The main purpose of this study was to identify, describe, and explain the school effectiveness characteristics that might influence English language certification in selected secondary schools in a Third World country, Nigeria. Ethnographic methods of participant observation, interviews, questionnaires, camera and video recordings, and documentary analysis were used to study six secondary schools in urban, sub-urban, and rural settings. The study was conducted in response to the call for the contextualization of School Effectiveness Research (SER). One incontrovertible conclusion in School Effectiveness Research (SER) is that the accumulation of evidence on the characteristics of school effectiveness has not answered the perplexing question of why certain characteristics work in one school and not in others. Many researchers have suggested contextualizing SER as one way of dealing with this nagging problem. The contextualization of SER, argued these researchers, would ensure that local school and classroom cultures were taken into consideration in the design, implementation, and interpretation of School Effectiveness Research. Studying the nuances of local school cultures might illuminate the relationships between school effectiveness characteristics and the classroom instructional strategies employed by effective teachers to enhance student academic achievement. Results from the six case studies indicated support for many school effectiveness characteristics that have been attested to in the literature, such as strong and purposeful school leadership, clear and articulated goals, high expectations of student achievement, a safe and orderly environment conducive to learning, and frequent evaluation of students' progress. But some characteristics that might be peculiar to the Third World were also unraveled by the study. For instance, extramural lessons seemed to be an important feature in certain schools that achieved effective examination results but lacked effectiveness characteristics. There appears also to be a link between the identified school level effectiveness characteristics and the classroom level instructional strategies employed by effective teachers in English language classrooms. The study of the dimensions of effective instruction in Nigerian English language classrooms yielded some "language examination-oriented instructional strategies" that were different from the "mediational instructional strategies" used by effective language teachers in Californian classrooms in the United States of America. It was felt that these differences were a result of contextual differences in the two developed and developing world domains. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate

This study aims to determine the effect of school conditions on learner reading achievement in primary schools in South Africa. Reading skills are not only imperative for further study but are essential for economic and meaningful citizenship. Initiatives such as the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign, geared to improve the quality of education for all children and to ensure improved learner achievement have resulted in an increase in educational spending. Despite such initiatives, learner achievement remains poor. In order to measure the relative relationship between school conditions and learner reading achievement, this study focused on selected variables from the PIRLS 2006 South African data, notably from Grade 5 learner reading achievement, teacher and school questionnaires. A secondary data analysis through multiple regression technique was utilised in an attempt to measure those school conditions that may enhance or impede learner reading achievement. This study follows the tradition of school effectiveness research by utilising the context-input-process-output (integrated model for school effectiveness research) model as espoused by Scheerens (2000; 2005). The integrated model was adapted combining school and classroom factors in order to measure the effect of school wide processes on learner reading achievement. Although this study was unable to measure the effect of educational leadership on learner reading achievement, it found significant school and classroom factors associated with learner reading achievement. This study highlights the importance of improving the teaching and learning of literacy across all 11 official languages. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2015 / Science, Mathematics and Technology Education / MEd / Unrestricted

In the last decades, several research studies have been executed on the key factors that influence school effectiveness. Taking state of the art literature into account, six broad areas can been identified: student, home, school and leadership, curricula, teachers and teaching/learning approaches. As part of the area of school and leadership, the overarching topic of performance management has been empirically tested to be an effective strategy for improving student outcomes. The role of organizational performance metrics and monitoring cannot be overstated as a success factor of an organization because they affect strategic, tactical and operational planning in setting objectives, evaluating performance, and determining future courses of action. Consequently, the research project at hand aims to analyze, as a first step, the interrelation between the use of technology and performance monitoring and, as a second step, the impact of these management practices on the organizational effectiveness of schools. For that, an online survey is sent to about 20.000 principals in Germany. Statistical analysis will be conducted.

From 2017 to 2019, the primary strategy to improve public schools in the U.S. was increasing competition through the expansion of charter schools and the promotion of vouchers to send public school students to private schools. The problem this presented was that key education leaders had not provided adequate input and feedback into this strategy. The purpose of this qualitative study was to gather the perspectives of accomplished education leaders on how Tiebout's theory of competition and the concept of the Ontario K-12 School Effectiveness Framework impacted quality, trust, and capacity. Data were collected using semistructured interviews with a purposeful sample of 15 accomplished education leaders from the charter/school choice community and traditional public schools. Data were analyzed using Bernauer's modified three-phase method. School and classroom leadership, meaningful and informative assessment that guides instruction, substantive student engagement, and a focus on a strong curriculum and effective teaching were the key themes that aligned with quality, trust, and capacity. Education leaders did not see Tiebout education as a key driver that would alone improve the quality of public education. Leaders believed that some schools improved in response to Tiebout competition but also shared cautions on the diminishing returns, collateral damage, and equity concerns because Tiebout competition created winners and losers. Social change may be impacted by the results of this study in that the results define and share examples of healthy and unhealthy competition in public education. The results of this study can help inform policy makers and educators as they create opportunities that will enhance the long term personal and economic success of all U.S. students.

