Social and Cognitive Outcomes: A Comparison of Contexts of Learning

This study determines effects of social learning contexts (classroom, school and boards) on social and cognitive outcomes of primary school pupils. Central to this research are the differential effects of attending private and public schools for pupils' math achievement and sense of well-being at school. The relationship between pupil backgrounds, sector, characteristics of classrooms, schools and governing bodies on the one hand and pupil outcomes, on the other, have been analyzed using multilevel analysis (VARCL). The sample consisted of 103 schools and 2023 pupils (grade 8, age 11). After controlling for socioeconomic backgrounds, the results show that indicators of cognitive and social effectiveness are mainly climate factors. Basic elements of cognitive school effectiveness (math) seem counter-productive with respect to pupils' sense of well-being at school.     

Cognitive and Affective Outcomes in School Effectiveness Research

ABSTRACT

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.     

Productive Influences on High School Student Achievement

Abstract

A secondary analysis of the High School and Beyond (HSB) data was performed in order to retest the private-school superiority hypothesis and to examine determinants of high school achievement. This analysis attempted to explain the fixed and alterable conditions which influence the achievement of 26,279 sophomores in reading, writing, mathematics, science, and civics. Multiple regression and partial correlations indicated that those variables beyond the control of educators (i.e., amount of homework completed, television viewing, parental involvement with education) explained much of the achievement variation. However, variables under school control, such as quantity and appropriateness of academic instruction, were found to explain significant and educationally meaningful amounts of achievement variance. With background variables controlled, private schools did not outperform public schools.     

Examining Variation Within the Charter School Sector: Academic Achievement in Suburban,Urban, and Rural Charter Schools

ABSTRACT

To date, there is a paucity of research that examines differences between charter schools that operate in suburban and nonsuburban contexts. This article examines whether students in suburban charter schools perform better or worse than their counterparts in traditional public schools or students in urban charter schools. Boasting the largest and most diverse charter school population in the United States, California offers a fertile urban-suburban context for the study of geographically differentiated charter school impacts and, thus, serves as the focus of our study. The student achievement data (2009–2010, 2010–2011 and 2011–2012 school years) for this study come from the California Department of Education. Using propensity score matching and virtual control records, our findings show that suburban charter schools do not improve academic achievement relative to the matched comparison group of traditional public schools. Suburban charter schools (namely, charters in high-income areas) are largely ineffective and appear to leave their students’ achievement unchanged or diminished. This study adds to the existing literature by examining the effects of charter schools on the neighborhoods in which they operate. Methodologically, another important contribution of this study is that it supplements traditional selection criteria for suburban charters (NCES classification) with census-based neighborhood factors. Finally, this study provides evidence of the broader implications of school choice policies in a suburban setting.     

Patterns of Achievement,Attitude, and Behavior in a Tax-Supported Alternative School

A comprehensive evaluation of the characteristics of students attending a public alternative school revealed marked differences between the experimental group (the alternative school) and a control group (students attending a regular public school). Alternative school students showed significantly lower achievement and ability on all measures, while manifesting notably greater approval of their teachers than did the control group. Sex differences in achievement, performance, and attitude were found among the free school sample, and these are contrasted with the pattern of sex differences in regular schools. The significance of these findings for the establishment and running of alternative schools is discussed.     

Research on classroom and school effectiveness and its implications for improving big city schools

Research on effective teaching has produced useful knowledge regarding instructional techniques dealing with classroom management, teacher-centered direct or explicit instruction, student time-on-task, questioning, and cognitive instruction for low-achieving students. Research on effective schools has produced useful knowledge regarding the characteristics or correlates of schools that are unusually successful in enhancing student achievement. Projects that utilize these research findings in working to improve teacher and school effectiveness have been and are being conducted in many big cities. While encouraging results have been registered in some locations, achievement is still unacceptably low in many cities. Efforts in the future should draw systematically on research dealing with effective classrooms and effective schools.     

