School tenure and student achievement

While much empirical research concerns job tenure, this paper introduces the concept of school tenure and further examines whether and how school tenure impacts student outcomes using a rich set of cohort data from England’s secondary schools. Using the number of times a student switched schools during the academic year as an instrument to measure school tenure to fully account for endogeneity issues, the resulting two-stage least squares estimates suggest that the effects of school tenure are positive and heterogeneous across students. While advantaged students are more likely to gain when their own school tenure is longer, disadvantaged students benefit if their peers have longer tenure. This significant heterogeneous effect suggests that school tenure may not simply act as the inverse of school mobility but may represent a potential determinant of student achievement and an effective school-specific measure for policymakers and practitioners. The relevant implications are accordingly discussed.     

Charter school authorizers and student achievement

In this paper we analyze the relationship between charter school authorizers and student achievement. We perform this analysis using a 10-year panel dataset from Minnesota, a state that permits four distinct types of authorizers—local school boards, postsecondary institutions, nonprofit organizations, and the Minnesota Department of Education. The results of the analysis indicate that there is no statistically significant relationship between charter school authorizing type and mean levels of student achievement. However, the analysis also reveals that schools authorized by nonprofit organizations exhibit substantially more variability in achievement than schools authorized by local school boards.     

Relationships of organization,time, and student achievement in physical education

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between the way time is used in physical education classes and student achievement. Teachers of 10 classes and their middle school/junior high school students were the subjects for the study. Students were pretested and posttested on the volleyball forearm pass and serve using previously validated tests. Between the two testing sessions students received 7 days of instruction in these skills. All classes were videotaped using a two-camera split screen system so that virtually all activity in the gym could be identified later. Digitally displayed running time was superimposed on the video image. Student achievement for each class was determined separately for each skill by regressing posttest on pretest and calculating a residual score for every student. The mean of the residual scores for each class was calculated and used in subsequent analysis. A multifaceted observation instrument was developed and validated for collecting data which reflected how time was spent in class. Mean residual achievement was correlated with time spent in the various categories of class organization. For both skills, total time spent in practice with teacher feedback had a significant positive correlation with student achievement. When subcategories of practice were considered, individual student practice and reciprocal practice by student pairs were positively correlated with achievement. The use of scrimmage had a negative correlation with achievement in situations where it was used for skill practice. This study provides powerful empirical validation of the relationships between class organization, time, and achievement in physical education.     

School built environment,gender, and student achievement in Pakistan

We investigate the relationship between school built environment factors including available water, toilet facilities, and electricity access, and Pakistani students’ achievement. Data from a representative sample of 72,843 students attending 5296 schools are analyzed using multilevel modeling. The findings suggest that ceteris paribus, built environment factors have statistically significant effects on achievement. The effects of several of these factors are moderated by student gender such that female students’ achievement is more likely to be affected by the of lack of water and sanitation facilities while male students’ achievement is more likely to be affected by access to electricity. Implications of the findings regarding built environmental effects on educational achievement are discussed.     

Junior high school science teacher preparation,teaching behavior,and student achievement

The findings challenge both practices and prejudices in junior high school science teacher preparation.     

School mobility and student achievement in an urban setting

Many studies show negative relationships between school or geographic mobility and school achievement. However, two longitudinal studies show no relationship between mobility and subsequent achievement when prior achievement is controlled. The present study replicates both findings among 764 sixth‐grade students in a mobile school district in New York City, with mobility defined by school changes, achievement assessed with standardized tests and age‐grade progress, and eligibility for free or reduced price lunches (an economic indicator) controlled. Total mobility was related to sixth‐grade achievement when earlier achievement was not controlled, but mobility after third grade was not related to sixth‐grade achievement when third‐grade achievement was controlled. Some authors suggest that a third variable, such as family background, accounts for both mobility and achievement. We provide evidence for a different explanation. Early mobility (prior to third grade) was a more potent predictor of sixth‐grade achievement than later mobility. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

School size and student achievement: a longitudinal analysis

Numerous initiatives by private philanthropies and the US government have supported school size reduction policies as an educational reform intended to improve student outcomes. Empirical evidence to support these claims, however, is underdeveloped. In this article, we draw on information from a longitudinal dataset provided by the Northwest Evaluation Association covering more than 1 million students in 4 US states. Employing a student fixed effects strategy, we estimate how a student’s achievement changes as (s)he moves between schools of different sizes. We find evidence that students’ academic achievement in math and reading declines as school size increases. The negative effects of large schools appear to matter most in higher grades, which is also when schools tend to be the largest.     

Teacher support,instructional practices,student motivation,and mathematics achievement in high school

The authors examined the relationships among teacher classroom practices, student motivation, and mathematics achievement in high school. The data for this study was drawn from the base-year data of High School Longitudinal Study of 2009. Structural equation modeling method was used to estimate the relationships among variables. The results indicate that conceptual teaching positively affected student mathematics achievement, whereas procedural emphasis in mathematics instruction had a negative effect. Teacher support influenced student mathematics achievement indirectly through students' mathematics self-efficacy, and also influenced students' interest in mathematics courses. Finally, students with higher levels of family socioeconomic status and prior achievement were more likely to have teachers who use conceptual teaching strategies. Students with higher prior achievement were also more likely to perceive higher levels of teacher support. The findings have theoretical and practical implications.     

