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The Effect of Schools and Classes on Language Achievement
British Educational Research Journal
Abstract
This study addresses the effects of secondary schools and classes on language achievement in Flanders, Belgium. The results of a three-level analysis (students within classes within schools) indicate that the group composition at the class level is very important. In classes with a high average initial cognitive ability or a large proportion of girls, the language achievement is higher. These compositional effects are discussed with reference to type ‘A’ and type ‘B’ effects. The analyses show that group composition is more important than educational practices in accounting for differences in language achievement. With whom one is taught has a larger impact than how one is taught. Indications of differential effectiveness of classes related to prior achievement were found, with greater variations in effectiveness between classes for pupils of low prior achievement.
... However, the results of these studies were heterogeneous. While some studies showed that visiting high-achieving classes had a positive effect on students' individual competencies (Becker et al., 2022;De Fraine et al., 2003;Dumay & Dupriez, 2008;Lavrijsen et al., 2022;Marks, 2010;Nomi & Raudenbush, 2016;Opdenakker et al., 2002;Stäbler et al., 2017), other studies did not (Dicke et al., 2018;Televantou et al., 2015Televantou et al., , 2021Televantou et al., , 2023Thrupp et al., 2002). These heterogeneous results can be partly attributed to methodological differences, that is, which and how many composition characteristics were taken into account, which competence domains were examined, if classes or schools were examined, if data were cross-sectional or longitudinal, and if measurement error and sampling error were taken into account (Becker et al., 2022;Dumont et al., 2013;Televantou et al., 2021Televantou et al., , 2023Thrupp et al., 2002;van Ewijk & Sleegers, 2010a). ...
... Numerous studies from different countries showed that classaverage achievement of a student body had a significant positive effect on individual student achievement: On average, students performed better in higher-achieving classes than students surrounded by lower-achieving classmates-above and beyond their own preexisting competence level (Becker et al., 2022;De Fraine et al., 2003;Dumay & Dupriez, 2008;Lavrijsen et al., 2022;Marks, 2010;Nomi & Raudenbush, 2016;Opdenakker et al., 2002;Stäbler et al., 2017). Moreover, positive achievement composition effects on achievement development were typically associated with larger effects within classrooms than within schools (De Fraine et al., 2003;Nomi & Raudenbush, 2016). ...
... Numerous studies from different countries showed that classaverage achievement of a student body had a significant positive effect on individual student achievement: On average, students performed better in higher-achieving classes than students surrounded by lower-achieving classmates-above and beyond their own preexisting competence level (Becker et al., 2022;De Fraine et al., 2003;Dumay & Dupriez, 2008;Lavrijsen et al., 2022;Marks, 2010;Nomi & Raudenbush, 2016;Opdenakker et al., 2002;Stäbler et al., 2017). Moreover, positive achievement composition effects on achievement development were typically associated with larger effects within classrooms than within schools (De Fraine et al., 2003;Nomi & Raudenbush, 2016). This means that the composition of a class (or school) can create different learning conditions and-in addition to students' individual prerequisites-affect students' competencies and school performance (Dumont et al., 2013;Lavrijsen et al., 2022;Schiepe-Tiska, 2019). ...
In this article, we examined the achievement composition effect on the scientific and computer literacy from sixth to ninth grade of 5,738 German students in secondary school. We used multilevel modeling in a structural equation modeling framework to estimate doubly latent models, which control for measurement error and sampling error. Results indicated that class-average competence was positively related to students’ individual competence in secondary school. Composition effects remained significant for computer literacy but not for scientific literacy when further control for potential selection bias was added by accounting for demographic and background differences between students. When taking school track (academic vs. vocational) into account to separate institutional effects from peer spillover effects, results showed, on the one hand, that there was no positive peer spillover effect for computer literacy left when controlling for school track. We even found a negative effect on scientific literacy, which means that students reached a higher scientific literacy when they came from lower-achieving classes. On the other hand, we found strong effects from school track on both competencies in favor of students from academic-track schools. This indicates that the overall achievement composition effect can be primarily traced back to tracking effects. This finding suggests that vocational-track schools may need teacher professional development programs to increase teaching quality.
... La plupart des études qui ont analysé la relation entre la composition intellectuelle et le rendement scolaire ont débouché sur un résultat positif. Autrement dit, la composition cognitive est positivement associée au rendement (Beckerman & Good, 1981;Bela & Mokonzi, 2018;Dar & Resh, 1986;De Fraine et al., 2003;Opdenakker & Van Damme, 2001). Il s'agit là de l'effet d'entraînement des pairs (Peer Spillover Effect). ...
... En vue d'approfondir l'étude de l'effet de composition, certains travaux se sont intéressés à son effet différentiel (Boonen et al., 2014;De Fraine et al., 2003;Opdenakker & Van Damme, 2001). Ils ont examiné la possibilité que l'effet de composition soit favorable à certains sous-groupes de l'échantillon. ...
... Cette étude visait un double objectif: déterminer l'effet de la composition cognitive et non cognitive de la classe, examiner sa possible variation suivant le niveau initial des connaissances et du concept de soi. À l'instar de la plupart des travaux antérieurs (Beckerman & Good, 1981;Bela & Mokonzi, 2018;Dar & Resh, 1986;De Fraine et al., 2003;Opdenakker & Van Damme, 2001), cette étude a mis en 6 MOKONZI, BELA ET VAN DAMME évidence l'existence de l'effet d'entraînement des pairs ou peer spillover effect. En d'autres termes, la composition cognitive de la classe est positivement associée au rendement obtenu par les élèves à la fin de l'année scolaire en mathématiques et en lecture. ...
Cette étude examine la possibilité que la composition cognitive et non cognitive de la classe soient corrélées au rendement et au concept de soi et que cette corrélation varie suivant le niveau des connaissances et du concept de soi que les élèves de 4ème année primaire ont au début de l’année scolaire. L’étude est basée sur un échantillon de 4639 élèves répartis dans 80 classes de deux villes de la République démocratique du Congo (RDC). Grâce à l’analyse multiniveaux multivariée, elle montre que l’effet de composition cognitive et l’effet de composition non cognitive de la classe opèrent faiblement dans les écoles de la RDC. La taille de l’effet de composition cognitive est plus importante que celle de l’effet de composition non cognitive. En mathématiques, la composition cognitive de la classe profite plus aux élèves les plus faibles alors qu’en lecture elle avantage uniquement les élèves les plus forts. Par contre, la composition non cognitive profite
plus aux élèves ayant au début de l’année une faible estime de soi en lecture. L’étude recommande la valorisation des aspects non cognitifs de l’apprentissage au même titre que les aspects cognitifs et l’application des pratiques enseignantes qui recourent aux interactions entre élèves. L’étude suggère enfin que la recherche approfondisse l’investigation des facteurs responsables de l’effet de composition cognitive et non cognitive de la classe
... Aquest autor va corroborar el fet que els estudiants amb un alt estatus es beneficiaven de la seva agregació en centres amb una composició social alta, mentre que els estudiants d'estatus baix sortien perjudicats quan estudiaven en centres amb una composició social homogènia baixa. Altres autors van arribar a conclusions semblants, com Caldas i Bankston (1997) (De Fraine et al., 2003;Hoffer, 1992). ...
... I d'aquest percentatge, una gran part venia explicada per la composició social dels centres, deixant als processos escolars una influència molt petita o negligible. Aquesta predominança de l'efecte de la composició social respecte l'efecte dels processos pedagògics i organitzatius dels centres ha estat confirmada per moltes recerques publicades des dels anys 70 fins a l'actualitat, les quals han deixat de manifest que és més rellevant amb qui estudies que qui t'ensenya (De Fraine et al., 2003;Dumay i Dupriez, 2004Jencks et al., 1979;Jencks et al., 1972;Opdenakker i Van Damme, 2001). ...
... Així mateix, en centres amb una composició desafavorida, juntament amb provisions de recursos sovint deficitàries, es poden observar més dificultats per part del personal per dur a terme les rutines d'un mode eficient.L'existència d'interaccions significatives entre els dos tipus de variables s'ha evidenciat també en un bon nombre de recerques quantitatives. Un dels factors més documentats és la relació entre el clima d'aprenentatge i la composició social dels centres, tal i com es corrobora a la recercade Johnson et al. (2001) en el cas de la composició ètnica o a la recercade De Fraine et al. (2003) en el cas de la composició per habilitats. Altres recerques ofereixen conclusions similars pel que fa al clima.Grisay (1996) en el cas francès també observa que els problemes disciplinaris tendeixen a disminuir quan la composició social o per habilitat és més alta, mentre que s'observa una major participació dels pares.Opdenakker i Van Damme(2001)troben que un ambient ordenat d'aprenentatge afavoreix a tot l'alumnat, però especialment als estudiants amb unes habilitats més elevades. ...
Abstract: The agenda of educational policy reforms around the world, which have converged on the umbrella concept of the 'new public management', has been articulated around proposals to direct the public management of education towards market-based models, such as quasi-markets in education, or through instruments such as the public-private partnerships (PPP). These are proposals that combine market mechanisms with more or less intense systems of control and public regulation. Such reforms emphasize the administrative reorganization of the public education system to increase its efficiency, encouraging the participation of families in the school choice processes, and encouraging competition among schools. School-based management and school autonomy become strategies for schools to articulate a diversified offer that allows them to find a position in the market, manage their own resources and be able to compete with other schools, with the ultimate goal of responding efficiently to the specific demands of students and their families. School autonomy thus becomes a key strategy in fostering a better fit between educational supply and demand.
However, in a school system in which process management is decentralized, dysfunctions can arise from divergent interests and a lack of coherence between the goals pursued by school agents and the functions delegated by the principals – educational authorities and families. Faced with the pressure of school choice processes, schools may deviate from their primary mission by using autonomy margins to strategically seek a privileged position in the market. For example, autonomy may allow schools to carry out strategies to attract a socially homogeneous profile of students, which in turn favours the management of school pedagogical and organizational processes. Such deviations can be caused by the information asymmetry inherent in the distance between principal and agency, which becomes an adverse incentive for agents to act opportunistically with minimal risk of being penalized. A use of resources that does not pursue the maximization of learning, or that pursues it even if it involves adopting behaviours that violate some of the distributive principles of basic educational goods, can have consequences in terms of school segregation and, at the same time, can mean a violation of the principle of equal educational opportunities.
This research is based on a theoretical framework that defines school autonomy as a strategy of self-positioning in market-oriented systems, which can lead to undesired effects on school segregation and equal educational opportunities. Through cross-country analyses carried out with five waves of the OECD PISA study (2000-2012), the effects of different dimensions of school autonomy on both the schools’ social composition, and the effectiveness of education systems, are estimated. This study shows that 1) greater margins of autonomy, both in school admission and in the management of processes (staff and curriculum), are associated with higher levels of school segregation; 2) pedagogical autonomy is associated with a greater likelihood of doing ability grouping, which in turn increases as schools concentrate immigrant students or students with a low social background; and 3) school autonomy reforms harm student outcomes in countries with market-oriented school systems – competition between schools and private ownership-, and favour them in countries with lower levels of school segregation.
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Resum: L'agenda de nombroses reformes educatives dutes a terme arreu del món, les quals han convergit en el concepte-paraigües de la 'nova gestió pública', s'ha articulat al voltant de propostes per adreçar la gestió pública de l’educació cap a models basats en el mercat, com ara els quasi-mercats educatius o l’aliança pública-privada (PPP). Es tracta de propostes que combinen mecanismes de mercat amb sistemes més o menys intensos de control i de regulació pública. Aquestes reformes posen l’èmfasi en la reorganització administrativa del sistema públic d’educació per augmentar-ne l’eficiència, fomentant la participació de les famílies en l’elecció de centre i incentivant la competència entre els centres educatius. L'autoregulació i l'autonomia escolar esdevenen estratègies perquè els centres articulin una oferta diversificada que els permeti trobar una posició en el mercat, gestionin els seus propis recursos i puguin competir amb altres centres escolars, amb l'objectiu últim de respondre d'un mode eficient a les demandes específiques dels estudiants i de les seves famílies. L'autonomia esdevé doncs una peça clau per fomentar un millor encaix entre l'oferta i la demanda educativa.
No obstant això, en un sistema en què la gestió dels processos està descentralitzada, es poden generar disfuncions derivades d'interessos divergents i d'una manca de coherència entre els objectius que persegueixen els agents escolars i les funcions delegades pel principal – autoritats educatives i famílies. Enfront de la pressió dels processos d'elecció escolar, els centres poden desviar-se de la seva missió principal quan utilitzen els marges d'autonomia per buscar estratègicament una posició en el mercat. Els centres poden fer un ús de la seva autonomia que els permeti atraure un perfil socialment homogeni d'alumnes, que a la vegada afavoreixi la gestió dels processos pedagògics i organitzatius interns. Aquestes desviacions es poden originar arrel de l'asimetria informativa inherent a la distància entre principal i agència, la qual esdevé un incentiu advers perquè els agents actuïn de forma oportunista amb un mínim risc de ser penalitzats. Un ús dels recursos que no persegueixi la maximització dels aprenentatges, o bé que la persegueixi encara que això suposi adoptar comportaments que vulnerin alguns dels principis distributius dels béns educatius bàsics, pot tenir conseqüències en termes de segregació escolar i, a la vegada, pot suposar una vulneració del principi d'igualtat d'oportunitats educatives. Aquesta investigació parteix d'un marc teòric que defineix l'autonomia escolar com una estratègia d'auto-posicionament en sistemes orientats al mercat que pot derivar en efectes no desitjats en matèria de segregació escolar i d'igualtat de oportunitats educatives.
A través d’una anàlisi internacional realitzada amb cinc edicions de l'estudi PISA de l'OCDE (2000-2012) s'estimen, mitjançant tècniques economètriques, els efectes de diferents dimensions de l'autonomia en la composició social dels centres i en l'eficàcia dels sistemes educatius, en funció de la seva configuració i del seu grau de disfunció. Concretament, es demostra empíricament que 1) els nivells de segregació escolar estan associats a uns majors marges d'autonomia, tant en l'admissió escolar com en la gestió dels processos (personal i oferta); 2) les pràctiques d'agrupació dels estudiants per nivells, les quals ofereixen condicions desiguals d'ensenyament i d'aprenentatge, estan associades amb nivells més alts d'autonomia en matèria pedagògica; aquesta probabilitat augmenta en la mesura que els centres concentren estudiants immigrants o amb un estatus social baix; i 3) les reformes d'autonomia escolar perjudiquen als resultats dels estudiants en països amb sistemes escolars orientats al mercat – competència entre centres i titularitat privada –, mentre que els afavoreix en països amb nivells menors de segregació escolar.