Roscoe Elementary School: Cultivating a Caring Community in an Urban Elementary School

The cultivation of a caring community within an urban neighborhood public elementary school is viewed by some educators as an impossibility, by others as being in conflict with academic effectiveness, and by still others as unnecessary for the successful achievement of students. Nevertheless, a significant group of educators advocates schools as caring communities, particularly in meeting the needs of low-income urban students of color. The research reported in this article is grounded in the assumption that there is a relationship between school culture and student achievement. An ethnographic case study of one urban public elementary school that exhibited both a strong caring community and a push toward academic excellence resulted in an analysis of the underlying characteristics that existed in the school. The findings suggest that a climate of mutual trust and respect, fluid boundaries centered around an ethic of caring, and a schoolwide sense of ownership and responsibility for students were central to the cultivation of the school' s caring community. Adapted school structures also fostered an ethos of community and ownership. In addition, the school expanded the definition of effectiveness beyond standardized test scores by focusing broadly on student learning, the link between the success of the individual and the success of the group, and the role of affect in promoting student achievement.     

Differences in Effectiveness Between Primary Schools and their Impact on Secondary School Recommendations

In school effectiveness research differences between schools are mainly expressed in percentages of the variance in cognitive test scores. This article focuses on the impact these differences in effectiveness have on the school career of pupils. The analyses were executed on the data of a school effectiveness study carried out in 1987 and 1988. Two groups of outlier primary schools were selected. The pupils were divided into four categories based on their IQ-score, and into four categories based on their SES-score. Four dependent variables were used: test scores on language, test scores on mathematics, expectations for the follow-up secondary school type based on these test scores, and the actual secondary school recommendation given by the teacher. For all groups of pupils the average scores on mathematics, language and the total standard test score differ significantly for both low- and high-effective schools. The actual recommendation for type of secondary education does not differ significantly. This leads to the conclusion that the recommendations given to the other pupils in the same grade seem to be important; schools tend to recommend a secondary school type according to a normal distribution. High-effective schools tend to recommend beneath, while low-effective schools tend to advise above the expectations.     

Effects of Schools,Teaching Staff and Classes on Achievement and Well-Being in Secondary Education: Similarities and Differences Between School Outcomes

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.     

High School Economic Composition and College Persistence

Using a longitudinal sample of Texas high school seniors of 2002 who enrolled in college within the calendar year of high school graduation, we examine variation in college persistence according to the economic composition of their high schools, which serves as a proxy for unmeasured high school attributes that are conductive to postsecondary success. Students who graduated from affluent high schools have the highest persistence rates and those who attended poor high schools have the lowest rates. Multivariate analyses indicate that the advantages in persistence and on-time graduation from 4-year colleges enjoyed by graduates of affluent high schools cannot be fully explained by high school college orientation and academic rigor, family background, pre-college academic preparedness or the institutional characteristics. High school college orientation, family background and pre-college academic preparation largely explain why graduates from affluent high schools who first enroll in 2-year colleges have higher transfer rates to 4-year institutions; however, these factors and college characteristics do not explain the lower transfer rates for students from poor high schools. The conclusion discusses the implications of the empirical findings in light of several recent studies that call attention to the policy importance of high schools as a lever to improve persistence and completion rates via better institutional matches.     

Variation in Effectiveness Between Private and Public Schools: The Impact of School and Family Networks*

Abstract

Building upon the assumption that cohesion between different levels of the school is essential to the schools’ effectiveness, the hypothesis is tested that a close kinship between school and parental community causes a positive effect on student outcomes in primary schools. Recent theories regarding the effects of ‘functional communities’ on academic achievement mainly focus on the characteristics of the parental community that surrounds a school. Recognizing, however, that schools differ regarding their responsiveness to the role of parents and other actors around the school, our expectation is that a definition of functional community which comprises interactions between characteristics of the parental network around the school and the governance structure of the school offers a better explanation of variation in student achievement. Based on a national sample of 90 schools for primary education in the Netherlands, our analysis shows that the differences in math achievement for public and private primary schools are mediated by characteristics at both the family and the institutional level. It also indicates that characteristics at the institutional level are conditional for the effects of parental networks around schools.

     

School effectiveness in 14 sub-Saharan African countries: Links with 6th Graders' reading achievement

In this article school characteristics linked with educational effectiveness in 14 sub-Saharan African countries are identified. Effectiveness has been defined in terms of students' literacy achievement at the end of Grade 6, after taking their social and academic backgrounds into account. The data used are from the second major educational policy research study conducted by the 14 countries that constitute the Southern African Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality study (SACMEQ). This study, known as the SACMEQ II Project, collected questionnaire and test survey data from around 42,000 students in 2,300 schools in the 14 countries. Information about schools was obtained from questionnaires administered to teachers and principals. The multilevel methods (HLM) we used are appropriate for such analyses and the SACMEQ II nested data design. Schools are differentiated in terms of their social compositions, contexts, and resources (physical and human). Though student achievement is strongly associated with students' social and academic background in all SACMEQ countries, school effects vary across countries. Evident is a pattern of higher achievement in urban schools, with more resources and higher-quality teachers; achievement is typically lower in large schools and those that offer education in “shifts.” Policy implications are emphasized.     

