The Effect of Schools and Classes on Mathematics Achievement

In this article, the effects of secondary schools, teachers, and classes on mathematics achievement are explored. The results of multilevel analyses indicate important recruitment differences between schools and classes within schools. After controlling for this, the group composition at the class level remained very important for the explanation of differences in mathematics achievement. Also the learning climate in the class, which correlates positively with group composition, explained an additional part of the variance. The effect of other educational process variables disappeared when group composition variables were entered into the model. At the school level, the proportion of girls was positively related to mathematics achievements. Indications of differential effectiveness of classes and schools and of heteroscedasticity related to SES, average class SES, average class SES, sex, and learning climate were found.     

Modelling Student Progress in Studies of Educational Effectiveness∗

It is argued that a crucial requirement in studies of educational effectiveness is the modelling of change or growth in student learning. To illustrate one approach to achieving this end, results are presented from multivariate multilevel analyses of three‐waves of data for three Grade level cohorts of students from a longitudinal study designed to explain variation in elementary school students' progress in literacy achievement. The article provides estimates of the influence of prior achievement and social background factors including ‘critical events’, on students’ progress, examines the extent to which progress can be accounted for by the grouping effects of students within classes and schools over successive years, and provides estimates of the effects of explanatory variables at the student‐and class/teacher‐levels.

     

Explaining social class inequalities in educational achievement in the UK: quantifying the contribution of social class differences in school ‘effectiveness’

There are large social class inequalities in educational achievement in the UK. This paper quantifies the contribution of one mechanism to the production of these inequalities: social class differences in school ‘effectiveness’, where ‘effectiveness’ refers to a school’s impact on pupils’ educational achievement (relative to other schools). It builds on the small number of existing studies, whilst overcoming a number of their limitations. It estimates the effectiveness of the (state) schools attended between ages 7/8 and 10/11 by a cohort of children born in the 1990s in Avon, a former county of England, and then compares the effectiveness of the schools attended by children from different social classes. It finds that ‘higher’ social class children attend more effective schools, on average, and that these social class differences in average school effectiveness between ages 7/8 and 10/11 account for 7% of social class differences in average educational achievement age 10/11. This is not a causal analysis, however.     

The (im)possibility of poststructuralist ethnography – researching identities in borrowed spaces

The notion of site is critical to ethnography and provides a sense of spatial stability – somewhere the researcher enters in order to research what is contained within. Using contemporary understandings of space, the author reflects on two studies to explore the (im)possibility of poststructuralist ethnography. The first study was undertaken in a ‘real’ school utilising a multi-method approach over a long period of time. The other was conducted in community-based schools where minority language and culture are taught. Such schools operate on a part-time basis and are often referred to as ‘after hours’ schools. These operate, as if by stealth, in borrowed spaces – schools not in use by their normal classes, during normal school times. The nature of these schools necessitated utilising different research approaches. The almost transient nature of ‘after hours’ schools reinforce temporal–spatial instabilities as critical to understanding site as social rather than fixed.     

Learning Microbiology with Computer Simulations: students’ academic achievement by method and gender

Tenth grade students studied the topic of ‘The growth curve of microorganisms’, which included a computer‐assisted learning (CAL) simulation episode. The CAL episode enabled students to simulate experiments which investigated the simultaneous impact of three independent variables upon the growth curve of microorganisms (temperature, nutrient concentration and the initial number of individuals from which to start a population growth). Two classes (n = 82 students) formed the experimental group and were instructed in a combination of classroom‐laboratory work with CAL. The control group included three classes (n = 99 students) who were taught the topic in the classroom‐laboratory work setting only. Five teachers taught the five classes, three periods weekly and the study lasted 4 weeks. The students’ previous knowledge in the topic to be learned and their academic achievement were assessed with pre‐ and post‐tests, respectively. The data for each lest were treated with a two‐way analysis of variance. The results showed that the two study groups did not differ in their previous knowledge and no significant differences were found by gender within and between the groups. The post‐test results on academic achievement indicated that students in the experimental group achieved significantly higher means scores than the control group. No significant gender differences on academic achievement were found within each group. The results affirm that: (a) computer simulations, in which three variables are manipulated simultaneously in one experiment, can be integrated as short episodes in the existing biology curricula; (b) high school students can perform computer simulations which require the skills of simultaneous manipulations of three variables in one experiment, problem solving and decision making; (c) girls and boys in the experimental group exhibited these skills at a similar academic level of achievement.     