... Compositional effects are foundational to the impact of groups on individual differences and personality development (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). Prior research in this field has focused on the effects of ability composition on cognitive performance (e.g., Baratta & McManus, 1992;De Fraine, van Damme, van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Dicke et al., 2018;Harker & Tymms, 2004;Thrupp, Lauder, & Robinson, 2002) but has also neglected possible effects on emotion. ...
... across models (all ps Ͻ .001; the unstandardized coefficients are derived by subtracting the student-level effects from the class-level effects of Time 1 achievement on Time 2 achievement as depicted in supplemental materials Tables 5 and 6). These effects suggest that class-level achievement positively influenced individual achievement controlling for prior achievement, in line with some previous studies on the effects of the achievement composition of classrooms (e.g., De Fraine et al., 2003;Stäbler et al., 2017; but see Dicke et al., 2018;Marsh, 1991, andTelevantou et al., 2015, for negative effects). Similarly, class-average self-concept had positive compositional effects on individual self-concept over time. ...
... Such a lack of consistently beneficial effects is counter to traditional expectations, but mirrors the mixed findings from other studies. Some studies found positive effects of groupaverage achievement (e.g., Burns & Mason, 2002;De Fraine et al., 2003;Opdenakker & van Damme, 2001;Stäbler et al., 2017), whereas others found null effects or even negative effects Marsh, 1991;Televantou et al., 2015). As argued by Dicke et al. (2018;also see Hauser, 1970;Harker & Tymms, 2004), it is important to use longitudinal designs and to control for autoregressive effects, measurement error, and preexisting differences between students when examining these effects, because not including these controls can generate positive estimates ("phantom effects;" Harker & Tymms, 2004) when the true effect is in fact negative or zero. ...
A theoretical model linking achievement and emotions is proposed. The model posits that individual achievement promotes positive achievement emotions and reduces negative achievement emotions. In contrast, group-level achievement is thought to reduce individuals' positive emotions and increase their negative emotions. The model was tested using one cross-sectional and two longitudinal datasets on 5th to 10th grade students' achievement emotions in mathematics (Studies 1-3: Ns = 1,610, 1,759, and 4,353, respectively). Multilevel latent structural equation modeling confirmed that individual achievement had positive predictive effects on positive emotions (enjoyment, pride) and negative predictive effects on negative emotions (anger, anxiety, shame, and hopelessness), controlling for prior achievement, autoregressive effects, reciprocal effects, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES). Class-level achievement had negative compositional effects on the positive emotions and positive compositional effects on the negative emotions. Additional analyses suggested that self-concept of ability is a possible mediator of these effects. Furthermore, there were positive compositional effects of class-level achievement on individual achievement in Study 2 but not in Study 3, indicating that negative compositional effects on emotion are not reliably counteracted by positive effects on performance. The results were robust across studies, age groups, synchronous versus longitudinal analysis, and latent-manifest versus doubly latent modeling. These findings imply that individual success drives emotional well-being, whereas placing individuals in high-achieving groups can undermine well-being. Thus, the findings challenge policy and practice decisions on achievement-contingent allocation of individuals to groups.
... The present study aims to contribute to previous research and knowledge by conducting a detailed investigation of the importance of class variables (such as social skills, academic achievement and gender ratio) on boys' and girls' teacher-assessed academic achievement in three school subjects, Norwegian, mathematics and English, over the course of two years. ability level of a class, have been found to exert effects on academic achievement (De Fraine, Van Damme, Van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Hendriks et al., 2011). A study of secondary education classes indicated that language achievement was higher for students who attended classes with a higher average cognitive ability or a large proportion of girls (De Fraine et al., 2003). ...
... ability level of a class, have been found to exert effects on academic achievement (De Fraine, Van Damme, Van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Hendriks et al., 2011). A study of secondary education classes indicated that language achievement was higher for students who attended classes with a higher average cognitive ability or a large proportion of girls (De Fraine et al., 2003). Additionally, students' average academic achievement and sociodemographic characteristics appear to influence teacher assessments. ...
... The present study suggested that higher mean levels of academic achievement in the classroom seemed to have a positive effect on boys' and girls' individual academic achievement in mathematics and English. This means that a student, given his or her initial characteristics, can be expected to perform better in a class with a higher than average achievement level than a similar student in a class with a lower than average achievement level (De Fraine et al., 2003). These findings are in line with previous studies reporting that academic achievement at the class level predicts achievement scores at the individual level (De Fraine et al., 2003;Hendriks et al., 2011). ...
... The school-level factors relevant for reading achievement are theoretically categorized as school composition, school context and school processes (Fraine, Damme, Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Stancel-Piatak, Mirazchiyski, & Desa, 2013). School composition factors are not easily changed by school improvement programs, and as such, this plan tends to influence students' literacy via school contexts and school process factors. ...
... Taking the dynamic model of educational effectiveness as an example, Creemers and Kyriakides (2008) indicate the importance of input, context and process factors in this integrated model, and assume that multiple factors contribute to effectiveness that should operate at different levels. Among these existing models, some analysis models simultaneously explore these elements, e.g., school composition, school context and school process variables (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008;Fraine et al., 2003;Opdenakker & Damme, 2007;Werf et al., 2000). When school SES and language factors significantly affect language achievement (Dumay & Dupriez, 2008) and school composition reduces the effect of school process factors (Opdenakker & Damme, 2001, the inclusion of school-level SES and language at home is needed in the model to assess the net relationship of school context and processes with academic achievement. ...
... The effects of gender, parents' education, early reading abilities, cultural capital, reading attitudes and reading activities at school on reading scores are well documented in the literature (Fraine et al., 2003;Stancel-Piatak et al., 2013;Werf et al., 2000). The IEA classifies the levels of parental education into seven levels; for this study, these levels were converted into a continuous variable. ...
To enhance students’ reading achievement, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan designed a reading policy, the “Happy Reading 101 Program” (HR101P), based on school contexts and school process factors. This study describes features inherent in the HR101P and evaluates the intervention effect of the program in terms of school context and school process factors. Findings indicate only one component contained in the HR101P-enriching teachers’ knowledge-to be significantly associated with reading achievement. Prior to the implementation of the program, the interaction effect between school-level teacher professional development (TPD) and student-level reading activities was significant. Results of a multilevel propensity score method suggest that implementation of the HR101P contributes to the progress in Taiwan of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study 2011.
... The school-level factors relevant for reading achievement are theoretically categorized as school composition, school context and school processes (Fraine, Damme, Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Stancel-Piatak, Mirazchiyski, & Desa, 2013). School composition factors are not easily changed by school improvement programs, and as such, this plan tends to influence students' literacy via school contexts and school process factors. ...
... Taking the dynamic model of educational effectiveness as an example, Creemers and Kyriakides (2008) indicate the importance of input, context and process factors in this integrated model, and assume that multiple factors contribute to effectiveness that should operate at different levels. Among these existing models, some analysis models simultaneously explore these elements, e.g., school composition, school context and school process variables (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008;Fraine et al., 2003;Opdenakker & Damme, 2007;Werf et al., 2000). When school SES and language factors significantly affect language achievement (Dumay & Dupriez, 2008) and school composition reduces the effect of school process factors (Opdenakker & Damme, 2001, the inclusion of school-level SES and language at home is needed in the model to assess the net relationship of school context and processes with academic achievement. ...
... The effects of gender, parents' education, early reading abilities, cultural capital, reading attitudes and reading activities at school on reading scores are well documented in the literature (Fraine et al., 2003;Stancel-Piatak et al., 2013;Werf et al., 2000). The IEA classifies the levels of parental education into seven levels; for this study, these levels were converted into a continuous variable. ...
This paper analyses how Spanish Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are implementing “internationalization at home” strategies through the introduction of Asian studies degrees to help undergraduate students to be ready to work in a globalized world. The selection of Asia as specialization reflects its relevance for HEIs, as the most influential geopolitical area in the context of the current economic and cultural globalization. Specifically, this study identifies the undergraduate Asian degrees developed by Spanish HEIs, in what ways they are interculturally oriented, and how the intercultural orientation was incorporated into the degrees. It is possible to identify in the programs a process of the incremental acquisition of intercultural competence, following these phases: general knowledge moves to socio-linguistic and instrumental knowledge, which then becomes intercultural self-awareness. This paper concludes that to implement successfully their strategies at home and, simultaneously, to embrace the increasing societal demand for enhanced intercultural skilled professionals, a higher level of intercultural awareness is needed in Asian studies degrees at Spanish HEIs. The paper ends with some recommendations for educational policy-makers.
... In particular, research has demonstrated that the distribution of students by socio-economic status (SES) and achievement level is directly related to the academic performance of individual students within countries (Dronkers & Levels, 2007;Caldas & Bankston, 1997). Put another way, the overall school context matters when it comes to individual student achievement (De Fraine, van Damme, van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003). For example, research has shown that students who come from a relatively low SES background are likely to have higher academic achievement if they attend schools that have relatively higher mean SES than will those with similar SES attending low SES schools (Opdenakker & van Damme, 2001). ...
... Only after these student qualities are fully taken into account can the relative merits of the various education systems themselves be considered. As discussed above (Dronkers & Levels, 2007;De Fraine, van Damme, van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Caldas & Bankston, 1997), the ways in which students are organized into schools is directly related to their performance on standardized achievement tests. ...
... In contrast, nations whose lowest performing students were more isolated into low performing schools consistently underperformed other nations' lowest performing students, particularly in math and reading. However, the high achievers in these nations displayed comparable performance to high achievers in other countries, again supporting the notion that when schools are relatively homogeneous with regard to the types of students they contain, low achievers tend to perform worse and high achievers tend to perform better (De Fraine, van Damme, van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003). ...
There has been increased interest in cross-national comparisons of educational achievement, particularly using the data provided through the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The growing tendency in the popular media is to characterize such comparisons by ranking nations based upon mean achievement test scores. However, recent work has demonstrated that the way in which students are organized in schools has a impact on student achievement. The current study demonstrated the utility of a relatively new statistical technique, the nonparametric latent class model, to investigate the cross national organization of schools and its relationship to student achievement and socio-economic status. The results demonstrated that indeed, it is not enough to simply compare mean achievement performance across countries, but rather that the ways in which nations organize students into schools is also associated with test performance. The results of this study highlight both the importance of understanding school organizational context, and the analytic power of the nonparametric latent class model.
... This dimension is important if we consider its direct consequence: the more students' ability matters during the selection, the more students attending the same track or the same curriculum within school have homogeneous skill levels when they start their differentiated educational paths. This, in turn, has tremendous consequences for the explanation of inequalities in students' learning opportunities (Bos and Scharenberg, 2010;De Fraine et al., 2003;Gröhlich et al., 2009;Köller et al., 2013;Neumann et al., 2007;Opdenakker and Van Damme, 2001;Scharenberg, 2014;Schiepe-Tiska, Rönnebeck, Heitmann, Schöps, Prenzel and Nagy, 2017). Peers' achievement composition not only significantly contributes to their subsequent achievement but its effects on students' outcomes are far more significant than instructional quality-although they are associated with each other (De Fraine et al., 2003;Scharenberg, 2014). ...
... This, in turn, has tremendous consequences for the explanation of inequalities in students' learning opportunities (Bos and Scharenberg, 2010;De Fraine et al., 2003;Gröhlich et al., 2009;Köller et al., 2013;Neumann et al., 2007;Opdenakker and Van Damme, 2001;Scharenberg, 2014;Schiepe-Tiska, Rönnebeck, Heitmann, Schöps, Prenzel and Nagy, 2017). Peers' achievement composition not only significantly contributes to their subsequent achievement but its effects on students' outcomes are far more significant than instructional quality-although they are associated with each other (De Fraine et al., 2003;Scharenberg, 2014). Risking over-simplification, the main findings here show that scholastic achievement tends to improve when pupils attend schools with high-ability classmates. ...
This article aims to identify the moderating effect of two dimensions of the stratification of education systems (the extent to which the first selection is based on students’ ability and the age of first selection) on social background gradient in educational attainment. Individual-level data of the European Social Survey (round 1 to 9) is complemented with new contextual indicators measuring various education systems’ characteristics. This article’s contribution to the debate is twofold. First, it simultaneously investigates two dimensions of the stratification of education systems that have never been analyzed in cross-country studies investigating long-term educational outcomes. Second, it provides a series of indicators of education systems’ characteristics collected by means of an online expert survey whose validity and reliability is also tested. Findings show that the two dimensions of the stratification of education systems have opposite effects. As the first selection is increasingly based on students’ ability, social background gradient in educational attainment increases. In contrast, postponing the age of first selection decreases social inequality in educational opportunity.
... Ausgabe 13, April 2020, ISSN: 2313ISSN: -1640 that a high percentage of girls in a classroom positively affects primarily language, but also mathematics performance, mainly for female students (De Fraine, Van Damme, Van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Demanet, Vanderwegen, Vermeersch, & Van Houtte, 2013;Hoxby, 2000). Hoxby (2000) explains this finding by arguing that having more girls in class leads to: (a) higher reading skills; (b) fewer disruptions during lessons; and (c) reduced pressure for girls to behave in what are perceived socially to be typically feminine ways, thus allowing them to remain enthusiastic about mathematics and facilitating better teaching quality. ...
... One surprising result was the negative effect of a high proportion of girls on mathematics achievement. This result is difficult to explain, because the literature only has evidence of positive effects: higher in the case of language performance, lower in the case of mathematics performance (De Fraine et al., 2003;Demanet et al., 2013;Hoxby, 2000). From the perspective of a peer effect mechanism, a high percentage of girls may cause less competition in class, which is negatively related to achievement (Baker, Bridger, & Evans, 1998). ...
