Although pupils are confronted with many transitions during their school years, the transition from primary to secondary school, may be most significant. In several European countries entry into secondary schools is based on a selection process whereby teachers together with other professionals and parents decide which track would be most suitable for the pupil. Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of a tracking system (see Gamoran, 1992; Jürges & Schneider, 2011; and Werfhorst & Mijs, 2010, for reviews), the extent to which teachers are able to correctly identify pupils for orientation towards different tracks is not only important for the direct school choice, but may have a long lasting effect as the orientation decisions have a major impact on future adult life (Brunner & Martin, 2011). Although several studies have compared teacher based judgments of achievement with (standardized) test scores (e.g.  Demaray & Elliott 1998; Hoge & Coladarci, 1992), whereby generally moderate to high correlations are reported, relatively little is known about the validity of transition decisions.  In the Netherlands the transition decision is made based on a test score (“Cito-eindtoets”) combined with advice of the teacher and parental preference. Based on figures of the test in 2005, Stroucken, Takkenberg and Béguin (2008) reported that 83% of pupils were orientated towards the track indicated by their test score, whilst 13% started on a higher track and 5% on a lower track. After the first year in secondary school, three percent of pupils who followed the advice were orientated towards a higher track, and 3% towards a lower track. Of the pupils who chose a higher track than indicated, 8% was orientated to a lower track, whilst of the pupils choosing a lower than indicated track, 13% were orientated towards a higher track (Stroucken, Takkenberg & Béguin, 2008). In Germany and Luxembourg however, the orientation towards different tracks is more dependent on teacher judgments and although guidelines indicate these should be based on academic achievement and general skills (motivation, schoolattitude), research has shown other variables to affect judgments, whereby pupils with an immigration background and/or lower socioeconomic status are underrepresented in the higher tracks (Bos, 2004; Maier 2007; OECD, 2010). Hence, it can be concluded that when decisions are based on teacher judgments, these are error prone but could be improved by increasing diagnostic competence of teachers.  Our project aims to develop and compare different intervention methods to improve the diagnostic competence of primary school teachers in Luxembourg. However, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of our intervention modules, it is necessary to define a criterion for ‘right’ versus ‘wrong’ decisions. The first step of our intervention program therefore was to define such criterion and test its predictive validity in regards to transition decisions.  

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