Teachers’ experiences of a single‐sex initiative in a co‐education school

Argued to ‘raise boys’ grades’ and ‘boost boys’ academic achievement’, single‐sex classes in coeducation schools is one strategy among a plethora aimed at raising standards. This paper explores the experiences of teachers in one coeducation post‐primary school that sought to raise academic performance, particularly among boys, and to improve classroom behaviour by introducing single‐sex classes. Funded by a local Education and Library Board the evaluation took place almost four years after the strategy was introduced and in a climate of increasing teacher concern with the effectiveness of the strategy. The methods involved a questionnaire survey to all teachers in the school and one‐to‐one and small group interviews with teachers responsible for teaching single‐sex classes. Contrary to its stated aims, the majority of teachers believe that, since the introduction of single‐sex classes, academic performance and classroom behaviour have deteriorated. Findings are discussed in terms of teachers’ perceptions of the strategy and the importance organizational and contextual factors have on shaping teachers’ attitudes to new initiatives.     

Does it matter who your schoolmates are? An investigation of the association between school composition,school processes and mathematics achievement in the early years of primary education

Although many studies have focused on the importance of school composition for student achievement, there is still no consensus on whether school composition matters to student achievement, and, if so, why. Therefore, the present study investigates the association between school composition and mathematics achievement at the end of second grade in Flanders. International research points to the initial ability level, SES, ethnicity and sex composition of the school as potential variables in explaining differences in student achievement. Moreover, some researchers suggest that schools ‘react’ to their student body and for that reason we investigated the possible association between school composition and school processes. Data from the SiBO Project have been analyzed using multilevel regression and multilevel mediation analysis. The results showed no direct school composition effects with respect to prior achievement, SES, ethnicity and sex on math achievement. We found two small differential effects, indicating that mean school prior achievement seems to positively affect initially high achievers, and the proportion of minority students in school seems to negatively affect students speaking a non‐European language except for Turkish, Arabic or Berber at home. Furthermore, two small indirect effects were found which suggest that schools with a high mean prior achievement or a high mean SES keep in regular contact with their students' parents and this, in turn, appears to enhance students' math achievement. Overall, our results seem to indicate that school composition in the early years of primary education hardly matters.     

The short‐term and the long‐term effect of primary schools and classes on mathematics and language achievement scores

A considerable body of previous research has demonstrated that differences between schools and classes have an impact on students' learning and acquisition of skills. It is not yet clear, however, whether the effects persist in the longer term. The present study examines the effect of primary schools and classes on language and mathematics achievement over a period of two years after leaving primary education. Considerable short‐term effects of the primary school and class on achievement levels at the end of primary education were found. Multilevel models with a cross‐classified structure were constructed to estimate the long‐term effects. Differences between secondary schools and classes turned out to be much more important for achievement in secondary education than the long‐term effects of primary schools and classes, which were small and died out fast.     

The effect of peer socioeconomic status on student achievement: A meta-analysis

Previous studies on the effects on students’ test scores of their peers’ socioeconomic status (SES) reported varying results. A meta-regression analysis including 30 studies on the topic shows that the compositional effect that researchers find is strongly related to how they measure SES and to their model choice. If they measure SES dichotomously (e.g. free lunch eligibility) or include several average SES-variables in one model, they find smaller effects than when using a composite that captures several SES-dimensions. Composition measured at cohort/school level is associated with smaller effects than composition measured at class level. Researchers estimating compositional effects without controlling for prior achievement or not taking into account the potential for omitted variables bias, risk overestimating the effect. Correcting for a large set of not well-thought-over covariates may lead to an underestimation of the compositional effect, by artificially explaining away the effect. Little evidence was found that effect sizes differ with sample characteristics such as test type (language vs. math) and country. Estimates for a hypothetical study, making a number of “ideal” choices, suggest that peer SES may be an important determinant of academic achievement.     

Parallel Classes: Differences and Similarities. Teacher Effects and School Effects in Secondary Schools

Results from school effectiveness studies that took into account differences among teachers or departments within schools indicate that these teacher or department differences outweigh the differences between schools. The present study shows that differences in student achievement between parallel classes taught by different teachers may be very small. Coordination efforts among teachers relate primarily to the content and goals of instruction. With respect to classroom instruction large differences between teachers may still be detected. School effectiveness differences usually found across grades and subjects may be due only in part to loose internal coordination. The fact that it is extremely difficult for teachers to compare the results of teaching across grades and subjects may be equally important.     