It is assumed that the relationship between intelligence (defined here as reasoning skills) and students' academic outcomes in mathematics is moderated by different internal and external factors on the individual student and classroom level. This study analyzes the question of whether classroom composition affects gifted students differently than average-ability students. Multilevel analyses were conducted using a sample of N = 333 Austrian primary school students, consisting of n = 51 mildly and moderately gifted students (IQ > 115), and n = 233 average-ability students (IQ 85-115). Data from n = 49 below-average students (IQ < 85) were taken into account at the class level. A classroom-specific effect of reasoning skills on gifted students' outcomes could be detected. There was significant variation in the slope of the reasoning skills predictor depending on the class students were in. Additional predictors on the class level were found to exert an influence on gifted students' performance. No evidence was found for cross-level effects. For the average-ability student subgroup, the context level explained a lower proportion of the variance. Moreover, the class regression lines indicated stable relationships between reasoning skills and mathematics achievement across classes.
... Furthermore, previous research has confirmed that some of these predictors, namely, students' achievement and ASC, may be affected by the characteristics of students' peer groups in school (Coleman et al., 1966;Harker & Tymms, 2004;Marsh & Hau, 2003;Opdenakker & van Damme, 2007;Seaton, Marsh, & Craven, 2009). Research on so-called composition effects has shown that attending a school with higher achieving peers and a higher mean SES can be beneficial for students' achievement development (de Fraine, van Damme, van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Opdenakker & van Damme, 2007;Stäbler, Dumont, Becker, & Baumert, 2017). On the other hand, research on the big-fish-littlepond effect (BFLPE) has shown that higher achieving peer groups in school can be detrimental for students' ASC (Marsh, 1987;Marsh & Hau, 2003;Seaton et al., 2009). ...
... In contrast, a student body with a high mean achievement level has been found to have a positive effect on later individual achievement (vs. ASC) over and above the effect of previous individual achievement-a positive composition effect (e.g., de Fraine et al., 2003;Harker & Tymms, 2004;Opdenakker & van Damme, 2007;Stäbler et al., 2017). In other words, attending a school with a higher achieving student body may be beneficial for a student's achievement development. ...
Which factors help young adults choose educational pathways leading to higher educational attainment? Academic self-concept (ASC), achievement, and socioeconomic background have all been found to be important predictors of postsecondary educational choices and success. Although research has shown that student composition in secondary school may affect some of these predictors, only a few studies (mostly from the United States) have investigated the effects of student composition on postsecondary educational outcomes. The results showed that students with similar individual achievement had lower postsecondary educational attainment if they graduated from secondary schools with higher mean achievement. It has been proposed that social comparison processes explain this negative context effect (big-fish-little-pond effect [BFLPE]). In contrast, students with the same individual socioeconomic status (SES) had higher postsecondary educational attainment if they graduated from secondary schools with a higher mean SES. In the present study, we investigated the effects of achievement-related and socioeconomic student composition on subsequent educational outcomes using data from a longitudinal study in Germany. Contrary to previous studies, our results showed that student composition had little relevance for later educational pathways. There was a small, long-lasting, indirect BFLPE of achievement-related composition in secondary school on postsecondary educational outcomes through students’ ASC. Furthermore, individual SES was strongly related to postsecondary educational outcomes, whereas being in an academic-track school with a higher or lower mean SES was not relevant for postsecondary educational pathways.
... Presently, we focus on the effects peers may have on vocabulary knowledge, an important component of oral language skills. Previous studies on peer achievement effects have focused on mathematical outcomes or general reading skills [1,8,14] and general language skills in Dutch [15,16]. We chose vocabulary knowledge as our outcome because it is specifically implicated in many educational outcomes. ...
... Students' fall vocabulary status-relative to their peers-had the strongest association with spring vocabulary achievement. This finding corroborates a finding in Dutch-speaking second grade students, whereby student background characteristics and their prior achievement explained about 70% of the variance in their language achievement [15]. Compared to other predictors, relative status had the strongest association to vocabulary achievement across grades, but the magnitude of the association declined across the quantiles of vocabulary achievement. ...
Do your peers in the classroom have an effect on your vocabulary learning? The purpose of this study was to determine if group-level peer characteristics and group-level peer achievement account for individual-level differences in vocabulary achievement using a large sample of students in kindergarten through second grade (n = 389,917). We applied a mixed-modeling approach to control for students nested among peers, and used quantile regression to test if group-level peer effects functioned similarly across the range of conditional student ability in vocabulary knowledge. Group-level peer effects were more strongly related to vocabulary achievement for students at the low end of the conditional distribution of vocabulary. The difference in vocabulary achievement between children with and without an individualized education program increased as quantiles of the conditional vocabulary distribution increased. Children with lower relative fall scores had better spring scores when they were in homogenous classrooms (i.e., their peers had similar levels of achievement). The importance of classroom composition and implications for accounting for peer effects are discussed.
... Des Weiteren unterscheiden sich Studien zu Kompositionseffekten darin, ob sie die Schülerschaft einer Schule oder einer Schul klasse untersuchen. Während die meisten Stu dien aus den USA traditionell die Schülerschaft von Schulen untersuchen, gibt es gerade in den letzten Jahren, insbesondere im europäischen Raum, vermehrt Untersuchungen zur Zusam mensetzung der Schülerschaft von Klassen (Bellin, 2009;De Fraine et al., 2003;Peetsma, Van der Veen, Koopman, & Van Schooten, 2006;Stanat et al., 2010). Diese Vorgehenswei se wird durch die zentrale Metaanalyse zu Kompositionseffekten unterstützt, die zu dem Ergebnis kommt, dass Kompositionseffekte auf Ebene der Klasse größer ausfallen als Kom positionseffekte auf der Ebene der Schule (Van Ewijk & Sleegers, 2010 a). ...
... Die umfassendsten Studien und Befunde dafür, dass die soziale Zusammensetzung einer Schüler schaft einen wichtigen Einflussfaktor für Schul leis tungen darstellt, stammen dabei aus den USA (Benson & Borman 2010;Bryk, Lee, & Hol land, 1993;Caldas & Bankston, 1997Palardy, 2008;Portes & Hao, 2004;Portes & MacLeod, 1996;Rumberger & Palardy, 2005;Rumberger & Willms, 1992). Ähnliche Ergeb nisse finden sich jedoch auch für Australien (Perry & McConney, 2010, Neusee land (Lauder, Hughes, & Watson, 1999), Großbritannien (Lauder, Kounali, Robinson, & Goldstein, 2010;Sammons, Thomas, & Mortimore, 1997;Willms, 1986), Belgien (De Fraine et al., 2003;Dumay & Dupriez, 2008;Opdenakker & Van Damme, 2001, 2007Opdenakker, Van Damme, De Fraine, Van Landeghem, & Onghena, 2002), die Nie derlande (Dronkers & Levels, 2007;Peetsma et al., 2006;Van der Slik, Driessen, & De Bot, 2006), die Schweiz (Neumann et al., 2007;Ramseier & Brühwiler, 2003), Kolumbien (Rangel & Lleras, 2010), Argentinien (Iturre, 2005) und Chile (McEwan, 2003). Die hier aufgeführten Studien unterscheiden sich jedoch stark in ihrer methodischen Umsetzung; insge samt kommen dabei längsschnittliche Studien, die für das Vorwissen der Schülerinnen und Schüler sowie die leistungsbezogene Zusam mensetzung der Schülerschaft kontrollieren, zu geringeren Effekten der sozialen Komposition. ...
This paper reviews empirical evidence on the effect of the composition of a student body on academic achievement of students. After defining the term composition effect, methodological aspects regarding the study of composition effects are considered. International and national evidence for the composition of a student body with respect to students' abilities, social, and ethnic background is then presented. Whereas international studies find evidence for social, ethnic, and achievement composition variables, national studies reveal that mean achievement level of a school or class is the most important composition variable in Germany. However, this effect is confounded with school track and social composition, which itself exerts a small incremental effect. Ethnic composition, however, does not seem to play an important role. The paper closes with a presentation of the underlying processes of composition effects and a discussion on how the composition of a student body is considered in school governance practices.
... 8 Mechanisms allocating students to selective classes change student composition of schools and classes which in turn is known to influence learning outcomes. [10][11][12][13] A prior Finnish study of selective classes showed that the internationally examined Big-Fish-In-A-Little-Pond-effect 14 applies also to Finnish schools; studying in a selective class with a high achievement level, may have detrimental effects on a student's academic self-concept. 15 Whether these student grouping mechanisms affect students' health, too, is poorly known. ...
Background:
The origin of inequalities in health outcomes has been explained by health selection and social causation models. Health selection processes operate particularly at school age. We study, if student allocation to teaching groups with aptitude tests (selective vs general class) differentiates adolescents by health behaviors and mental health.
Methods:
Finnish schoolchildren 12-13 years from 12 selective classes, n = 248; 41 general classes, n = 703 answered a questionnaire on addictive products (tobacco, snus, alcohol, and energy drinks), digital media use, and mental health (health complaints, anxiety, and depression). Structural equation modeling was conducted to identify structures between outcomes, SEP (socioeconomic position), class type, and academic performance.
Results:
Students in the selective classes reported less addictive digital media and addictive products use than students in the general classes. Differences in academic performance or SEP between the class types did not solely explain these differences. Mental health was not related to the class type. SEP was indirectly associated with health behaviors via the class type and academic performance.
Conclusions:
Selecting students to permanent teaching groups with aptitude tests differentiates students according to risky health behaviors. The impact of education policies using student grouping should also be evaluated in terms of students' health.
... Finally, school-level achievement is used to represent achievement composition as there is limited information on class membership. However, literature on the Big-Fish-Little-Pond effect suggests that class-level achievement composition may exhibit stronger effects than schoollevel achievement composition (De Fraine et al., 2003;Opdenakker et al., 2002;Opdenakker & Van Damme, 2001). Bearing this limitation in mind, the effect of achievement composition on the development of life satisfaction and school satisfaction may be estimated as the lower limit at the school level, and the effects of the specific classroom composition may be higher. ...
The transition to secondary school may negatively impact adolescents’ psychosocial and subjective well-being development. However, how subjective well-being develops during secondary school and how school contextual factors, including aspects of ability grouping and achievement composition, are associated with the development of subjective well-being still require clarification. This study examined two measures of subjective well-being, life satisfaction and school satisfaction, to investigate the development of subjective well-being during secondary school. Moreover, school context variations in the form of school tracks and school-level achievement were analyzed to examine the extent to which ability grouping and achievement composition were associated with the development of subjective well-being. A large-scale longitudinal German dataset with four measurement points from grades 6 to 10 was analyzed (Time 1: N = 1,841; Mage = 12.20, SD = 0.81; 48.4% female; 45.3% immigrant students). The latent growth model revealed that life satisfaction and school satisfaction decreased statistically significantly during secondary school, yet school satisfaction showed a temporary increase between the end of primary school and right after the transition to secondary school. School tracks did not statistically significantly predict the magnitude of the decline in life satisfaction or school satisfaction. Only school-level achievement composition significantly negatively predicted the decline in life satisfaction, suggesting that students in schools with higher levels of achievement composition had a greater decrease in life satisfaction than their counterparts in schools with lower levels of achievement composition. Taken together, these findings contribute to the knowledge of how life and school satisfaction develop during secondary school and the long-term associations between subjective well-being and school context factors.
... While an important corpus of studies focussed on exogenous effects tends to show the impacts of large magnitude related to sharing the educational space with wealthy students (De Fraine et al. 2003;Willms 2010), the literature about endogenous effects also identifies positive, although smaller, effects (Hoxby 2000;Ammermueller and Pischke 2006). For example, the meta-analysis conducted by Van Ewijk and Sleegers (2010) reports sizeable impacts (.315 of a standard deviation) from exogenous effects, while that conducted by Yeung and Nguyen-Hoang (2016) observed a much smaller association (.03 of a standard deviation) for endogenous effects. ...
Studies regarding school composition have been highly influential in the design of policies. However, methodological and conceptual controversies have hindered the emergence of a consensus on the existence, size, and direction of peer effects. Drawing on four cohorts of Chilean students (n = 620,044), this work analyses the extent to which the socioeconomic and academic classmates' characteristics are associated with student attainment. The findings suggest a positive medium-to low-magnitude effect of increases in the peers' academic performance. At the same time, there are almost no effects associated with changes in the classmates' socioeconomic status. These findings are stable across school types and are not driven by the sorting of students within them. The results are interpreted in the context of a new nationwide reform aiming to foster school integration and taking advantage of peer effects interaction.
... Desde la publicación del Informe Coleman son múltiples las investigaciones que han profundizado empíricamente en los efectos y también en las causas de la composición escolar. En lo que respecta a los efectos, a pesar de no ser una cuestión exenta de controversia (Thrupp, 1995;Nash, 2003;Thrupp et al., 2002), son múltiples las investigaciones que han corroborado empíricamente la incidencia del efecto composición o peer effect (Caldas & Bankston, 1997;Lauder et al., 2007;Van Ewijk & Sleegers, 2010;Benito et al., 2014b), llegando incluso a afirmar (De Fraine et al., 2003) que en el rendimiento académico es más determinante con quién se comparte escuela qué cómo se enseña. Algunas investigaciones han apuntado, además, que el efecto composición tiene un carácter asimétrico, de modo que la mezcla social generaría más efectos académicos positivos entre los alumnos con menor nivel socioeconómico que efectos negativos entre los alumnos con mayor nivel socioeconómico (Lauder & Hughes, 1990;Dar & Resh, 1994;Opdenakker & Van Damme, 2001;Opdenakker et al., 2002;Landrier & Duru-Bellat, 2003). ...
A partir de la revisión de los trabajos de Pierre Bourdieu y Jean-Claude Passeron Los herederos y La reproducción, cincuenta años después de su publicación, y de la conceptualización posterior por parte de Bourdieu de las formas de capital en general, y del concepto de capital social en particular, proponemos explorar sendas de investigación en el análisis de la reproducción intergeneracional de la desigualdad que dejaron relativamente desatendidas, vinculadas al papel de la escuela en la estructuración de las interacciones (lo que llamaremos infraestructura relacional) y del capital social, así como su impacto en las trayectorias académicas y laborales. Defendemos que una mayor atención a la escuela como infraestructura relacional permite una mejor comprensión de los diversos mecanismos mediante los cuales los contextos escolares socialmente homogéneos o heterogéneos pueden fortalecer o mitigar la reproducción intergeneracional de la desigualdad.