There is a perceived crisis concerning public education in the United States. This has led to an increase in the use of standardized tests for the purpose of measuring school effectiveness. However, the use of standardized tests for this purpose is problematic. Among these problems is the concern that standardized tests may not measure what parents believe are the most important attributes of an effective school. Unfortunately, there is little in the way of empirical evidence regarding parent beliefs in this area. The purpose of this research was to answer the following four questions. 1. What do parents of school-aged children in Utah feel are the most important attributes of an effective school? 2. Are there statistical and practical differences between levels of respondents' association with public schools and their responses to question #1? 3. Are there statistical and practical differences between levels of respondents' level of education and their responses to question #1? 4. Are there statistical and practical significant differences between respondents' gender and their responses to research question #1? A mail survey of 800 randomly selected Utah parents of school-aged children was conducted to address these questions. To answer research question #1, the method of paired comparisons was used to derive a parent ranking of eight attributes of an effective school. To answer research questions #2, #3, and #4, a chi-square analysis of association was conducted. The practical significance of these results was assessed through the calculation of the effect size w. In total, 199 usable surveys were returned. Results indicated that parents believed that providing students with a balanced curriculum that encourages a wide range of learning experiences and providing students with the skills necessary to become a productive and useful citizen were more important attributes of an effective school than providing students with a good understanding of basic academic skills. This result is important because it indicates parent support for two attributes of an effective school-wide range of learning experiences and skills to become a productive and useful citizen-that are difficult to measure through the use of standardized tests.

This study examined the perceptions of principals, teachers, and support staff at 3 PREPS-identified value added and three PREPS-identified value subtracted elementary schools in Mississippi to determine if there were effective schools practices in the areas of instructional and organizational systems that were unique to either group. The Survey of Instructional and Organizational Effectiveness from the National Study of School Evaluation was used to measure strengths and limitations of the effectiveness of the instructional practices and organizational conditions of each school. Descriptive statistics and comparative analysis were used to analyze responses to the 24-item survey. Results showed there were statistically significant differences between the value added and value subtracted schools for the categories of curriculum, instructional design, assessment, and leadership for school improvement. There were no significant differences in the categories of educational agenda, community-building, and culture of continuous improvement and learning.

Education policies tend to target failing schools that are often located in disadvantaged communities. However, the use of high-stakes testing to identify and punish failing schools has become increasingly controversial. An overemphasis on test scores to determine school quality has led to unintended consequences and overshadows other valuable school-based resources that parents feel meaningfully contribute to students' academic experiences. To better understand how low-SES parents describe their children's low performing schools, I interviewed 92 families in an under-served community. Through these interviews I illuminate the school-based resources that contribute to school quality. In fact, these additional elements were often more important signifiers of school quality for low-SES parents than were test scores.