A‐level Results in Comprehensive Schools: the COMBSE project,Year 1

Abstract

This analysis of A‐level English and Mathematics results from ten comprehensive schools in the north‐east represents some of the work done in the first year of a ‘school effects’ study entitled the COMBSE project ('Confidential, Measurement‐Based, Self‐Evaluation'). The project enables participating schools to compare their A‐level results with those of similar schodls. In an attempt to take account of differences in intakes to the schools, data were collected for a wide range of variables expected to relate to A‐level grades: prior achievement, socio‐economic status, class size, teacher characteristics and time variables such as time allocated and time reportedly spent on homework. However, once an index based on an average O‐level grade was computed, other variables contributed little or nothing to the prediction of A‐level grades.

Some findings ran counter to the general pattern of effects in the literature. For example, a negative correlation between time spent on homework and grades achieved, and smaller classes obtaining lower residual gains than larger classes in English, though not in Mathematics. Two issues were raised: is the 30% failure rate reasonable and should A‐level Mathematics be so much more difficult to pass than A‐level English?     

Homework and Student Math Achievement in Junior High Schools

In the school year 1994/1995 homework characteristics and effectiveness in math education among secondary schools were compared. The study examined the 1st year of secondary education (average age level: 12.3 years). The sample consisted of 28 schools, 56 classes and 1,394 students. The results show a lack of policy directed at the co-ordination of and increase in the amount of homework in Dutch schools. Nevertheless most math teachers give homework every lesson. Multi-level analysis shows that the amount of homework was the only homework variable related to achievement. It explained 2.4% of the variance. Frequency of homework and homework time were not related to achievement. There is a sharp contrast between Dutch and US teachers in ‘checking and grading’ of homework. However, in this study this variable was not related to math achievement.     

Antecedents affecting science achievement scores in classrooms in Trinidad and Tobago

This paper initially notes the role of scientific education in a developing country and the need to enhance scientific education among the school population. Enhancement of science education for all pupils is dependent on the distribution of schools, quality of schools and pupil participation in any country. To understand how science education is advanced in a developing country it is also important to know who is currently succeeding in science education in schools and to understand how this success is distributed amongst the school population. Thus, this paper questions whether school-based science achievement may be predetermined by antecedent factors or whether there is an equal opportunity of success amongst all pupil participants. A review of the literature has found that many antecedent factors affect school and science achievement, and these factors may be more important than within-school processes thought to enhance science education. The antecedent factors refer to: social/home background; age, religion and sex of the pupil; school class level and size; type of school attended and its locality.This study assesses how antecedent factors affect science performance in a representative sample of pupils in primary and secondary schools throughout Trinidad and Tobago. The representative sample totalled 1998 children, aged 6–10 years. Pupils were selected from a geographic transect of Trinidad and Tobago, which fulfilled demographic criteria. Once pupils were selected, biographic data were obtained for each child. Science achievement was measured by an end-of-term science examination designed for each class by the class teacher and graded on a 100% scale (within each class). Within class pupil scores were ‘standardized’ for comparisons between classes, schools, etc. Results from the analyses are summarized as: science achievement scores decrease as pupils increase in age. Girls perform consistently better than boys, with a slight variation in the sex by religion by school level interaction. Pupils in private schools score higher than pupils in similar levels of state schools. Pupils from a middle class background perform better than pupils from a working class background. Differences in performance relate to the religion of the child, with Muslim pupils scoring higher than Hindu or Christian pupils. Pupils in single-sex schools perform at higher levels than pupils in co-educational schools, and this is true for girls-only and boys-only schools. At the secondary school level the type of school attended is related to science achievement performance with pupils in prestige (usually church controlled) schools performing better than pupils in the comprehensive (state controlled) schools.The results support, develop and refine the previous literature on school and science achievement. Unusually, girls are at the forefront of science achievement in both primary and secondary schools. Also, traditional prejudices of social class, school status and location are confirmed within the school system in Trinidad and Tobago. A number of directions for future research and classroom action studies are indicated which focus on the existence of these inequalities.     

The Influence of Secondary and Junior Schools on Sixteen Year Examination Performance: A Cross‐classified Multilevel Analysis∗

This paper presents a model for the explanation of examination (GCSE) performance at the age of 16 years in terms of both secondary and junior school attended together with prior achievement measures and certain background factors. Using a cohort of 758 students in 48 junior schools and 116 secondary schools it compares the variation in performance due to secondary schools with that due to junior schools in a multilevel cross‐classified analysis. It shows that the variation among junior schools is substantially larger than that among secondary schools. It also demonstrates that those junior schools with high average achievement scores for the students when they leave junior school also tend to have high average scores for their students at the age of 16. The implications of these findings, if replicated, are profound. They imply that current attempts to measure the ‘effectiveness’ of secondary schools using achievement measured at the start of secondary schooling may be fruitless and they point to the need for school effectiveness research to become involved in very long term studies of schooling, rather than being restricted to a single phase.