The student factor in the achievement of school organizational goals

This paper examines the role of students in the achievement of school goals. It suggests that teacher perception of the status of students either as mere resource input, clients of the school or subsystem of the school system tend to influence the indispensable and invaluable role which students play in the achievement of three key goals of the school organization; namely effective and efficient school administration, teacher job satisfaction, and high teacher productivity. Finally, it recommends that schools should encourage a higher degree of participation, involvement and commitment to the achievement of the school goals among students.     

Educational inequality in Colombia: family background,school quality and student achievement in Cartagena

This study examines the effects of family socio‐economic disadvantage and differences in school resources on student achievement in the city of Cartagena, Colombia. Using data from the ICFES and C‐600 national databases, we conduct a multilevel analysis to determine the unique contribution of school‐level factors above and beyond family background. The results from the hierarchical linear models show that while family socio‐economic background significantly affects student achievement, school composition and school resources explain as much as half of the effects of family background. More specifically, the achievement gap in public schools is explained in large part by differential resource allocation and concentration of poor students in public schools, which in turn lowers student achievement.     

High school start times and student achievement: Looking beyond test scores

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that U.S. secondary schools begin after 8:30 a.m. to better align with the circadian rhythms of adolescents. Yet due to economic and logistic considerations, the vast majority of high schools begin the school day considerably earlier. We leverage a quasi-natural experiment in which five comprehensive high schools in one of the nation’s largest school systems moved start times forty minutes earlier to better coordinate with earlier-start high schools. Here, disruption effects should exacerbate any harmful consequences. We report on the effect of earlier start times on a broad range of outcomes, including mandatory ACT test scores, absenteeism, on-time progress in high school, and college-going. While we fail to find evidence of harmful effects on test scores, we do see a rise in absenteeism and tardiness rates, as well as higher rates of dropping out of high school. These results suggest that the harmful effects of early start times may not be well captured by considering test scores alone.     

Online teaching,procrastination and student achievement

Despite growing consensus in the public debate that self-discipline is key to succeeding in an online learning environment, the evidence available is very limited. We investigate the role of procrastination as a moderator of the impact of online teaching on student performance. We take advantage of the forced transition from traditional class-based to online teaching induced by the COVID-19 pandemic and adopt a difference-in-differences strategy using administrative data of four cohorts of students enrolled in an Italian University. We find that online teaching has reduced student performance by about 1.4 credits per semester on average (0.11 Standard Deviations). However, this aggregate effect masks great heterogeneity as the negative influence on performance varies significantly according to student tendency to procrastinate with online teaching being particularly detrimental for students affected by present-bias problems. The total negative effect for procrastinators amounts to more than 18% of the workload for a semester, so implying a potential delay of approximately two semesters in the expected date of graduation for students following an online as opposed to a face-to-face five-year Degree course.     

Student commitment and school organization in relation to on-task behavior and achievement

Three experiments considered student commitment to school, IQ, and school organization type in relation to student task behavior and to school achievement. The first two correlational studies indicated the relationship between student commitment and student task behavior; the third study used student task behavior, student commitment, IQ, and school organization to predict achievement. This prediction equation was quite robust with a final R² = .85. School achievement is predicted by intelligence and academic time on task in traditionally structured schools, and by intelligence and student commitment in open structured schools. Increasing the amount of teacher directed time would increase achievement in traditional schools, but decrease achievement in open schools.     

High school teacher’s sense of responsibility toward student achievement

European Journal of Psychology of Education -     

A multilevel analysis of Japanese middle school student and school socioeconomic status influence on mathematics achievement

The author examined the simultaneous influence of Japanese middle school student and school socioeconomic status (SES) on student math achievement with two-level multilevel analysis models by utilizing the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) Japan data sets. The theoretical framework used in this study was Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory (Bronfenbrenner and Morris 1998). The data sets contained 4,856 students from 146 public and private middle schools. The results indicated that at the student level, different aspects of student SES (i.e., number of books, the possession of computers, paternal, and maternal educational achievements) were positively related to Japanese student math achievement. At the school level, two aspects of school SES (i.e., less populated schools and economically disadvantaged schools) were negatively related to Japanese student math achievement. None of the cross-level interactions were significant, but the random effect for the computer slope was significant. Although this study found both student and school SES effects on student achievement, the proportional reduction of prediction error explained by both student and school SES were was small, meaning the residual variances at student and school levels did not capture the majority of variance explained by math achievement. The implications of theoretical framework and educational policy are discussed.     

Improving student achievement

A cognitive processing capacity model of teaching and studying improved immediate posttest and delayed posttest performances of low-ability students, while it reduced performance differences between the low- and high-ability students. A skeletal study outline and a restudy and retest provision also made positive contributions to performance.     

Impact of instructional leadership on high school student academic achievement in China

Asia Pacific Education Review - The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of instructional leadership on high school students’ academic achievement in the Chinese context and to...