... First, some authors reported that across schools, the effect of SES is often encapsulated by prior achievement (Ferrão, 2009;Haegeland & Kirkebøen, 2008). Second, other research indicated that ignoring students' backgrounds in school VA models may reward or punish the wrong schools (Dearden et al., 2011;Ehlert et al., 2014;Leckie & Goldstein, 2019;Timmermans et al., 2011) and that students' learning gains were higher in schools with higher SES than in those with lower SES, also after controlling for prior achievement (De Fraine et al., 2003;Dumont et al., 2013). A third position is that the inclusion or exclusion of students' background variables depends on the purpose of school VA scores (Muñoz-Chereau & Thomas, 2016;Tekwe et al., 2004). ...
There is no final consensus regarding which covariates should be used (in addition to prior achievement) when estimating value-added (VA) scores to evaluate a school's effectiveness. Therefore, we examined the sensitivity of evaluations of schools' effectiveness in math and language achievement to covariate selection in the applied VA model. Four covariate sets were systematically combined, including prior achievement from the same or different domain, sociodemographic and sociocultural background characteristics, and domain-specific achievement motivation. School VA scores were estimated using longitudinal data from the Luxembourg School Monitoring Programme with some 3600 students attending 153 primary schools in Grades 1 and 3. VA scores varied considerably, despite high correlations between VA scores based on the different sets of covariates (.66 < r < 1.00). The explained variance and consistency of school VA scores substantially improved when including prior math and prior language achievement in VA models for math and prior language achievement with sociodemographic and sociocultural background characteristics in VA models for language. These findings suggest that prior achievement in the same subject, the most commonly used covariate to date, may be insufficient to control for between-school differences in student intake when estimating school VA scores. We thus recommend using VA models with caution and applying VA scores for informative purposes rather than as a mean to base accountability decisions upon.
Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11092-022-09386-y.
... Educational psychology research has repeatedly demonstrated that classmates substantially shape student learning, highlighting the role of what can be called "classroom composition" effects (see, e.g., Trautwein et al., 2015). On the one hand, there is evidence for so-called positive spillover effects of higher-achieving peers on students' achievement and self-evaluations, in the sense that learners benefit from high-achieving peers and perform better when they are surrounded by high-performing classmates (Brewer & Weber, 1994;De Fraine, Van Damme, Van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Fruehwirth, 2013;Pelham & Wachsmuth, 1995). On the other hand, there is a large body of evidence for negative contrast effects in the face of high-achieving classmates, suggesting that higher-achieving peers have a negative impact on students' evaluations of their own competence, controlling for individual achievement (the so-called Big-Fish--Little-Pond Effect, see latest reviews by Fang et al., 2018;Marsh, Martin, Yeung, & Craven, 2017;Marsh & Seaton, 2015). ...
Immersive virtual reality (IVR) provides great potential to experimentally investigate effects of peers on student learning in class and to strategically deploy virtual peer learners to improve learning. The present study examined how three social-related classroom configurations (i.e., students' position in the classroom, visualization style of virtual avatars, and virtual classmates' performance-related behavior) affect students' visual attention toward information presented in the IVR classroom using a large-scale eye-tracking data set of N = 274 sixth graders. ANOVA results showed that the IVR configurations were systematically associated with differences in learners' visual attention on classmates or the instructional content and their overall gaze distribution in the IVR classroom (Cohen's d ranging from 0.28 to 2.04 for different IVR configurations and gaze features). Gaze-based attention on classmates was negatively related to students' interest in the IVR lesson (d = 0.28); specifically, the more boys were among the observed peers, the lower students' situational self-concept (d = 0.24). In turn, gaze-based attention on the instructional content was positively related to students' performance after the IVR lesson (d = 0.26). Implications for the future use of IVR classrooms in educational research and practice are discussed.
... Empirical support for the existence of achievement composition effects has been rather mixed. Numerous studies that have looked at different countries and used different designs and analytical strategies have shown positive achievement composition effects on achievement development, with classroom composition being typically associated with larger effects than school composition (Burns & Mason, 2002;Curenton et al., 2015;De Fraine et al., 2003;Duru-Bellat & Mingat, 1998;Hanushek et al., 2003;Kang, 2007;Nomi & Raudenbush, 2016;Opdenakker & Van Damme, 2001). However, some studies have found weak or no empirical support for the existence of achievement composition effects (e.g., Abdulkadiroglu et al., 2014;Imberman et al., 2012; for a narrative overview, resulting in mixed evidence, see Sacerdote, 2011). ...
In recent studies, the existence and relevance of achievement composition effects on students’ individual achievement have been called into question due to the methodological challenges arising in multilevel analyses. Our study examined how class-average achievement is related to students’ achievement development across one school year. We used data from Germany, which has a secondary school system with large achievement differences between schools and classrooms due to rigid, explicit between-school tracking practices. We accounted for two methodological challenges, controlling for both selection bias and measurement error. Adopting an approach based on integrative data analysis (IDA), we systematically (re)analyzed five German longitudinal large-scale data sets. This IDA approach allowed us to quantify the extent to which results vary across (a) different longitudinal data sets and (b) different analytical strategies (i.e., ways of accounting for confounding variables and measurement reliability). Overall, we found both general achievement composition effects and narrower peer spillover effects (i.e., effects of student composition above and beyond the effects of tracking) in the German setting, even after controlling for measurement error and selection bias. Our results counter recent suggestions that composition effects on achievement development may be mere phantom effects due to methodological misspecifications. However, estimates of composition effects varied substantially based on the analytical approach. We conclude with considerations regarding how to interpret composition effects in multilevel modeling and which effects are of interest for educational research.
... Concernant la capacité intellectuelle, pour la plupart des études (Danhier et Martin, 2014 ;Dumay et Dupriez, 2008 ;De Fraine, Van Damme, Van Landeghem, Opdenakker et Onghena, 2003 ;Opdenakker et Van Damme, 2001), le niveau de maîtrise des connaissances par le groupe au début de l'année est une importante source de variation des performances des élèves. Opdenakker et Van Damme (2001) ont trouvé un effet positif du niveau moyen de l'école sur les performances réalisées en mathématiques par les élèves des écoles secondaires de la Flandre. ...
Based on a multilevel analysis, this study explores the impact of classes and
schools on the mathematics performance of 4th grade elementary students in
two cities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It reveals that, out of the total
variance, 71%, 16% and 13% are situated at student, classroom and school levels,
respectively. The study further shows that beyond the effect of individual
characteristics, class characteristics explain 2.9% of the variance situated at
class level and 3.4% of the variance located at school level. However, only the
pretest class average and class size are significantly associated with student
performance. The study finally shows that if school characteristics explain 1.5%
of the variance situated at school level, the principal’s experience stands for the
unique significant predictor of students’ performance.
... Aggregated levels of ability or prior achievement, the focus of the present study, are often used to quantify the effects of school composition, that is, the impact of between-school differences in student intake on student achievement. Even though other measures have been incorporated to operationalise the effect of school composition, including average socioeconomic status (Willms, 1985), gender composition (De Fraine, Van Damme, Van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Kyriakides & Tsangaridou, 2008), and even the ethnic composition of the school (Duru-Bellat, Le Bastard-Landrier, Piquée, & Suchaut, 2004), an uncontroversial finding from the existing literature is that prior achievement is by far the best predictor of future outcomes (Thrupp, Lauder, & Robinson, 2002). It was the publication of the seminal Coleman et al. (1966) report, at the time of the emergence of the school effectiveness paradigm, that first drew attention to the potential effects of school composition on student achievement. ...
... The peer composition of the classroom can vary (e.g., gender composition, number of students having had to repeat a grade, average levels of achievement and engagement, and average SES; Fauth et al., 2019;Wang & Eccles, 2012), in a way that may impact students' functioning. For instance, students enrolled in classrooms with a higher average SES, higher average achievement, and proportionally more girls, have been found to have a higher average level of achievement and engagement (De Fraine, Van Damme, Van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Hospel & Galand, 2016). Moreover, distinct teachers also use different teaching practices. ...
This study contrasts three hypotheses to determine the best configuration of teacher need-supporting practices (autonomy support, structure, and involvement) in terms of classroom-levels of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement. Multilevel analyses were conducted among a sample of 1193 8th grade students nested in 57 math classrooms. Results failed to support the additive hypothesis (H1), which anticipated that all three practices would be associated with classroom-levels of engagement when jointly considered. Results also failed to support the synergistic hypothesis (H2), which predicted that the greatest benefits would emerge in classrooms characterized by a high level of two or three practices. Finally, results supported the global hypothesis (H3), which anticipated that the global level taken across the three practices—captured by a global factor—would provide optimal support to classroom-levels of engagement. Specific factors representing the imbalance in autonomy support, structure, and involvement also contributed to some aspects of classroom-levels of engagement.
... For example, research on compositional effects has revealed that a relationship exists between the composition of the student body and student achievement. 1 Compositional effects imply that school composition characteristics influence student achievement beyond the influence of their individual backgrounds (De Fraine et al., 2003;Harker & Tymms, 2004;Opdenakker & Van Damme, 2001). ...
The aim of educational policy should be to provide a good education to all students. Thus, a key question arises regarding the extent to which key characteristics of school composition (proportion of students with migration background, socioeconomic status [SES], prior school achievement, and achievement heterogeneity), instructional quality, school quality, and later school achievement are interrelated. The present study addressed this research question by examining school inspection data, official school statistics, and large-scale achievement data from all primary schools in Berlin, Germany (N = 343). The results of correlation and path analyses showed that school composition (average SES, average prior school achievement) predicted components of instructional quality (SES: classroom management, cognitive activation; achievement: cognitive activation, individual learning support). The relation between school composition characteristics and most components of school quality was close to zero. Contrary to our expectations, only the effect of school SES on later achievement was mediated by instructional quality.
... In terms of achievement, previous studies have indicated that the student's achievement will be higher in a high achieving class than in a low achieving class (e.g., De Fraine, Van Damme, Van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Stäbler et al., 2017), implying a positive peer spillover effect (Willms, 1985). Lam's (2014) closer examination of effects of peer networks, such as friends, study mates, emotional supporters, and seatmates showed that all networks have an effect on school achievement (Lam, 2014). ...
The development of students’ learning and test-taking behavior may derive from the social context and the group of peers they associate with daily for years. Consequently, it is assumed that students’ academic achievements are to some degree affected by their classmates and the composition of the classroom. The present study provides evidence on how Finnish students (N=5071) from different classrooms (N=435) develop distinct patterns regarding their mathematics and literacy achievement during lower secondary school. We analysed longitudinal large-scale educational assessment data using a multilevel latent profile analysis (MLPA) to investigate the impact of classroom effect on students’ achievement patterns, that is, on the development of students’ low-stakes mathematics and literacy test scores from 7th to 9th grade. The results demonstrated the added value of modelling the multilevel structure inherent in educational assessment data: we identified four student achievement patterns that displayed different distributions across the school classes. More precisely, besides individual characteristics, the development of students’ low-stakes mathematics and literacy test scores was associated with class-level factors and some of the classrooms seemed to have a stronger effect on students’ test scores. These results suggest that classroom context is associated with students’ achievement patterns, especially regarding the worst achieving students. The findings may reflect a combination of class placement practices as well as classroom and peer effect. Although the differences between Finnish schools have been one of the lowest in the OECD countries, the findings of the present study suggest that the classroom membership may create class level quality differences in both the preconditions and the development of learning.
... The results of BFLPE research indicate that students benefit from being in slightly lower achieving peer groups with respect to their domain-specific selfconcept, interest and career aspirations Marsh & Hau, 2003;Nagengast & Marsh, 2012;Seaton et al., 2009). On the other hand, research has shown that students benefit from being in a high-achieving peer group in terms of their achievement development (De Fraine, van Damme, van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Harker & Tymms, 2004;Stäbler et al., 2017). These two findings contradict one another. ...
Self-concept in mathematics (MSC) and interest in mathematics are important predictors of whether a student will choose to major in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) field at
university. Research on the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) has shown that both predictors are affected by the achievement composition of students in schools. That is, given the same individual ability, students in higher achieving schools exhibit lower MSC and interest in mathematics than students in lower achieving schools due to social comparison processes. The BFLPE has been replicated in high school settings many times, but less is known about the long-term effects of this context effect. In the present study, we investigated the long-term effects of the BFLPE on the aspiration to major in and the actual decision to major in a STEM field at university. We used data from a German longitudinal study.
The results showed no direct BFLPE on the aspiration to enroll in a STEM major at the end of high school or on actual enrollment in a STEM major 2 years after graduating from high school. However, small
negative indirect effects of the BFLPE via MSC and interest in mathematics on the aspiration to and enrollment in a STEM major occurred. In sum, the longitudinal BFLPE on STEM major choice was
small.
... Thus, according to the BFLPE a student with a given level of achievement will have a lower ASC in a high achieving (big pond) class than in a low achieving (little pond) class (see Figure 1b;.e.g., Marsh, Seaton, et al., 2008). The peer spillover effect ( Cooley Fruehwirth, 2013) however, shows a positive effect of aggregated achievement on subsequent individual achievement, over and above the positive effect of prior individual achievement at the individual level (see Figure 1c; e.g., De Fraine, Van Damme, Van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Stäbler, Dumont, Becker, & Baumert, 2016;Willms, 1985). Hence, according to this research the student's achievement will be higher in a high achieving class than in a low achieving class. ...
School-average achievement is often reported to have positive effects on individual achievement (peer spillover effect). However, it is well established that school-average achievement has negative effects on academic self-concept (big-fish-little-pond effect [BFLPE]) and that academic self-concept and achievement are positively correlated and mutually reinforcing (reciprocal effects model). We resolve this theoretical paradox based on a large, longitudinal sample (N = 14,985 U.S. children) and improved methodology. More appropriate multilevel modeling that controls for phantom effects (due to measurement error and preexisting differences) makes the BFLPE even more negative, but turns the peer spillover effect from positive to slightly below zero. Thus, attending a high-achieving school has negative effects on academic self-concept and a nonpositive effect on achievement. The results question previous studies and meta-analyses showing a positive peer spillover effect that do not control for phantom effects, along with previous policy and school selection decisions based on this research.