     

THE MEASUREMENT OF PERSONALITY‐‐III

During 1963, arrangements were made by the then Ministry of Education for a national experiment in foreign‐language teaching to be carried out in selected primary schools in England and Wales. The main purpose of the experiment, which came to be known as the Pilot Scheme for the teaching of French in primary schools, was to discover whether it would be both feasible and educationally desirable to extend the teaching of a foreign language to pupils who represented a wider range of age and ability than those to whom foreign languages had traditionally been taught. Under the Pilot Scheme, French was to be introduced into the primary school curriculum on an experimental basis from September 1964 onwards. The choice of French as the language to be taught was virtually inevitable, since it would have been impossible to provide an adequate teaching force for the implementation of the experiment if any language other than French had been chosen. In most of the schools taking part in the Pilot Scheme, French was to be taught throughout the primary stage of the experiment by class teachers who had received special in‐service training, rather than by specialist teachers of French. Arrangements were made to provide continuity of teaching at the secondary stage, so that all the pupils taking part in the experiment would be able to continue learning French without interruption for at least five years.

Once the experiment had been set up, it was agreed that its effects should be evaluated over a period of years by the NFER. In the event, the NFER evaluation spanned the period 1964‐1974, taking the form of a longitudinal study of three age‐groups or ‘cohorts’ of pupils attending the schools taking part in the experiment. The sole criterion on which pupils were chosen for inclusion in one of the experimental cohorts was their date of birth. In the first instance, French was to be taught to all eight‐year‐old pupils in the selected primary schools from September 1964 onwards; thereafter, the teaching of French was to be extended to a further year‐group each autumn, until it involved all pupils in the 8‐11 age‐range. Thus, the first cohort to come under study was composed of all pupils in the large primary schools taking part in the experiment who fell within the age‐range 8‐0‐8#lb11 on 1st September 1964 and all pupils in the small primary schools who fell within the age‐range 8#lb0‐9#lb11 on that date: this provided a sample of approximately 5.700 pupils. (A wider age‐range was sampled in the small primary schools, to avoid the creation of unworkably small groups.) The second cohort was composed of all pupils in the large primary schools in the sample who fell within the age‐range 8#lb0‐8#lb11 on 1st September 1965: this provided a sample of approximately 5,300 pupils. Pupils in the small primary schools were not represented in the second cohort, since most children of an appropriate age had already been included in the French classes set up for the first cohort.

Originally, the NFER evaluation was to have been based entirely on a longitudinal study of the pupils forming the first two experimental cohorts. It was hoped that the results of this study would provide sufficient information to enable valid conclusions to be drawn regarding the feasibility and advisability of teaching French at the primary level. As the experiment progressed however, it became clear that the pioneer status of the first cohort had entailed an atypical introduction to French. During the first year of the Pilot Scheme, for instance, difficult staffing problems were encountered which had not always been foreseen: in some primary schools, French teachers were absent without replacement for a whole term in order to attend intensive language courses in France; in others, no trained staff were available to teach French during the first term of the experiment, with the result that the first cohort pupils in these schools started to learn French one term later than the others in their age‐group. The first year of the experiment could therefore be regarded with some justification as an essentially exploratory period, calling into question the validity of using the results obtained from the study of the first cohort as a basis for future comparison. In view of these circumstances, it was considered advisable to extend the evaluation to a third cohort of pupils: those who would begin their study of French in September 1968. The third and final cohort to come under study was thus composed of all pupils in the large primary schools still taking part in the experiment who fell within the age‐range 8#lb0‐8#lb11 on 1st September 1968 and all pupils in the small primary schools who fell within the age‐range 8#lb0‐9#lb11 on the same date: this provided a sample of approximately 6,000 pupils. Inclusion in the experimental sample was again determined solely by the age of the pupil. This meant that the sample was drawn from all the socioeconomic strata normally represented within the national educational system and, in consequence, was characterized by a wide range of ability.

The time‐span of the evaluation did not allow all the pupils taking part in the experiment to be studied for an equal period of time. The pupils in the first and third cohorts were under study for a total of five years: three years in the primary school and two years in the secondary school. The pupils in the second cohort were under study for a longer period: three years in the primary school and five years in the secondary school. During the ten‐year period of the evaluation, the main aims of the study were: (i) to investigate the long‐term development of pupils’ attitudes towards foreign‐language learning; (ii) to discover whether pupils’ levels of achievement in French were related to their attitudes towards foreign‐language learning; (iii) to examine the effect of certain pupil variables (such as age, sex, socio‐economic status, perception of parental encouragement, employment expectations, contact with France, etc) on level of achievement in French and attitude towards foreign language learning; (iv) to investigate whether teachers’ attitudes and expectations significantly affected the attitudes and achievement of their pupils; (v) to investigate whether the early introduction of French had a significant effect on achievement in other areas of the primary school curriculum.

