Oak National Academy, we knew we would be capturing vital information about how children learn. We have made clear that our anonymised, aggregated data will be shared with the sector and are proud to have made possible one of the biggest ever analyses of learning behaviour.”

SchoolDash’s interactive online presentation of their data analysis goes live today (17 February) on their website.