... In other words, students from Catholic primary schools are better off in the long term regarding their mathematics achievement compared with students coming from central or local public schools. De Fraine et al. (2003) found that the positive effect of Catholic schools in Flanders was explained by their favoured intake. However, this was not the case in our study, since we corrected for the intake characteristics of students and the proportion of high-risk students in the primary school. ...
In the field of educational effectiveness research, school effects are generally studied in the short
term (i.e. during the same phase of schooling). The aim of this study is to investigate long-term
primary school effects on students’ achievement in mathematics at the end of secondary education.
We also investigate which primary school characteristics are of importance in the long
term. Data from the longitudinal SiBO project, in which a cohort of 6,000 Flemish pupils were
intensively followed from kindergarten to grade 7, was used. At the age of 17, the same cohort
participated in follow-up data collection. Cross-classified multilevel models showed small continuing
effects of primary school on the mathematics achievement of students (i.e. over and
above what had been reached at the end of primary education). No long-term effect was found
of the proportion of high-risk students at primary school. Students coming from a primary
school with a higher effectiveness obtained higher mathematics results at age 17, but when the
mathematics achievement of students at the end of primary school was taken into account, this
effect disappeared. We also observed that students coming from Catholic primary schools performed
better in mathematics at age 17 compared with students coming from public schools.
The implications of the findings are discussed.
... However, even within the segregated schools, the classroom populations can diverge widely, from both an ethnic and socioeconomic perspective. Although educational effectiveness research emphasises the dominance of classroom-level effects in explaining variation in student achievement (Kyriakides et al., 2000), and the group composition at the classroom level is seen as very important (De Fraine et al., 2003), few studies have actually focused on the relationship between classroom composition characteristics and students' language proficiency and progress. Thus, it is not yet well understood how classroom composition characteristics influence reading and listening achievement and progress in socially and ethnically segregated primary schools. ...
This study aimed to investigate the relationship of classroom composition factors with reading and listening comprehension achievement and progress in socially and ethnically segregated primary schools in Flanders (Belgium). Specifically, using a three-level multivariate repeated measures analysis, it examined the association of reading and listening achievement and progress with ethnic diversity, the proportion of non-native students and the average socioeconomic status of the class, taking into account student characteristics. At the beginning and end of the school year, reading tests, listening tests and questionnaires were administered to a sample of 7- and 8-year-old students (n = 683) in 42 second-grade classes. Students’ listening comprehension achievement at the beginning of the school year was negatively related to having a home language other than the language of instruction and to classes with a high proportion of non-native students. However, progress in listening comprehension was not significantly associated with any student or classroom composition factors. Students whose mothers had a lower level of education performed lower on reading comprehension at the beginning of the school year, while at the end of the school year students whose mothers had a higher level of education were at a greater disadvantage. Limitations of this study and directions for future research are discussed.
... Therefore, we included a dichotomous variable Experience (M = 0.83, SD = 0.37), which represents whether a teacher has more than 3 years of experience 4 (1 = more than 3 years; 0 = 3 years or less). The next teacher-level covariate included SES_Mean, which indicates the percentage of students enrolled in a teacher's class who are eligible for free or reduced lunch (M = 0.47, SD = 0.34) and has been found to influence individual student achievement (de Fraine, van Damme, van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003). We also included MathScore_Mean (M = 236.74, ...
Mathematical communication has been an important feature of standards documents since National Council of Teachers of Mathematics’ (NCTM) (1989) Curriculum and Evaluation Standards. Such an emphasis has influenced content standards of states from then to present. This study examined how effective the prevalence of various forms of mathematical communication in 2009 state standards documents was in regard to National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2009 achievement scores for Grade 4. Analysis suggests mixed results with potential implications as states move toward fully implementing the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics. Specifically, although including language requiring mathematical descriptions from students had a positive effect on Grade 4 NAEP 2009 achievement scores, including language requiring rationales and justifications was not found to have a statistically significant effect.
... Darunter befinden sich etwa Belgien (u. a. De Fraine, Van Damme, Van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Opdenakker & Van Damme, 2001, 2006a, die Niederlande (u. a. Dronkers & Levels, 2007;Peetsma, van der Veen, Koopman, & van Schooten, 2006), Großbritannien (u. ...
Nicht viel anders tönt es von Seiten jener, welche die These verfechten, dass eine Gruppierung der Schülerschaft anhand der deklarierten Leistungsfähigkeit zu negativen Effekten für diejenigen im unteren Leistungssegment führt. So schließt Adam Gamoran (2010) seinen Überblick zu entsprechenden englischsprachigen Studien über den Zeitraum von rund vier Jahrzehnten mit dem Gedanken: Wie die Schülerinnen und Schüler gruppiert werden, ist schlussendlich weniger wichtig als die jeweiligen Lerngelegenheiten, die sie erhalten.
... These norms also affect the manner in which teachers and students experience and react to disciplinary problems as they occur (Ames, 1991;Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005;Evertson & Weinstein, 2011;Good & Brophy, 2008;Metz, 1978;Murray-Chandler, 2009). Other studies addressing differences among classrooms have stressed classroom composition (ethnic, gender, socioeconomic) in relation to scholastic norms, motivation levels, and degree of disruptions (Creemers, 1994;De Fraine, Van Damme, Van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2003;Lavy & Schlosser, 2011;Van Ewijka & Sleegers, 2010). In addition, teacher quality is recognized as a significant factor into student achievement (Hanushek, 2011;Hill & Rowe, 1996;Kane, McCaffrey, Miller, & Staiger, 2013;Jennings & DiPrete, 2010;Luyten, 2003). ...
Classroom disciplinary climate and its correlation to students’ performance is a widely debated issue. Policy reports tend to assume that classroom disruptions interfere with the learning experience. Empirical evidence for this assumption, however, which carefully distinguishes classroom climate from the school climate in general, is still wanting. This study examines the relation between student reports regarding disciplinary infractions to student achievement, with a special focus on classroom disruptions. Multilevel regressions were used to estimate the contribution of classroom and school disciplinary infractions on eighth-grade students’ test scores. Reports of disruptive behavior proved to correlate negatively with test scores, whereas the effect of other school and classroom characteristics, including teachers’ attitudes and school disciplinary policy, were insignificant (controlling for students’ prior achievements). We conclude that a disruptive classroom climate can hinder the learning process and lower the achievement of the entire class, regardless of the conduct of any particular student. Therefore, a special focus on disruptions in the classroom, in contradistinction with school disciplinary climate in general—which is lacking in most studies—emerges as instrumental to the understanding of how school climate relates to student achievement.
... As reported in the Improving Schools Effectiveness Project findings referring to a 6-7 per cent of remaining variance attributable to the schools, 'in percentage terms, this sounds relatively modest but its impact can be of great significance' (Thomas et al., 2001) page68. (Sammons and Smees, 1998;De Fraine et al., 2003) illustrate the way such variance accounted for statistics have been reported in SER studies. ...
... More recent research has pointed out the necessity of increasing the complexity of the school value-added models by specifying additional levels of variation, which can be either completely nested or follow a cross-classification pattern (De Fraine et al., 2003;Goldstein et al., 2007;Leckie, 2009;Martínez, 2012;Rasbash et al., 2010;Timmermans et al., 2013). In these studies, the levels of neighbourhoods, classrooms, primary and secondary schools, as well as local education authorities were specified (although not all the levels simultaneously in all studies) and they were all found to be relevant sources of variation in pupils' test scores. ...
In the last few decades, educational research has largely demonstrated the effects of the socio-economic background on academic performance. Traditionally, researchers have used the so-called contextualised value-added (CVA) concept, implemented via multilevel statistical models, to assess variation in learning outcomes arising from schools and pupils. Depending on the stakeholders they intend to inform, two basic types of CVA models can be defined: models for school accountability and models for school choice. School accountability models can be further distinguished according to the ‘recipient’ of the information: internal models provide information for school authorities to improve their own practices, while external models provide information for government officials to assess school performance for policy-making purposes. Despite the evidence in favour of the use of more complex models for school accountability, government practice in Chile has been restricted to the use of raw school averages in standardised tests as indicators of effectiveness, which have been used indiscriminately for the purposes of school accountability and school choice.Using data from the Chilean National Pupil Database (SIMCE 2004-2006), this thesis demonstrates how the traditional CVA (2-level) models fall short in addressing the complex phenomenon of academic performance, especially in the context of a developing and highly unequal country, such as Chile. The novelty of the CVA modelling in this thesis is that it extends and improves the traditional models insofar as they explicitly assess the variation between pupils, classrooms, primary schools, secondary schools and local authorities, as well as the correlation between Mathematics and Spanish Language at all levels. This is done by implementing two univariate 4-level CVA models for progress in Mathematics and Spanish fitted separately via maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) and a bivariate 5-level cross-classified CVA model for progress in both subjects fitted via Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) estimation.External school accountability measures were derived from the extended univariate and multivariate models and compared to measures derived from a model akin to the traditional approach. A number of key differences were found, leading to the conclusion that further adjustments to the traditional CVA models are not negligible. The univariate 4-level CVA models provide more insight into school accountability than the traditional approach in a straightforward fashion, while the bivariate 5-level model encompasses a more reliable and ultimately comprehensive view on school performance.With regard to internal school accountability, further models were specified with the purpose of analysing pupils' heterogeneity to inform school improvement processes. The concept of "cultural capital" (Bourdieu, 1977) was chosen to shed light on the matter. Since cultural capital is essentially immeasurable, a latent variable was constructed from a group of manifest variables related to access and use of reading materials. From a substantive point of view, this thesis shows how access to all sorts of reading materials and reading habits can have not only a relevant impact on pupils' progress in Language, but also in Mathematics. Finally, this thesis concludes around three main ideas: firstly, school value-added models for school accountability, either external or internal, need to take into account the complexity of influences affecting pupils' academic progress as thoroughly as possible, in order to make a fair assessment of schools' performance and/or to inform school improvement policies. Secondly, school effectiveness is not a unidimensional process, which implies that school value-added models should ideally (when there are available data) reflect upon the multidimensionality of the phenomenon and take into consideration the relationship between different subjects, as well as non-academic outcomes. Thirdly, CVA models can also be used to inform internal school accountability by analysing the effects of meaningful modifiable factors and potentially serve as drivers of school improvement policies.
... Hoffer 1992;Argys et al. 1996;Opdenakker et al. 2002;De Fraine et al. 2003. ...
This article analyzes whether school social segregation, derived from policies and practices of both between-school student allocation and within-school streaming, is related to the effectiveness of the Italian education system. Hierarchical regression models are used to set out territorially aggregated factors of social sorting influencing learning opportunities beyond the traditional north-south economic divide. The findings show that practices that foster or consent to uneven distribution of students between classrooms are likely to adversely affect the overall level of educational effectiveness, especially in those areas with the lowest levels of socioeconomic development. As regards the uneven between-school allocation, the findings show that what matters when it comes to assessing the negative effect of between-school segregation on educational outcomes is not the region of residence but whether pupils live in a metropolitan area. The results are discussed in light of the students’ heterogeneity management models found in the international arena.
... At class level this phase was addressed in none of the studies included in our review and meta-analysis. This in contrast to the next phase in the cycle, feedback, which was addressed in two third of the studies included in our review (Brandsma, 1993;Carpenter, Pashler & Cepeda, 2009;De Fraine, Van Damme, Van Landeghem, Opdenakker & Onghena, 2003;Hill & Rowe, 1998;Hofman, Hofman & Guldemond, 1999;Klieme & Rakoczy, 2003;Kyriakides, 2005;Kyriakides & Creemers, 2008;Levacic et al.;2003;Lockheed & Longford, 1991;Rakoczy, Klieme, Bürgermeister & Harks, 2008;Reezigt, 1993;Reezigt et al., 1999;Senkbeil, 2006;She & Fisher, 2002;Van der Grift et al., 1997). Various aspects of feedback were covered in the primary studies, such as the primary users of the feedback, the types of feedback, as well as the timing of feedback (immediately versus delayed). ...
In this review study and meta-analysis the evidence on the impact of evaluation and assessment as effectiveness enhancing school and classroom level conditions is summarized and updated. The meta-analysis included 20 studies on evaluation and 6 studies examining the impact of assessment. A vote count procedure was applied as well to permit the inclusion of studies that did not provide sufficient information to calculate an effect size. Findings demonstrated statistically significant but small positive effects for evaluation at school and evaluation at class level, while the average effect size for assessment was almost zero. Results of the vote count were in the same direction. The results of the conceptual analysis showed that a thorough and complete application of the evaluative cycle was rarely addressed in any of the studies included in this review. More specifically, hardly any empirical research was found on the processes by which teachers and school leaders noticed and interpreted data. A further need is also to understand the types of professional development and support that enhance effective evaluation and assessment practices.
Background
Lower socioeconomic positions (SEP) and poor academic achievement increase children’s risk for mental health problems. The Finnish education system is officially non-selective and unified, but a part of children can be selected into emphasised teaching classes by aptitude tests, which are known to segregate students by SEP and academic achievement. We study here if allocation of students to mainstream and selective classes segregates students by mental health, too.
Methods
Students from primary school (6th grade) were followed to lower secondary school (7th grade). The number in selective classes was n=209 and in mainstream classes n=551. Outcomes were depressed mood, anxiety and daily health complaints. Association between class type and the outcomes was analysed by cross-tabulation and logistic regression models. Gender, academic achievement, SEP and previous mental health were independent and confounding/moderating variables.
Results
Students in selective classes had better academic achievement and higher SEP compared with students in mainstream classes. Girls reported poorer mental health than boys. Depressive mood did not vary by class type, but anxiety and daily health complaints were more common among girls in mainstream classes. When academic achievement and background factors were considered, among girls only anxiety was more common in mainstream classes, but among boys, anxiety appeared to be statistically significantly more common in selective classes.
Conclusion
Grouping students by aptitude tests to different classes may select them by mental health, too. Longer follow-up and gender-specific studies would give more reliable answers for education policy makers about student grouping by aptitude test and its effects on segregation.