The main findings to emerge during the earlier years of the evaluation were published in two interim reports (Burstall, 1968, 1970); the recent publication of the final report (Burstall et al., 1974) brought together both the earlier and the later findings and provided an overall view of the effects of the experiment during both its primary and secondary stages. What follows is an attempt to review briefly the research evidence presented in the final report, but it must be borne in mind that limitations of space will inevitably impose a certain selectivity on this review.

     

An action research study designed to implement student negotiation to improve speaking classroom practice in Turkey

This paper reports the second stage of an action research study designed to improve the effectiveness of speaking classes through negotiating the lesson contents with students. The data were collected through interviews, questionnaires and observations as a way of eliciting students’ views. The research, conducted in an English language teaching department at a university in Turkey, comprised eight weekly-based interventions that involved planning, action, observation, and reflection, in which students were given a voice and classroom activities were designed accordingly. Student negotiation allowed for the identification of both structural and affective factors influencing the quality of speaking classes. The teacher’s roles in activities, the number of students in group work activities, the level of control in speaking activities, and the role of input were found to be issues worth considering in designing speaking classes. Issues such as finding the activity ‘interesting’ and ‘useful’, ‘feeling comfortable’ and ‘being competitive’ also influenced the effectiveness of activities. Involving students in this action research study promoted positive attitudes towards classes since students reported feeling valued and important.     

The effect of levels of cooperation within physical science laboratory groups on physical science achievement

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the levels of group cooperation on students' achievement during a series of physical science laboratory activities. Six intact seventh-grade physical science classes taught by two teachers, with each teacher instructing three classes, were selected from two middle schools. For each teacher, one of the classes was taught with a traditional approach (no cooperative goal structure). The other two classes were assigned to a cooperative goal structure (role assignment and nonrole assignment). For the role assignment class, each student was assigned a specific role, but students in both traditional and nonrole assignment classes were not assigned roles. The Classroom Observation Instrument in Science Laboratory Activity (COISLA), which includes investigative skills (i.e., managing, manipulating, observing, reading, writing, and reporting); social skills (i.e., discussing, encouraging) and nonlearning behaviors (i.e., waiting, off-task), was used to measure the levels of group cooperation. The grades on lab reports and lab quizzes of students who were taught by the same teacher were compared to assess the effects of the different learning conditions. No significant differences on the students' final achievement were found with respect to the three instructional approaches followed by each teacher. The teacher effect was more significant than either instructional approach on managing, manipulating, observing, reading, and writing behaviors. No significant teacher effect was found for the other behaviors. Only one treatment effect was significant, writing behavior. Overall, the teacher effect was more influential than instructional approach on students' behaviors. In teacher A's classes, reading behavior predicted 21% of students' achievement. However, no significant correlations existed between the 10 collaborative behaviors and students' achievement in teacher B's classes.     

Big-fish-little-pond social comparison and local dominance effects: Integrating new statistical models,methodology, design,theory and substantive implications

We offer new theoretical, substantive, statistical, design, and methodological insights into the seemingly paradoxical negative effects of school- and class-average achievement (ACH) on academic self-concept (ASC)—the big-fish-little-pond-effect (BFLPE; 15,356 Dutch 9th grade students from 651 classes in 95 schools). In support of the theoretical, social-comparison basis of the BFLPE, controlling for direct measures of social comparison (subjective ranking of how students compare with other students in their own class) substantially reduces the BFLPE. Based on new (latent three-level) statistical models and theoretical predictions integrating BFLPEs and ‘local dominance’ effects, significantly negative BFLPEs at the school level are largely eliminated, absorbed into even larger BFLPEs at the class level. Students accurately perceive large ACH differences between different classes within their school and across different schools. However, consistent with local dominance, ASCs are largely determined by comparisons with students in their own class, not objective or subjective comparisons with other classes or schools. At the individual student level, ASC is more highly related to class marks (from report cards) than standardized test scores, but the negative BFLPE is largely a function of class-average test scores. Consistent with theoretical predictions, BFLPEs generalize across objective and subjective measures of individual ACH, and BFLPEs are similar for the brightest and weakest students.     

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.