[pt] Esta tese tem como objetivo investigar a eficácia e a equidade em uma instituição privada de natureza filantrópica e de reconhecido prestígio acadêmico, localizada na cidade de Juiz de Fora – MG. O referencial teórico foi elaborado a partir dos conceitos de equidade de Rawls (2003) e Dubet (2004, 2008) e de justiça escolar e de discriminação positiva propostos, respectivamente, por Crahay (2000) e Dubet (2008). De maneira complementar, recorreu-se a estudos que abordam o tema da eficácia e da equidade escolar no contexto brasileiro. A pesquisa apresenta desenho longitudinal e faz uso de dados de perfil e dos resultados dos estudantes nas três medidas de desempenho do Programa de Ingresso Seletivo Misto da Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora – PISM-UFJF, avaliação aplicada ao final de cada ano letivo do Ensino Médio. Os resultados dos estudantes foram organizados em cinco grupos de comparação: o grupo de interesse, composto por estudantes de baixo nível socioeconômico que recebem bolsas integrais para cursar o Ensino Médio na escola filantrópica, e outros quatro grupos de comparação, um formado pelos estudantes pagantes da escola filantrópica e três constituídos por estudantes de escolas públicas. No tratamento dos dados foram utilizados métodos mistos: quantitativos e qualitativos. Os primeiros envolveram modelos de regressão para estimação dos efeitos do nível socioeconômico sobre o desempenho dos alunos no PISM e sobre as escolhas de carreiras. Complementarmente, análises qualitativas foram produzidas a partir de entrevistas semiestruturadas realizadas com bolsistas e gestores da escola filantrópica, cujos roteiros foram elaborados em diálogo com as características de escolas eficazes verificadas para o Brasil por Alves & Franco (2008). Os resultados da pesquisa confirmam a significativa correlação entre o nível socioeconômico e a proficiência dos estudantes verificada em outras pesquisas e apontam para evidências de eficácia escolar e de equidade promovidas pela escola filantrópica. As análises quantitativas mostraram que os alunos bolsistas obtiveram maiores proficiências que os estudantes de características semelhantes dos grupos de comparação matriculados nas outras quatro escolas. Os resultados também foram interpretados com base em análises qualitativas e, em linha com as pesquisas brasileiras em eficácia escolar, identificaram condições intraescolares que atuam como fatores importantes de eficácia, notadamente a infraestrutura escolar, o clima acadêmico, a gestão, a ênfase pedagógica e a atuação dos professores. O estudo também aponta para uma questão que merece ser melhor investigada: o peso da origem social na escolha dos bolsistas de carreiras universitárias de menor prestígio acadêmico, mesmo em se tratando de estudantes que frequentaram o Ensino Médio em uma escola eficaz, promotora de equidade e reconhecida socialmente como uma escola de excelência. / [en] The present study aims to investigate effectiveness and equity in a private institution with a philanthropic nature and recognized academic prestige, located in the city of Juiz de Fora – MG. The theoretical framework was drawn up based on the concepts of equity by Rawls (2003) and Dubet (2004, 2008) and of school justice and positive discrimination proposed by Crahay (2000) and Dubet (2008), respectively. In a complementary manner, studies that approach the issues of effectiveness and school equity in the Brazilian context were also implemented. The research resorts to a longitudinal drawing and uses profile and results data from students in the three measures of development of Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora - UFJF s Programa de Ingresso Seletivo Misto - PISM-UFJF, an exam that is applied at the end of each academic year of High School. The students results were organized in five comparison groups: the interest group, composed by students with a low socio-economic status that receive a scholarship to attend the philanthropic school, and other four comparison groups, one consisting of paying students of the philanthropic school and three consisting of students from public schools. In the data analysis, mixed methods were used: quantitative and qualitative. The first ones involved regression models to measure the effects of the socio-economic status on the students development on PISM and on career choices. Furthermore, qualitative analysis were developed from semi-structured interviews with scholarship-holding students and the philanthropic school s managers, the scripts of which were elaborated in relation with the characteristics of effective schools identified for Brazil by Alves and Franco (2008). The research findings confirm the significant correlation between socioeconomic status and the students proficiency identified in other research and points to the evidence of educational effectiveness and equity promoted by the philanthropic school. The quantitative analysis showed that scholarship-holding students achieved higher proficiency than students with similar characteristics from the comparison group enrolled in the other four schools. The results were also interpreted according to qualitative analysis and, in accordance with the Brazilian studies about school effectiveness, identified that internal school conditions such as infrastructure, academic environment, management, pedagogic emphasis and teacher performance are important effectiveness factors. The study also points to an issue that deserves a better investigation: the weight of the social origin on the scholarship-holding students choices of lower academic prestige careers, even if they attended an effective equity promoter and socially acknowledged excellence school during High School.

Value-added models (VAMs) have become widely used in evaluating teacher accountability. The use of these models for high-stakes decisions making has been very controversial due to lack of consistency in classifying teachers as high performing or low performing. There is an abundance of research on the impact of various student level covariates on teacher value-added scores; however, less is known about the impact of teacher-level and school-level covariates. This study uses hierarchical linear modeling to examine the impact of including teacher characteristics, school characteristics, and student demographics aggregated at the school level on elementary mathematics and reading teacher value-added scores. Data for this study was collected from a large school district in north Texas. This study found that across all VAMs fitted, 32% of mathematics teachers and 37% of reading teachers changed quintile ranking for their value-added score at least once across all VAMs, while 55% and 65% of schools changed their quintile ranking of value-added scores based on mathematics and reading achievement, respectively. The results show that failing to control for aggregated student demographics has a large impact on both teacher level and school level value-added scores. Policymakers and administrators using VAM estimates in high-stakes decision-making should include teacher- and school-level covariates in their VAMs.

According to the findings of the 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), fourth-grade students from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries—consisting of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—performed below average compared to other countries on mathematics and science assessments. Despite this, little organizational research has examined potential factors that might have contributed to these results or sought to quantify the variability in school effectiveness in GCC countries. Hence, the present study sought to address this gap by quantifying the variability in school effectiveness in these countries. Using TIMSS 2019 data and multilevel analysis within each GCC member state, the study found school effectiveness varied significantly, ranging between 17% and 60%, considerably more than the variation typically seen in Western countries. In addition, several school-level organizational factors showed a significant impact on school effectiveness. Schools with more adequate resources, higher-quality teachers, greater parental involvement at the school level, and a safer and more orderly environment tended to display higher effectiveness as measured by average mathematics achievement. This finding should encourage researchers and policymakers to have more informed discussions about school effectiveness in the region. / Doctor of Philosophy / Fourth-grade students in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (i.e., Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) performed below average on the 2019 mathematics assessments conducted by the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Furthermore, it is unclear how much school effectiveness varies within or between these countries, and few studies have explored potential school-related reasons for such poor test results. The purpose of this study was thus to examine the variability in schools' effectiveness in GCC countries. Using TIMSS 2019 data and multilevel analysis within each country, the study found school effectiveness varied significantly, ranging from 17% to 60%, much more than in typical Western countries. In addition, several school characteristics significantly influenced a school's effectiveness. Schools with better resources, higher-quality teachers, more parental involvement in school, and a safer and more orderly environment tended to have higher average math scores. This finding should encourage researchers and policymakers to take a closer look at school effectiveness in the region.