Students’ learning is deeply rooted in both home and school environments. This necessitates a person-and-context perspective that considers individual, home, and school factors. This study delved into second language learning, an area inherently intertwined with these settings. Utilizing hierarchical linear modeling, the study involved 2,310 fifth-grade English–Chinese bilingual students and 109 teachers across 109 classrooms in 23 Singaporean primary schools where Chinese is taught as a second language. We examined the class compositional effect of Chinese use at home on students’ Chinese language achievement and the cross-level interactions between classroom goal structures (mastery and performance goal structures) and Chinese use at home in predicting Chinese language achievement. Aggregated class-level Chinese use at home exhibited a compositional effect on students’ Chinese language achievement. Additionally, the class-level Chinese use at home strengthened the positive relation between individual students’ home language use and their achievement in Chinese. Moreover, classroom mastery goal structure demonstrated significant moderating effects on the relation between students’ Chinese use at home and Chinese language achievement. While Chinese use at home was positively related to achievement, this relation was weaker in classes with high mastery goal structure and stronger in classes with low mastery goal structure. No main effect or interaction effect concerning classroom performance goal structure was observed. These findings highlight the intricate relation between home language exposure and classroom goal structures. Being surrounded by peers who use the second language often at home may enhance second language achievement. Furthermore, mastery-focused environments may compensate for students with limited second language exposure at home.
En el sistema educativo español, la residencia o el empleo en el área de influencia (AI) del centro escolar constituye un criterio central para la admisión del alumnado. A través de dos casos tipo, las ciudades de Sevilla y Málaga, en los que las AIs se han implementado de forma singular, este trabajo desarrolla un análisis contrafactual en el que se contrapone el modelo actual con un modelo de proximidad en el que el criterio de asignación prevalente sería la cercanía relativa al centro. Se obtiene que: los centros del AI no son en muchos casos los más próximos a la residencia o empleo (en torno al 30% en el índice calculado) y que la aplicación de un modelo de proximidad relativa supondría reducir la incidencia teórica del «efecto composición».
This chapter reviews existing findings on the effects of student achievement variability at different levels of the learning environment: within classrooms and schools, between schools, between tracks, as well as across educational systems of different countries. In addition, it summarizes findings on classroom composition effects on achievement as well as motivational and psychosocial outcomes of students. The review focuses on achievement composition in terms of achievement level and dispersion. Beginning with a brief summary of theories on the learning environment and emerging effects of school and classroom composition more generally, the chapter shortly depicts approaches to operationalize student composition. The main part, then, (a) reviews existing findings on student achievement variability at different levels of the learning environment. In addition, it (b) summarizes findings on the effects of classroom and school composition on individual student outcomes. The main dependent variable of these studies is individual student achievement, especially in mathematics and reading comprehension. In addition, the review includes studies examining effects on further student outcomes, such as motivation and psychosocial characteristics, for example, academic self-concept. It also aims at including studies investigating if composition effects are comparable in size between high and low achievers. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the limitations of studies on composition effects and points out knowledge gaps for future research. It also relates its topic of composition to the overall perspective of International Large-Scale Assessments as well as to the cross-cutting theme of the section—equity and diversity.
Children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities (ID) exhibit low levels of adaptive behaviors (i.e., conceptual , social, and practical skills). In typical development such competences are learned in part from peers at school. Less is known about such influence from classmates in students with ID. We investigated classroom-level peer effects in 1125 students with ID (69% boys), mean age 11.30 years (SD = 3.75), who attended special needs schools. School staff members reported on students' adaptive behaviors at the beginning and end of one school year. Multilevel analyses showed a classroom peer context effect for conceptual skills, controlling for students' earlier skills, age, and gender. This indicated that students' individual conceptual skills increased more, when their classmates in special needs classrooms had greater conceptual skills. No such classroom peer effect was found for social and practical competences. Implications for supporting children and adolescents with ID are discussed.
In this paper, I analyze the theoretical and empirical foundations for how class composition affects gifted students’ academic outcomes. First, I define the term composition effect and distinguish it from other context effects. Based on this definition, I present the mechanisms behind composition effects while drawing distinctions between resource-related, peer-related and teacher-related composition effects. Subsequently, I discuss theories and empirical results of international school effectiveness studies in terms of their relevance to increasing equity in gifted education. Ability groups, especially gifted classes, have an advantage for the promotion of gifted students. However, due to selection mechanisms, low-income students drop out of these support programs very early in their school careers. Behind the supposed negative influence of ethnic composition on school performance, a socioeconomic effect can be assumed. This is thus the most important composition effect in regard to inequality in talent development. However, there are ongoing efforts to ensure greater equity specifically in gifted education.
In this contribution we will provide an overview of the developments in educational effectiveness research conducted in Belgium and the Netherlands over the past three decades (1987–2018) and discuss a selection of (mostly large-scale, longitudinal) key studies, research topics and main findings. In particular, dominant issues in the educational effectiveness research area of the aforementioned countries will be addressed, and main findings will be discussed and illustrated with results of a selection of key studies. In particular, effects of teacher behaviour and what students experience in the classroom with regard to students’ cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes will be addressed. Attention will be paid to effects of learning environment characteristics such as instructional support and class climate (i.e. learning climate, teacher-student and student-student relations), as it is clear from educational effectiveness research in general – and in Belgium and the Netherlands in particular – that these characteristics are crucial for student learning and student outcomes. Besides, these characteristics are important sources of variation. In addition, effects of group composition (also in relation to what students experience in the classroom) will be addressed. Also, attention will be paid to effects of configurations of learning environments as a holistic way to look at effects of learning environments. Furthermore, school-level factors, the connection between school-level factors and learning environment (i.e. teacher/classroom) level factors, as well as generic versus differentiated educational effectiveness, will be discussed, as well as some school level characteristics.
Empirische Schulleistungsstudien haben wiederholt herausgestellt, dass die mathematischen Kompetenzen von Grundschulkindern in substantieller Weise von individuellen Faktoren der Lernenden abhängig sind. In den letzten Jahren hat die Schuleffektivitätsforschung jedoch zusätzlich darauf hingewiesen, dass bei der Erforschung der Determinanten schulischer Kompetenzen ebenfalls Kompositionseffekte zu berücksichtigen sind. Diese sind „dann zu konstatieren, wenn die leistungsmäßige, soziale, kulturelle und lernbiografische Zusammensetzung der Schülerschaft (…) die Leistungsentwicklung (…) beeinflusst“ (Maaz, Baumert & Trautwein 2009: 30). Studien, welche die Relevanz von Kompositionseffekten bei der Entwicklung mathematischer Kompetenzen in der Grundschule untersuchen, sind in Deutschland nicht vorhanden. Mit der Studie ADDITION (A Dynamic Effective Knowledge Base for Quality in Education; Creemers et al. 2013) liegt nun eine Untersuchung vor, mit der die mathematischen Kompetenzen von vierten Klassen mithilfe einer Messwiederholung untersucht wurden.
To delo obravnava vpliv socialno-ekonomskih dejavnikov na šolsko uspešnost otrok, obenem pa raziskuje možnosti za pridobivanje podatkov o socialno-ekonomskih dejavnikih iz administrativnih virov oz. izvornih baz. Tak način zbiranja ima več prednosti glede na pogostejši način pridobivanja z vprašalniki za otroke in mladino, ker je slednje logistično oteženo in tudi veljavnost ter zanesljivost tako zbranih podatkov sta vprašljivi. Tako naslavlja vprašanja, ki so aktualna zaradi trenutnega tehnološkega razvoja zbiranja in povezovanja podatkov v poprej nepredstavljivem obsegu, še bolj pa so aktualna zaradi vsebinskih ugotovitev, ki omogočajo nov vpogled v pravičnost in enakost slovenskega šolskega sistema. Tovrstne analize podatkov lahko nudijo primerne informacije za pomembne odločitve o usmerjanju šolske politike v prihodnje. Za namene te raziskave smo med sabo povezali podatke o dosežkih učencev na različnih zunanjih preverjanjih znanja – na nacionalnem preverjanju znanja (NPZ) v šestem in devetem razredu ter na splošni in poklicni maturi – in različne administrativne baze, ki jih hrani Statistični urad RS (SURS). Dosežki učencev izvirajo iz let 2010–2013, administrativne baze statističnega urada pa se večinoma navezujejo na leto 2011, ko je bil opravljen registrski popis prebivalstva. Pri povezovanju smo prek evidence gospodinjstev vsakemu učencu določili identiteto staršev, ki živijo z njim v skupnem gospodinjstvu, in tem staršem poiskali podatke o izobrazbi, poklicu, dohodkih, vrednosti nepremičnin v njihovi lasti ipd. Za zagotovitev varnosti osebnih podatkov in ustrezno anonimizacijo je SURS identifikacijska polja nadomestil z negovorečimi šiframi, samo delo pa je potekalo v njihovi varni sobi.
Raziskava je obsegala osnovni pregled povezanosti in identifikacijo primernih spremenljivk učenčevega okolja, ki bi bile uporabne za sistemsko spremljanje, obenem pa je postregla z nekaterimi konkretnimi rezultati.
Gemäß dem meritokratischen Prinzip sollte alleine die Leistung eines Schülers, gemessen u.a. durch Schulnoten oder Bildungsempfehlungen, dessen Bildungschancen bestimmen. Jedoch weist die empirische Bildungsforschung darauf hin, dass das deutsche Bildungssystem diesem Anspruch bei weitem und bis heute nicht gerecht wird. So belegen zahlreiche Studien ausgeprägte Ungleichheiten der Bildungschancen nach sozialer und ethnischer Herkunft sowie nach Geschlecht und Region. Dabei gehen die angesprochenen empirischen Analysen (und die jeweils zugrunde liegenden theoretischen Konzepte) jedoch implizit häufig davon aus, dass alleine individuelle Determinanten und Ressourcen des Elternhauses für die festgestellten Bildungsungleichheiten ursächlich sind und es somit für die Bildungschancen vernachlässigbar ist, in welchen Bildungskontexten – wie etwa Schule, Schulklasse, Wohngegend, Region oder soziales Netzwerk – sich eine Schülerin oder ein Schüler befindet. Neuere Untersuchungen auf Basis von Mehrebenen- und Längsschnittanalysen zeigen allerdings, dass neben dem Wandel gesellschaftlicher Kontexte und der Expansion von Bildungsgelegenheiten auch die Bedingungen in den Schulen, Klassen und Regionen sowie die Lehrkräfte und die Zusammensetzung des Freundeskreises der Schülerinnen und Schüler einen erheblichen Einfluss auf den individuellen Bildungserfolg haben.
Der Inhalt
Mit Beiträgen von Michael Windzio, Hans-Peter Blossfeld, Wilfried Bos, C. Katharina Spieß, Hartmut Ditton, Isabell van Ackeren, Dominik Becker, Volker Stocké, Petra Stanat, Michaela Sixt, Günter Faber, Cornelia Kristen, David Reimer, Martin Neugebauer, Horst Weishaupt, Rolf Becker und Jürgen Schiener
Die Zielgruppen
Bildungssoziologinnen und -soziologen, Migrationssoziologen und -soziologinnen, Sozialforscherinnen und -forscher, Erziehungswissenschaftlerinnen und -wissenschaftler
Die Herausgeber
Prof. Dr. Rolf Becker ist Direktor und Professor für Bildungssoziologie am Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft der Universität Bern.
Dr. Alexander Schulze ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Institut für Soziologie der Universität Mainz.
En Flandre, les élèves de 15 ans affichent des résultats en lecture significativement
supérieurs à la moyenne de l'OCDE. Les élèves de la Fédération
Wallonie-Bruxelles se situent, par contre, dans la moyenne. Malgré l’efficacité
élevée de l’enseignement en Flandre, environ un sixième des élèves n’atteignent pas
le niveau minimal de compétences nécessaire pour participer pleinement à la
société moderne. Ils sont plus nombreux en Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles puisque
plus d’un cinquième des élèves n’atteignent pas ce niveau.
• Dans chacune des deux communautés, l'équivalent de plus de huit années
d'études sépare les élèves les plus forts des élèves les plus faibles. Cette
dispersion est parmi les plus importantes des pays de l’OCDE en Flandre et dans la
moyenne en Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles.
• Dans les deux communautés, le poids de l'origine socioéconomique reste
important. L’équité de nos systèmes éducatifs est l’une des plus faibles des pays
industrialisés et démocratiques.
• Des pays comme le Canada, le Danemark, la Finlande et la Norvège prouvent qu’il est
possible d’allier des performances élevées à une moindre dispersion des résultats et à
un poids de l’origine socioéconomique limité. Efficacité et équité sont donc
compatibles.
• Les deux communautés linguistiques présentent une ségrégation
importante de leurs élèves, particulièrement sur base de leurs performances
scolaires. Nous montrons que cette séparation des élèves est
préjudiciable à leur réussite. Les élèves issus de milieux défavorisés sont ainsi
doublement victimes puisqu’en plus de subir l’effet négatif de leur origine, ils ont
tendance à fréquenter une école qui les fera moins progresser.
• Une faible ségrégation scolaire n'est pas incompatible avec une efficacité
accrue.
• Les écarts de performances entre élèves issus de l'immigration et ceux qui ne
le sont pas restent importants dans les deux communautés, bien qu’ils aient
tendance à se réduire en Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles.
• Bien qu’une partie importante de cet écart soit expliquée par le niveau socioéconomique
des familles ou la langue parlée à la maison, il ne s’y réduit pas. Notre
enseignement n'arrive pas à amener ses élèves issus de l'immigration au
même niveau de performances que ses autres élèves.
In Vlaanderen scoren 15-jarige leerlingen voor leesvaardigheid significant
hoger dan het OESO-gemiddelde. Dat is niet het geval bij leerlingen van de
Federatie Wallonië-Brussel. Ondanks de grote effectiviteit van het onderwijs in
Vlaanderen haalt iets minder dan een zesde van de leerlingen toch niet het
minimale vaardigheidsniveau dat nodig is om volwaardig deel te nemen aan de
huidige samenleving. In de Federatie Wallonië-Brussel haalt meer dan een vijfde van
de leerlingen dit minimale niveau niet.
• In elk van beide taalgemeenschappen komt het prestatieverschil tussen de
sterkste en de zwakste leerlingen overeen met het equivalent van meer dan
acht leerjaren. Deze dispersie (spreiding) van de prestaties behoort tot de grootste
in de OESO-landen in Vlaanderen en tot het gemiddelde in de Federatie
Wallonië-Brussel.
• In beide gemeenschappen blijft de invloed van de sociaaleconomische
achtergrond groot. Onze onderwijssystemen behoren tot de minst gelijke in de
geïndustrialiseerde, democratische landen.
