School effectiveness in developing countries - A summary of the research evidence - Education Research Paper
No. 01, 1993, 25 p.

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Section 6: Evidence from developed countries

A recent summary of research findings from industrialized countries is given in Riddell & Brown (1991). At the primary level, Peter Mortimore reports that it is important to take account of differences in student intake. Even when differences in intake have been taken into account, some schools are more likely than others to lead to good outcomes. Whilst attainment is influenced heavily by home background, progress is more likely to be influenced by schooling. Schools may be effective at different things, but schools effective for one group of pupils are also likely to be effective for others. Mortimore lists specific factors noted in a number of different studies which make primary schools effective:

a) Leadership The research shows that having a headteacher who is purposeful but neither too authoritarian or too democratic and who is able to share ownership of the school with colleagues is important. The quality of leadership, however, includes the ability to delegate to a deputy without feeling threatened, and to involve members of the staff in the planning and the management of the school.

b) Management of pupils Organising schools so that pupils are involved and can be rewarded for their efforts is important. The data also show that controlling behaviour with methods that are neither too weak nor too harsh is also likely to be the most effective. Ensuring that sessions are structured, work-centred and include teaching that is intellectually challenging is essential.

c) Management of teachers Involving teachers in the corporate life of the school and pursuing consistency in their approach to pupils is likely to make the school a less stressful place for both parties. Encouraging teachers to be good models of punctuality, politeness and consideration is also important, as is ensuring that classrooms have positive psychological climates in which pupils are encouraged to communicate frequently with their teachers.

Providing a broad, balanced curriculum which recognises the academic role of schooling, but also values students with special educational needs, is a difficult but crucial task. Having a limited focus within sessions in primary schools so that pupils generally work in common curriculum areas and teachers can support their learning without being 'pulled in different directions' is also difficult but appears to be highly conducive to effective learning.

d) Pupil care Treating pupils with dignity and encouraging them to participate in the organisation of the school - even at a young age - gives a positive signal that they are valued. In the same way, using rewards rather than punishment to change behaviour is important. Involving parents in the life of the school and treating education as a partnership between parents and school is likely to increase the confidence of the community in the efficiency of education. Keeping systematic records of pupil progress is crucially important if the curriculum is to have coherence for individuals.

e) School environment Ensuring that the environment is made as attractive and stimulating as possible, through taking trouble over classroom displays and removing graffiti, sound relatively simple tasks but they may have a profound effect on the attitudes of pupils attending the school.

f) School climate Endeavouring to achieve a consensus on the values shared by the school as a whole needs to be a fundamental aim. Expressing a general attitude that is positive towards learning and positive about young people will be a clear signal of what the school stands for and where its priorities lie. Establishing clear rules and guidelines for pupil behaviour and maintaining high expectations for all pupils are ways in which the goals and values of the institution are translated into daily life. (Mortimore in Riddell & Brown, 1991, pp 14-15)

At secondary level, David Reynolds reports that it is clear that schools can have substantial positive effects upon young people's development if they can become more effective. Schools may be differentially effective upon different areas of pupil development, and recent findings suggest that schools can have somewhat different effects upon pupils of different backgrounds or abilities. We know much more about what generates academic effectiveness than what generates social effectiveness.

Reynolds (in Riddell & Brown, 1991, pp 24-25) summarises the findings of Rutter et al (1979) as follows:

'Irrelevant' factors were

* the schools' average class sizes

* the formal organisation of the academic system of the schools (e.g. having mixed ability or streamed ability grouping arrangements) or the schools' pastoral system (e.g. having form tutor or house based pupil welfare arrangements);

* school locational arrangements (e.g. being split site or not);

* the schools' sizes

* the ages and physical characteristics of the schools' buildings.

The factors that were linked with effectiveness could be grouped under the following broad headings:

* the pupil control system, with effective schools using rewards, praise, encouragement and appreciation more than punishments;

* the school environment for pupils, with effective schools providing good working conditions for pupils and for their teachers, being responsive to pupil needs and also providing buildings that were well cared for and well decorated;

* the involvement of pupils, with effective schools giving ample opportunities for pupils to take positions of responsibility and to participate in the running of the school and in the educational activities within the classrooms;

* the academic development of pupils, with effective schools making positive use of homework, setting clear and explicit academic goals, and with the teachers in these effective schools having high expectations of, and positive views of, the capabilities of their pupils;

* the behaviour of teachers, with effective schools providing good models of behaviour through teachers exhibiting good time keeping and a clearly apparent willingness to deal with pupils' personal and social problems;

* management in the classroom, with effective schools possessing teachers who prepared lessons in advance, who kept the attention of the whole class, who managed to maintain discipline in an unobtrusive way, who focused upon the rewarding of good behaviour and who were able to take swift action to deal with any disruption by pupils;

* the management structure, with effective schools combining firm leadership by the headteacher with a decision making process in which all teachers felt that their views were represented.

On the other hand, research carried out in Wales (Reynolds et al, 1989) found that more effective schools did have smaller class sizes, more favourable pupil/teacher ratios and were of smaller pupil numbers overall. But other findings were similar to those reported above, and Reynolds (in Riddell & Brown, 1991) stresses the importance of an 'incorporative approach', involving pupils and parents. Generally the secondary school studies are in line with those for primary schools. Reynolds notes also that it is not necessarily easy to bring school effectiveness knowledge into ineffective schools.

The research findings reported in this section are based on empirical studies of primary and secondary schools in Britain and other industrialized countries. Of course there are many differences between these schools and typical schools in developing countries, such as resourcing levels, socio-cultural factors, educational background of the teachers, and patterns of organisation. Nevertheless, there may be lessons to be learnt. One striking feature is that the findings relate much more to process than to input, and it may be that research in developing countries should pay much more attention to the former. Fuller (1987) is among those who make this point. He argues that we should not just focus on the effects of material inputs, such as textbook availability or overall school expenditure levels, but ask how material ingredients actually are mobilized and organized within schools and classrooms.

It could be that significant progress would be made in Third World school effectiveness by greater attention to some or all of the process variables such as classroom management, school climate, and institutional leadership. The cost of improvements in these areas would be low in comparison with large scale material inputs, and the key would appear to be in-service training for teachers, school principals and inspectors.

It is true that there is relatively little research evidence on the effects of process variables on schools in developing countries, and it could be argued that school effectiveness research findings from industrialized countries are invalid in a Third World context. The opposing view is that there are enough similarities among schools worldwide to suggest that researchers, planners and policy-makers in developing countries should at the very least be aware of these findings. The meta-analysis is particularly useful for this purpose, and there is an increasing volume of published work at this level (see Kulik & Kulik, 1989).

It is not the purpose of this report to review this research but it is worth giving an example of the type of findings which might have applications in developing countries as well as in developed countries. This example is from research on the effectiveness of mastery learning strategies.

A meta-analysis of findings from 108 controlled evaluations showed that mastery learning programs have positive effects on the examination performance of students in colleges, high schools and the upper grades in elementary schools. The effects appear to be stronger on the weaker students in a class..... Mastery programs have positive effects on student attitudes toward course content and instruction but may increase student time on instructional tasks. (Kulik et al, 1990, p265)

The meta-analysis found that, on the average, such programs raise final examination scores by about 0.5 standard deviations, which compares very favourably with effects from other innovatory learning strategies. For example, peer and cross-age tutoring programs give average improvements of 0.4 standard deviations.

The effects reported here are so large that there is a strong case for further projects in these areas. However, the introduction of a mastery learning program in a developing country would be likely to require significant material inputs in addition to in-service training for the teachers. As with many promising innovations, a necessary first step would be small scale experimentation.

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