A multilevel analysis of the relationship between teacher and collective efficacy in urban schools

Although a great deal of research has linked both teacher and collective efficacy to student achievement, one overlooked question concerns the nested association between teacher and collective efficacy. The authors apply social cognitive theory to offer a theoretical analysis of this relationship. Next, using hierarchical linear modeling, they empirically test the strength of the relationship between these two theoretically related yet conceptually distinct constructs. Analysis of data collected from 438 teachers in 47 schools in a large urban school district shows that collective efficacy predicts variation in teacher efficacy above and beyond the variance explained by a number of school contextual factors including socioeconomic status and student achievement. The implications of these findings for future research are discussed.     

Differences between secondary schools: A study about school context,group composition,school practice,and school effects with special attention to public and Catholic schools and types of schools

The results indicate that in Flanders secondary schools of different denomination and of different school type (based on their curriculum offerings) differ with respect to several characteristics. With respect to the educational framework, learning environment and learning climate differences between schools are small and differences are more situated within schools. Multilevel analysis reveals that almost 19% of the variance in mathematics achievement is at school level. The effect of denomination is small and disappears when student background (which is related to school practice) is taken into account. The effect of school type remains important when controlled for student background and denomination. Group composition, the social and learning climate, and the opportunity to learn seem to matter and explain almost 90% of the school effect. They also explain more than four fifths of the effect of school type (and denomination together) which accounts for 65% of the school level variance.     

Computational Estimation Procedures of School Children

Abstract

The necessity for developing computational estimation procedures has been well established. However, the teaching of this skill has been neglected in schools. There is little information available on the cognitive processes used by most school-aged children when doing estimation problems. In this study, 26 middle school students, representing a variety of backgrounds and achievement levels, were individually asked to estimate answers to 12 computational problems and explain how they obtained their answers. They were not allowed to use writing materials. Results indicate that estimation skills are highly dependent upon a student’s "number sense."     

School quality and learning gains in rural Guatemala

I use unusually detailed data on schools, teachers and classrooms to explain student achievement growth in rural Guatemala. Several variables that have received little attention in previous studies – including the number of school days, teacher content knowledge and pedagogical methods – are robust predictors of achievement. A series of decompositions by student ethnicity and type of school shed some additional light on important questions in the Guatemalan context, and beyond. The large indigenous test score gap is not explained by differences in an extensive list of observable features of schools. The large effect for community characteristics suggests peer group effects or more general institutional differences related to services or labor markets. PRONADE community schools are associated with moderate gains vis-à-vis public schools in areas related to utilization of capacity, such as days worked. But these gains are largely offset by lower teacher capacity, which highlights the challenge of improving school quality in poor, rural areas.     

Globalisation,Neo-liberalism and the Limitations of School Effectiveness Research in Developing Countries: The case of Nepal

This paper considers the nature and implications of the increasingly global school effectiveness research tradition. It argues that such research, by focusing primarily on student cognitive achievement, creates an unnecessarily narrow definition of 'good' schools, and undermines the role of schooling for societal change. This is especially important in developing countries where schooling plays a key role in the process of modernisation. An example from Nepal illustrates the pervasive influence of neo-liberal tendencies in education, and is used as a point of departure for a more ethnographic research agenda that explores schools' aims and processes and the meaning that their various stakeholders attribute to them.     

Educating students with mild disabilities in general education classrooms: Minnesota alternatives

This article reports two major data collection efforts conducted during successive years. Study 1 examined the relationship between the school effectiveness variables identified in the Minnesota Educational Effectiveness Project (MEEP), and the attitudes and achievement of students in 31 MEEP schools. Study 2, which focused on 11 of the Study 1 schools, compared the instructional programs provided to students with mild disabilities in three integrated programs in these 11 schools, with those provided by conventional resource "pull-out" programs in three other schools. We not only contrasted program characteristics, but analyzed differences between program characteristics and cognitive and affective outcomes. Results do not provide a strong basis for concluding that general efforts at school improvement will provide the framework for improved outcomes among low-achieving students.