• Landen zoals Canada, Denemarken, Finland en Noorwegen bewijzen dat het
mogelijk is om hoge prestaties te koppelen aan een lagere spreiding van de resultaten
en aan een beperkter gewicht van de sociaaleconomische achtergrond. Effectiviteit
en gelijke kansen zijn dus verenigbaar.
• In beide taalgemeenschappen is er een grote segregatie tussen leerlingen,
vooral op het vlak van hun schoolprestaties. Wij tonen aan dat deze segregatie
nadelig is voor hun welslagen. Leerlingen uit kwetsbare milieus zijn vaak
tweemaal het slachtoffer: ze ondervinden immers niet alleen het negatieve effect
van hun achtergrond, ze bezoeken doorgaans ook een school die hen minder
stimuleert.
• Een geringe segregatie in het onderwijs is verenigbaar met een sterkere
effectiviteit.
• De uiteenlopende prestaties tussen leerlingen met een migratieachtergrond
en de anderen blijven groot in beide gemeenschappen, hoewel ze iets lijken
te verkleinen in de Federatie Wallonië-Brussel.
• Hoewel een groot deel van dit verschil verklaard wordt door het sociaaleconomische
niveau van de gezinnen en de taal die thuis wordt gesproken, kan het niet worden
herleid tot die redenen. Ons onderwijs slaagt er niet in om leerlingen met een
migratieachtergrond op hetzelfde prestatieniveau te tillen als de andere
leerlingen.
In this article, effects of schools, teaching staff and classes on achievement and on the well-being of pupils at the end of their first grade in secondary education in Belgium are explored by means of multilevel analysis. Our study affirms that the relative influence of classes and schools on achievement is much higher than on well-being. We find that schools and classes have main and interaction effects on both outcomes. However, the interaction effects on well-being are limited to a few class-pupil interactions. Our results indicate that achievement and well-being can be considered as two different, distinctive school and class outcomes and that the school characteristics investigated act differently on these outcomes. Some school characteristics are always effective independent of the outcome criterium, while the effectiveness of other school characteristics depends on the criterium considered.
Using data colected in 23 general and vocational (and technical) secondary schools in 1990 and 1991 we want to make an analysis of the school manage¬ment as described by heads and teachers and the effectiveness of schooling. Herewith with put this project in cells 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 of the matrix, although all cells are not equally well represented in our data. The data are analyzed on the school and form level as well as on the individual level by using multi¬level analysis (Proc Mixed of SAS) and variance analysis.
In 23 schools heads and teachers (N= 1,057) were interviewed about seven characteristics of school policy: 1) staff management (two sub-scales); 2) participation of teachers in decision-making (three sub-scales); 3) collaboration among teachers (two sub-scales); 4) in-service training (three sub-scales); 5) promotion of school image (two sub-scales); 6) pedagogic climate (six sub-scales); and 7) opinion of the teachers and heads about the efficiency of school policy (four sub-scales).
In addition to these characteristics of school policy some school characteristics (context) were collected, e.g. the network, the tracks of education offered by the school, the grades, the number of pupils, sexe ratio of teachers, sexe ratio of pupils, diploma of teachers, age of teachers, proportion of teachers of age-categories at school, experience of teachers, proportion of teachers in tenured positi¬on, age and experien¬ce of head, etc.
In order to assess the effectiveness of schooling, pupils of the first form (N = 1,454) were measured in the beginning and at the end of the school year, first for Dutch and Maths achievement, and second for well-being. We did the same as far as well-being of pupils is concerned in the sixth form (N = 1,116). Test results for Dutch and Mathematics in the first form were measured with different tests in the beginning and at the end of the school year. The reason for this approach was that the aims of the top form of elementary school are different from the aims of secondary school. Consequently we were obliged to standardize the test results in order to study the development of the position of the pupils and schools in the global distributions of the results in the beginning and at the end of the school year. To measure the well-being of pupils, a scale with 70 items was used, composed of seven sub-scales.
In order to control for intake in the schools pupils took an IQ test and were questioned about their socio-economic background.
These data allow to analyse pupils on school, class and individual level and to take account of the input and the output. The data of teachers and heads allow an analysis on school and individual level. The school policy characteristics as experienced by teachers and head are linked to a moment of observation. Consequently they should rather be considered to be the input of educational resources.
In this project we have two purposes: first, to describe the differences and similarities between general education and technical and vocational education as far as school policy and effectiveness of schooling is concerned; and second, to focus on the relationship between collaboration of teachers and the effectiveness of schooling in vocational and technical schools. The analysis will be done on the individual level, the class level, and the school level (multi level analysis).
De centrale vraag van dit onderzoek luidt: is er een relatie tussen de opvattingen van de directie en de leerkrachten over onderwijsmanagement enerzijds en de studieresultaten en de schoolresultaten anderzijds? In deel 1 van het onderzoeksrapport wordt de probleemstelling geformuleerd. In deel 2 worden de opvattingen van de directie en de leerkrachten over schoolbeleid beschreven. Deel 3 geeft een overzicht van de studieresultaten en het welbevinden van de leerlingen. In deel 4 wordt de relatie gelegd tussen de opvattingen van de leerkrachten en de directie over het schoolbeleid en de leerlingenresultaten. In een vijfde deel tenslotte worden een aantal beleidssuggesties gedaan.
Het onderzoek had plaats in 23 scholen, waarin naast de directie 1.078 leerkrachten, 1.454 eerstejaars en 1.116 zesdejaars leerlingen werden ondervraagd.
Directie en leerkrachten werden ondervraagd naar hun opvatting over het gevoerde personeelsbeleid, de participatie aan de besluitvorming in de school door de leerkrachten, de samenwerking en collegialiteit tussen de leerkrachten, de navorming, de opbouw van het schoolimago, het pedagogische klimaat en de opvattingen van de leerkrachten over de doelmatigheid van en de voldoening over verschillende vormen van schoolbeleid. Geïnspireerd door de contingentietheorie werd met behulp van variantie-analyse onderzocht of er verbanden zijn tussen deze opvattingen en bepaalde persoonskenmerken en schoolkenmerken.
Vermits het de bedoeling was na te gaan of deze opvattingen over schoolbeleid invloed hadden op de evolutie van de studieresultaten en het schoolwelbevinden van de leerlingen, werden er twee observaties voor elke factor gedaan. In het begin van het schooljaar werden tests afgenomen voor Nederlands en Wiskunde in het eerste jaar en in het eerste en zesde jaar werd gepeild naar het schoolwelbevinden van de leerlingen. Hetzelfde gebeurde op het einde van het schooljaar. Op die wijze kon worden nagegaan in welke mate er achteruitgang, stagnatie of vooruitgang was te bespeuren in relatie met het gevoerde schoolbeleid. Wat Nederlands en Wiskunde betreft, zijn er enkele scholen die beter en enkele die slechter presteren op het einde van het schooljaar dan in het begin. De meeste echter behouden hun positie. Met behulp van variantieanalyse (op het individuele vlak) en multilevel analyse (op schoolniveau) werd er vervolgens onderzocht of deze ontwikkeling verband hield met bepaalde persoons- en schoolkenmerken.
Hetzelfde gebeurde voor het schoolwelbevinden van de leerlingen. De eerstejaars A voelen zich op het einde van het schooljaar minder goed dan op het einde van het schooljaar. Bij de eerstejaars B en de zesdejaars is er geen evolutie te bespeuren. Daarenboven is het zo dat het welbevinden in het eerste jaar A hoger is dan in het eerste jaar B en in het zesde jaar. Met behulp van variantie-analyse werd verder onderzocht of er een verband was tussen bepaalde persoons- en schoolkenmerken en het schoolwelbevinden van de leerlingen.
Met behulp van multilevel analyse werd vervolgens onderzocht of op schoolniveau een bepaald schoolbeleid gepaard gaat met een bepaalde evolutie in de studieresultaten en het schoolwelbevinden van de leerlingen. Enkele schoolbeleidsvariabelen vertoonden een positieve relatie met de studieresultaten en het welbevinden van de leerlingen, de meerderheid echter niet. Wij vermoeden dat de observatie van het leerkrachten- en het leerlingengedrag over een langere termijn andere relaties zou kunnen tonen dan in dit onderzoek.
In this article, effects of schools, teaching staff and classes on achievement and on the well-being of pupils at the end of their first grade in secondary education in Belgium are explored by means of multilevel analysis. Our study affirms that the relative influence of classes and schools on achievement is much higher than on well-being. We find that schools and classes have main and interaction effects on both outcomes. However, the interaction effects on well-being are limited to a few class-pupil interactions. Our results indicate that achievement and well-being can be considered as two different, distinctive school and class outcomes and that the school characteristics investigated act differently on these outcomes. Some school characteristics are always effective independent of the outcome criterium, while the effectiveness of other school characteristics depends on the criterium considered.
In March 1997 the British Government published the first primary school performance tables giving school‐by‐school results in the 1996 end of key stage 2 (KS2) assessments. The tables were widely criticized for failing to provide a measure of a school's effectiveness since ‘good’ KS2 results might simply reflect a ‘high’ ability pupil intake rather than any characteristics of the teaching or management of the school. This paper uses multi‐level modelling techniques to compare the results from the performance tables in one local education authority with a ‘fair’ analysis as recommended by the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority's National Value Added Project. The results reveal significant differences between schools’ raw results as given in the performance tables and ‘fair’ comparisons of their effectiveness in relation to the ability of their pupils. The analysis also indicates significant variation between schools in their effectiveness in different subject areas (English, mathematics and science), suggesting important information is lost by aggregating results across subjects. Finally, the analysis also provides evidence of under‐achievement among some groups of pupils, with pupils with statements of special educational need, bilingual pupils needing English language support, pupils entitled to free school meals and pupils of Caribbean origin all achieving lower KS2 test results than would be expected from their reasoning ability.
Assuming that the intellectual level of the classroom affects the quality of learning environments, it is argued that separating students into homogeneous educational frameworks enriches the environment for high-resource students and impoverishes it for low-resource students, whereas the converse occurs under heterogeneous mixing. Academic achievement consequently will be affected. This argument was subjected to an empirical analysis in two Israeli samples, one ethnically and socioeconomically heterogeneous, the other socially homogeneous. First, presuppositions concerning the impact of three dimensions of student-body composition on academic achievement were probed. It was found that (a) the intellectual component of student-body composition outweighs both ethnic and socioeconomic components; (b) classroom composition is more effective than school composition; and (c) classroom intellectual level is more effective than its variance. Subsequently, two hypotheses were supported: classroom intellectual composition positively affects the student's academic achievement, and compositional quality and personal ability interact (i.e., low-resource students are more sensitive than high-resource students to compositional quality). An educational implication follows: In separation, the low-resource students' loss is greater than the high-resource students' profit, and in mixing, the high-resource students' loss is smaller than the low-resource students' gain.
The domain of school effectiveness relates to the question of accountability of schools. It is commonly agreed that a correction should be made for student background in order to achieve fair comparisons between schools. But even then, a fair estimation of the schools' value added is not achieved. The composition of the group of students has arguably an effect over and above individual student characteristics. This study addresses the effects of group composition in secondary schools and classes on achievement and well-being. Compositional effects are discussed with reference to type A and type B effects. Type A effects are school effectiveness indices, controlling for student background. Type B school effects are controlled for both student background and school context.
Pupils in Wandsworth schools who completed baseline assessment at the start of reception class in 1992/93 were tracked through to their National Curriculum (NC) end of Key Stage 1 (KS1) assessments in 1995. Baseline results were used to assess the educational progress of pupils between the age of 4 and 7 years, and the ‘value added’ by schools. Girls made more progress than boys during KS1, increasing the size of the gender gap in attainment. Pupils entitled to free school meals (FSM) started with lower attainment and fell further behind their peers during the course of KS1. In contrast pupils with English as a second language (ESL) caught up with their monolingual English speaking peers. School compositional effects were also noted: pupils made on average more progress in schools with a high proportion of girls, and less progress in schools with a high proportion of pupils entitled to FSM, a high proportion of ESL pupils and where the school average on the baseline was high. Differences between schools in KS1 results were reduced substantially when account was taken of their pupil intakes, but significant differences between schools remained, supporting the conclusion that some schools are more effective than others in facilitating pupil progress during KS1. There were marked differences between the raw and value added KS1 results for a significant minority of schools, suggesting raw results can give a misleading impression of a school's effectiveness. Areas for further research and development are identified.
In this article, the effect of ignoring one or more levels of variation in hierarchical linear regression analysis is explored. A model with four hierarchical levels is used as a reference model. A distinction is made between ignoring top and intermediate levels. The effects of ignoring levels on the fixed and on the random parameters of different random intercept models are explored by means of a real data set. The results show that ignoring an important level causes an effect on specific fixed coefficients, variance components and their corresponding standard error. Therefore, ignoring an important level can lead to different research conclusions.
As an introduction to the articles of Opdenakker, Van Damme, De Fraine, Van Landeghem, and Onghena (2002) and Van Landeghem, Van Damme, Opdenakker, De Fraine, and Onghena (2002) in this issue, we give some background information on a new study on educational effectiveness in secondary schools, and on the variables measured in that study that are relevant to the 2 articles mentioned. We conclude with some information on the system of secondary education in Flanders.
In this article, the current status of school level factors, as they appear in research reviews and in school effectiveness models is criticised both from a theoretical and from an empirical perspective. School level factors are often related to student achievement without taking into account the classroom level, where teaching and learning primarily take place. As a theoretical alternative, an overview of school level factors that enhance the quality of instruction, time for learning and opportunity to learn at the classroom level is provided. These factors are supposed to contribute to the explanation of differences in student achievement. Some empirical support for these ideas is found in educational research studies that have made use of three‐level analyses.
This article explores the association between pupil mobility and attainment in national end of Key Stage 1 (KS1) tests for over 6000 pupils in an English urban education authority. The results indicate that pupil mobility during the early years is associated with signi cantly lower levels of pupil attainment in reading, writing and mathematics tests at age 7. However, mobile pupils are more likely than stable pupils to be entitled to free school meals, to have English as an additional language, to require higher levels of support in learning English, to have identi ed and more severe special educational needs and to have higher levels of absence. When the relative impact of these factors is considered, the effect of mobility, while still statistically signi cant, is substantially reduced. When pupil's baseline assessment results are also included in order to assess educational progress between the age of 4 and 7 years, mobility has a signi cant effect only on progress in mathematics, and even here the impact is low relative to other pupil background factors. The article concludes that the direct effect of mobility on pupil attainment is likely to be small. However, the implications of mobility for school and classroom management, planning and resourcing are substantial. Examples of good practice and implications for policy are discussed.
