Factors Associated with School Effectiveness: Detection of High- and Low-Efficiency Schools through Hierarchical Linear Models

Abstract

School effectiveness is a topic of interest addressed by numerous research projects focused on clarifying which variables contribute to the explanation of educational performance. This research aims to find out to what extent social, cultural, and academic variables at the student and school levels, as perceived by families, influence performance, and to evaluate the relevance of high residual and gross score criteria in the selection of effective or ineffective schools. Census data from diagnostic evaluations of the Mathematical Reasoning and Linguistic Communication of students in a certain Spanish region, over five academic years, have been used. The multilevel hierarchical analyses carried out have enabled the detection of centers of high and low efficiency, as well as the identification of which factors, related to the idiosyncrasy of the students and the educational center they attend, significantly influence the performance of the students. It was concluded that the socioeconomic and cultural level of the families, the family expectations, the commitment to reading and the educational agreement were significant variables in the explanation of the students’ educational performance, and that the residual score of the educational centers was a valid criterion to estimate their level of effectiveness once the socio-cultural factors have been controlled.

Evaluation of educational resource utilization efficiency, regional technological heterogeneity, and total factor productivity change in 35 European countries

“…International collaboration and the assimilation of global best practices have the potential to enhance and enhance local initiatives through the acquisition of knowledge and insights. By adopting these ideas, regions can strive towards a more effective and fair education system that empowers learners and optimizes existing resources [75,76].…”

Parent–school-community relationship: a comparative study of highly effective schools and schools with low effectiveness in Andalusia

“…The participating schools belong to the list of high-and low-performing primary schools developed by García-Jiménez et al ( 2022) based on extreme residual performance scores and the growth (or decline) of these residuals (García-Jiménez et al, 2022;López-González et al, 2021). This list is composed of the 50 HEFS and the 50 LEFS in the autonomous community of Andalusia.…”

“…Accidental sampling was used to include in the study the first 25 centres that agreed to participate: 12 HEFS and 13 LEFS (García-Jiménez et al, 2022). This figure was considered sufficient to understand how the parent-school relationship develops unequally in HEFS and LEFS, and how this influences pupils' educational performance, as information saturation was reached with these 25 interviews.…”

Equity and Parity in Primary Education: A Study on Performance in Language and Mathematics Using Hierarchical Linear Models

“…For these reasons, the evaluation of the quality of education has been a constant focus of public administrations. Knowing the educational performance of schools is necessary to diagnose needs, assess proposals and undertake the required changes in terms of educational policies [8][9][10].…”

“…This type of large-scale evaluation allows the identification of factors that exert a significant impact on school effectiveness and educational performance [12,13], thereby providing schools and educational administrations with the opportunity to identify deficiencies and design improvement lines [14,15]. In this way, the suitability and effectiveness of educational policies and curricular plans can also be assessed [8].…”