CHAPTER 2 EXAMINING PUPIL ATTAINMENT AND PUPIL PROGRESS WITHIN THE
2.4 An Overview of Educational Effectiveness Research
2.4.7 The Language and Classification of Educational Effectiveness
Any research activity requires the use of language, to represent key concepts, notions and ideas. Creemers and Kyriakides (2008) describe educational effectiveness research as an attempt to establish theories that provide reasons for the why and the how some schools and classrooms are more effective than others in securing significantly increased rates of pupil achievement. Classifying the effectiveness of a school does not have the same impact, in human terms, as classifying the effectiveness of human subjects such as teachers. Therefore, the author calls for a more critical attitude regarding the language used to describe differentially effective schools but a more judicious use of the language used to describe differentially effective teachers.
The term ―effective‖ is commonly used to refer to schools in which pupils progress far above the expectation for them on the basis of their prior attainment outcomes. In more recent years, educational effectiveness research is focusing more on schools in which pupils progress significantly below their expectation. The terms ―more effective‖, and
―less effective‖ have been used by important studies such as ISERP (2002) to illustrate differences in the quality of school and classroom practice. Terms such ―more successful‖ and ―less successful‖ (Reynolds et al., 2012) and terms such as ―medium effective‖ and ―high effective‖ (Sammons et al., 2009) are also used regularly in the school and educational effectiveness literature. The terms ―effective‖ and ―ineffective‖
have also been briefly used to compare differences in school effectiveness by Teddlie, Kirby & Stringfield (1989)
If one adopts, the terms ―more effective‖ and ―less effective‖ to classify school or educational effectiveness, this implies that more effective schools are schools associated with pupils who are progressing significantly above expectation (+1 or +2 s.d). Conversely, this implies that schools associated with pupils who are progressing significantly below expectation (-1 or -2 s.d) are less effective. It also implies that
schools in which pupils do not progress significantly above or below expectation are effective.
Should head teachers and teachers be satisfied in seeing that pupils develop ―naturally‖
on the basis of their cognitive ability? Or, should head teachers and teachers see that pupils develop to their best potential and in spite of the different life chances associated with the lottery of birth and of socio-economic opportunity? The latter is the value position adopted by the current study. Once the value of effectiveness is based on the concept of pupil potential rather than pupil ability then the terms ―more effective‖, ―effective‖ and ―less effective‖ are accurate but not necessarily precise descriptors. If the value of education is to create, establish and maintain school and classroom environments that guide pupils towards the fullest of their potential, than effective schools are those schools associated with pupils who are progressing far above their expectation after adjusting for an array of pupil, classroom and school level factors. Does this imply that schools associated with pupils who are progressing far below their expectation are ―ineffective‖? If the value of effectiveness is now based on the concept of pupil potential, the answer can only be in the affirmative. What does one call schools in which pupils are not progressing significantly above or significantly below expectation (at 0 s.d)? For lack of a more elegant term, the term ―average‖ is used.
Generally, effective schools are constituted by a majority of effective teachers (Berliner, 1985). This implies that the type of activity and practice within schools is not significantly dissimilar from one classroom to another or between the majority of classrooms. The term used in the current study to describe the regular spread of quality activity and practice within schools is ―typical‖. A study by Rivkin, Hanushek and Kain (2005) showed considerable within-school variation in teacher effectiveness. The Victorian Quality Schools Project, Hill et al., (1996) also elicited significant within- school variations in teacher quality. When differences in teaching quality between classrooms of the same year group are significant, this implies that effectiveness within schools differs in its spread. Since school and educational effectiveness is relative and
can vary by extent (effective, average and ineffective) and by spread (typical or atypical) this implies a six-way classification system (Table 2.3).
Table 2.3 – Classifying Educational Effectiveness
Typical spread of effectiveness in schools Effective
Pupils‘ value-added scores are at +1/+2 s.d.
Schools are hence classified as effective.
Most classrooms in the same school are effective.
Average
Pupils‘ value-added scores are at 0 s.d.
Schools are hence classified as average.
Most classrooms in the same school are average.
Ineffective
Pupils‘ value-added scores are at -1/-2 s.d.
Schools are hence classified as ineffective
Most classrooms in the same school are ineffective
Atypical spread of effectiveness in schools
Pupils‘ value-added outcomes vary significantly across classrooms of the same year group in the same school.
In educational, school and teacher effectiveness research, it is usual to refer to teachers associated with pupils who are progressing significantly above expectation by the term
―effective‖. However in Table 2.3 above, classrooms rather than teachers are called
―effective‖, ―average‖ and ―ineffective‖. This approach is considered as more politically sensitive to adopt within the local educational professional context. This particular use of language was also inspired by a similar approach adopted by Teddlie, Kirby and Stringfield (1989). In their comparison of the characteristics associated with
―effective‖ and ―ineffective‖ schools, they refer to the characteristics of ―teachers in more effective schools‖ in page 228 or to the characteristics of ―the principal in school 1 (the more effective school)‖ in page 231. The author is of the view that although teachers are central to classrooms and that teaching behaviours and teaching beliefs likely to influence pupil progress, teacher and teaching factors alone do not determine school and educational effectiveness. Pupil achievement is not an accomplishment of the classroom level alone but an accomplishment of factors situated at both the
classroom and the school level (Kyriakides, Campbell & Gagatsis, 2000). If pupil achievement was dependent only on the influence of teacher activity and practice then the terms ―effective teachers‖, ―average teachers‖ and ―ineffective teachers‖ would not be considered, by the author of the current study, as less appropriate than ―effective classrooms‖, ―average classrooms‖ and ―ineffective classrooms‖ Moreover, use of the term ―effective‖, ―average‖ or ―ineffective‖ classrooms rather than in relation of teachers (or head teachers) serves to remind one about the influence of the classroom and the school context for teaching quality and consequently for pupil achievement (Goe, Bell & Little, 2008).