This chapter discusses the advances in research strategy with material on the integration of school and classroom effects. Schools that are unusually effective are presumably characterized by classroom practices that are also unusually effective, yet the neglect of teachers' classroom actions and behavior has been notable. The chapter also discusses the historic separation of teacher and school effects studies that has been partially responsible for this state of affairs and the studies that show the promise of an approach that has nested classrooms interacting with schools and identifies the research needs on teacher selection studies, teacher support mechanisms, and research into the management of the instructional level by the school level that would deliver the importance of this newly emerging field. The commonality for the investigations is their study of teacher effects data within the context of school effectiveness research studies. All of these studies revealed consistent mean and standard deviation differences among schools classified as effective or ineffective.
This chapter presents the history, value, and purpose of school effectiveness studies. There is a growing number of studies that address conceptual and theoretical questions concerning school effectiveness, for instance, in proposing integrated models for school and instructional effectiveness. There is a growing interest in ways to improve schools based on the results of school effectiveness research. The chapter presents the historical origins of what is commonly referred to as the school effectiveness movement, arising as it did out of dissatisfaction with the schools make no difference thesis of Coleman, Jencks, and many others. The five factor theory that originated in the earliest American research came under severe criticism and out of these criticisms has come an appreciation of a more complex theory that incorporates multiple levels classroom, school, nation, that is sensitive to the effects of different social and cultural contexts, which recognizes the need to link levels together conceptually and empirically, and which centers on the ways in which the instruction of students and their learning are affected by these multiple influences.
This paper reports the results of a UK study investigating the issue of differential school effectiveness. The size of overall school effects versus departmental differences in effects on 16 year old students’ General Certificate in Secondary Education performance are examined, as well as the internal (within school) consistency of departmental effects across six GCSE subject outcomes and the stability of school and departmental effects across three GCSE cohorts (1990‐1992). A value added approach is adopted, controlling for selected student intake measures (such as attainment at secondary transfer). The findings of multilevel analyses suggest that very few schools perform both consistently (across subjects) and with stability (over time). The implications of the results are discussed in relation to the publication and interpretation of schools’ examination results as well as the use of school and departmental effectiveness measures for school self‐evaluation.
This paper seeks to partition achievement variance into an individual level component, and a component related to the school attended by the individual. Through the use of Hierarchical Linear Modelling the paper also sets up a model of effective schools (based on residual scores) as those exceeding expectations given the social background and ability levels of their student intakes. The sample was a cohort of 5,393 students attending 37 schools from throughout New Zealand and the criterion variables were School Certificate marks in English, Mathematics and Science.
This article is divided into three parts to show separate but related developments in the new generation of research on school effectiveness. The first part presents a historical overview of the development of this research from a narrow individualistic input-out approach to a more holistic approach that evaluates within-school processes. The second part reviews two competing theories of school effectiveness and the search for an appropriate analytic model. The third part describes a new way of analyzing hierarchically nested data by using a large data set of students from the different types of Dutch secondary schools and a statistical tool suited to analyzing the effects of selection policies in these schools. The results are compared with those of studies of the British and U.S. school systems. The author concludes that selective schools produce better results than do nonselective schools. Although the cause of this effect is not clear, the data support the hypothesis that the selection processes create a stimulating school climate, which, in turn, motivates students to achieve.
This study explores the relationship between school composition and characteristics of school process and investigates their effect on mathematics achievement in Belgian (Flemish) secondary education by means of multilevel analysis. Attention is paid to the differential effectiveness of both types of school characteristics. The study confirms that there are important relationships between school composition and school process variables in secondary education. The analyses of the effect of both variables on achievement revealed that these variables have important net and joint effects on achievement independent of initial ability. We found that the addition of school composition variables to models with school process variables caused a decline in the effect of important school process variables. This outcome has important consequences for school effectiveness research, school improvement and teacher training.
This study examines the effects of attending higher-ability high schools on students' academic self-concept, and demonstrates a multilevel modelling approach for evaluating school effects on individual students. Equally able students in higher-ability schools had lower academic self-concepts than those in lower-ability schools, and this effect generalised across a nationally representative sample of 1628 students drawn from 87 high schools. Although the effects were negative for students of all ability levels, the effects were slightly smaller for the most able students and the least able students (a linear school-average ability by quadratic individual student ability interaction). A multilevel analysis of the data provided stronger support for the robustness of this effect than procedures used previously.
Examination results for fifth-year pupils in six different local education authorities are analysed with a view to establishing what differences in their performance can be assigned to the schools they attend. Using multi-level models it is shown that, whilst in general the differences between schools are relatively small, the actual size in examination points is certainly not trivial. These differences are estimated for the schools in each LEA. Distinctions are drawn between explanatory models based on information about pupils’ background as opposed to prior attainment; the latter are shown to be more appropriate for comparisons between schools. Amongst the 11 data sets analysed there was little evidence that schools were differentially effective with different groups of pupils.
This article investigates the existence or otherwise of group-level effects on progress in reading. 'Administrative' data, i.e. data already produced by a local education authority (LEA) for its own purposes, was combined to give two primary-age cohorts, each of the order of 2500 pupils, in one medium-sized LEA in the south-east of England. After allowing for pupil and global school-level effects, a wide variety of possible aggregated group-level effects (AGLEs) was investigated. Different functions of pupil score were investigated. Mean score and pupil turnover, especially the latter, were the most important AGLEs on attainment, and these had greater effects for older pupils.
In a large-scale school improvement project in Indonesia the implementation, effects and costs of initiatives to increase parental involvement were compared with those of other interventions (teacher development, educational management and books and learning materials). It turned out that although parental involvement was not implemented very successfully in schools, this intervention is quite effective in improving student achievement. In comparison with the other interventions it is in fact the most efficient because costs are relatively low. Recommendations are given to implement parental involvement further, and to raise its effects without raising the costs.
Critical reviews from “outside”, notably educational sociologists arguing mainly from a British context, have caused some ripples, and maybe even waves, among school effectiveness researchers. To a large extent these external criticisms and the overall nature of the response from school effectiveness researchers are neatly summarized in the following quote from Townsend: “be like us”, say the critics, and the answer is “no thanks”. In this article the arguments form the “external” critics and the response from school effectiveness researchers will not be repeated. Some of the topics in the debate will be revisited, however. The first one is the discussion with respect to the impact of “contextual” or composition effects concerning the average socioeconomic background of students in schools and classrooms. This is one area, that bears upon the foundations of the school effectiveness concept, although it is not, as the critics would have it, a neglected area. The second one concerns conceptualization and theoretical explanation of school effectiveness, as the debate may not have been sufficiently explicit on this issue. The rest of the paper deals with “foundational” issues in school effectiveness research that have not been settled decisively and with changes in perspectives on learning and instruction and educational technology that provide serious challenges. On these issues there is reason for self-criticism and realism in the way school effectiveness research can make progress.
Fifteen years ago, Burstein (1980) argued that the key to methodological progress in studies of classroom and school effects depended on the development of appropriate models and methods for the analysis of multilevel data. Considerable progress has been made in the intervening years such that anyone familiar with the growing school effectiveness research literature will have encountered the methodological imperative: ‘Pay attention to the multilevel organisational structure in which schooling occurs’ (i.e., students within classes within schools). Results are now available from a number of studies that have employed multilevel modelling to investigate school and teacher effectiveness. In the main, these results suggest that variation between classes is far more significant than variation between schools, although in detail the evidence often appears to be contradictory and open to a variety of interpretations. This article considers why different studies generate different findings, identifies some key issues in the design of studies for investigating the relative importance of class and school effects and relates this to the presentation and discussion of findings from an Australian study of school and teacher effectiveness.
The paper reports the results of a reanalysis of data from a major longitudinal data base (the Inner London Education Authority's (ILEA) Junior School Project). Multilevel models are used to examine the extent of differential school effectiveness for reading and mathematics at entry (year 3) and at year 5, and the impact of pupil background characteristics. Differential school effectiveness is investigated for prior attainment in the two areas and for selected background characteristics. The results reveal the existence of differential effectiveness (differential school slopes) for both measures of prior attainment. No evidence of differential effectiveness for pupils of different groups (sex, social class, ethnicity) is found. The presentation of schools’ test results is also examined. Raw test averages are compared with school‐level residuals from multilevel analyses. Marked differences in schools’ rank positions are found and the implications for the publication of ‘league tables’ of schools’ examination and National Curriculum assessment results are discussed.
School effectiveness research has traditionally focused on basic cognitive pupil outcomes such as language and mathematics achievement. In this article however we address a research question that goes beyond this limited scope by studying both cognitive and affective outcomes of education in combination with each other. By looking at cognitive and affective outcomes at two different levels, i.e. school and the individual pupil, it is possible to make assertions about the relationship between the two outcome types at these levels. The main question in this study with respect to school effectiveness research is: ‘Can schools be both cognitive and affective effective?’To answer this question a sample of 7,000 pupils in 212 primary schools in the Netherlands was used, providing information about cognitive, affective and pupil background variables. Firstly the relationship between affective and cognitive outcomes at pupil level is shown, using a LISREL model to show how these variables interact. Secondly the relative positions of schools with respect to their effectiveness in the cognitive and affective outcomes are compared in order to show the degree of consistency in the effectiveness of both outcome domains. These correlations appear to be small, but positive.
ABSTRACT Data on examination,results from,inner London schools are analysed in relation to intake achievement, pupil gender and school type. The examination achieve- ment, averaged over subjects, is studied as is achievement in the separate subjects of mathematics and English. Multilevel models are fitted, so that the variation between schools can be studied. It is shown,that confidence intervals for school 'residuals' or 'eflects' are wide, so that few schools can be separated reliably. In particular, no fine rank ordering of schools legitimately cA bivariate model for mathematics,and English examination,achievement,scores is fitted. The student level variance for both subjects is shown to increase from the lowest to the highest intake achievement group, with moderately high correlation between the subjects. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for the publication of 'league tables' of school examination,and test scores.
ABSTRACT
Implementation of educational integration policy in Israel creates heterogeneous student compositions in the schools. Principals and teachers who, as a result, confront instructional difficulties, and who are ambiguous about this policy and its expected efficacy, press to counter‐balance this heterogeneity by resegregating students within the school in ability‐based classes. In this paper we deal with three inter‐related topics:
the degree of learning segregation within integrated junior high schools in Israel;
several factors which may explain the degree of learning segregation; (3) the effect of learning segregation on academic outcomes: achievement (in reading and science) and subsequent school career (student placement in high school track).
In doing so, we clarify an aspect of the school principal's role and his or her indirect effect on students learning. Principals have a decisive power in the organization of learning frameworks (class structure, ability grouping etc.) within the school. Their ideas and convictions about the efficacy of integration affect the actual practices of class organization in the school. This, in turn, has an effect on learning processes within the class and eventually on students’ academic outcomes, especially on those from the weaker group.
Learning Segregation in Junior High‐Schools in Israel: Causes and Consequences
ABSTRACT
Implementation of educational integration policy in Israel creates heterogeneous student compositions in the schools. Principals and teachers who, as a result, confront instructional difficulties, and who are ambiguous about this policy and its expected efficacy, press to counter‐balance this heterogeneity by resegregating students within the school in ability‐based classes. In this paper we deal with three inter‐related topics:
The degree of learning segregation within integrated junior high schools in Israel;
Several factors that may explain the degree of learning segregation; (3) the effect of learning segregation on academic outcomes: achievement (in reading and science) and subsequent school career (student placement in high school track).
In doing so, we clarify an aspect of the school principal's role and his or her indirect effect on students learning. Principals have a decisive power in the organization of learning frameworks (class structure, ability grouping etc.) within the school. Their ideas and convictions about the efficacy of integration affect the actual practices of class organization in the school. This, in turn, has an effect on learning processes within the class and eventually on students’ academic outcomes, especially on those from the weaker group.
This study examines the 1992 National Curriculum assessment data from one large LEA in England in order to address the issue of equity. For comparison purposes we also present additional data obtained front the same sample of pupils on an NFER standardised word recognition test. The report focuses on the relative performance of gender, low income, linguistic, and special needs groups on a standardised reading test and the teacher (TA) and standard task (ST) performance assessments administered in 1992 to 7‐year‐olds as part of the national curriculum (NC) in England and Wales. The impact of schools and teacher effectiveness on student attainments scores is also examined and discussed. Briefly, the findings show that irrespective of the method of assessment, differences in attainment were found between most pupil groups investigated. However, importantly, only very modest evidence was found that particular methods of assessment appeared either to reduce or increase the differences in attainment and overall no clear patterns emerged. The findings are discussed in the context of various factors that may have an impact on the assessment of student attainment.
This article reports the results of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded study which focuses on the differential academic achievement of different groups of pupils. The paper describes the findings on the size and extent of school effects across 3 years (1990, 1991, 1992) for different groups of pupils (classified by gender, eligibility for free school means [FSM], ethnic group and by prior attainment). Pupils’ overall General Certificate of Secondary Education performance and their performance in selected subjects (English, English literature, French, history, mathematics and science) have been analysed using multilevel modelling, employing a total sample of 94 inner London secondary schools. A ‘value added’ approach is adopted, controlling for selected student background measures of prior attainment (at secondary transfer), gender, age, ethnicity and low income to provide statistical controls for differences between schools in the characteristics of their intakes. Differential school and departmental effects were identified for all pupil groups examined. However, the strongest evidence of differential effects was found for groups classified by prior attainment and ethnicity. Overall, the findings indicate that schools that appear to be more or less effective for a particular group of pupils, such as non‐FSM pupils, are likely to be more or less effective for all pupils. However, in some schools, substantial differences between groups were identified. The implications of these findings for the debate about the publication, presentation and interpretation of schools’ examination results and the extent to which the overall concepts of ‘effective’ or ‘ineffective’ schools can be applied, are discussed.
The size and stability of gender, ethnic and socio‐economic differences in students’ educati