From an international review of 109 school effectiveness research studies, only 6 could be seen as theory driven. As the border between substantive conceptual models of educational effectiveness and theory-based models is not always very sharp, this number might be increased to 11 by including those studies that are based on models that make…

Educational effectiveness research (EER) has accumulated much knowledge in the areas of school effectiveness research (SER), teacher effectiveness research (TER) and school/system improvement research (SSIR). Yet many schools and educational systems are not making enough use of the material and their insights. The article reviews evidence of…

This article builds on a previous 2004 "Journal of Vocational Education and Training" (JVET) contribution by Biemans et al., in which several possible pitfalls in designing and implementing competence-based education (CBE) were discussed. The present article reports on the results of an extensive research programme on competence…

Tests an educational-effectiveness model by reanalyzing a large-scale dataset containing (Dutch) elementary school data of subsequent student cohorts, their teachers, and their schools. Researchers found some expected positive achievement effects of individual classroom and school factors, but these were unstable across school subjects and student…

An overview of national and international research on school effectiveness is provided in this paper. Following an introduction, the first section examines some national studies, with a focus on the differences in empirical evidence for effective school factors. These studies are similar in that they are outcome-oriented, seek factors of school…

Criticizes the current status of school-level factors as they appear in research reviews and in school-effectiveness models, from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. Argues that most studies do not investigate factors at the classroom level. Outlines a theoretical basis for these factors based on learning theories and instruction…

This paper reports the results of an investigation into the stability of school effects in Dutch secondary education across both years and subjects. The following research questions were addressed: (1) What percentage of the total variance in student achievement per subject can be attributed to differences between schools and to what extent are…

The Netherlands has a flourishing, quantitatively sophisticated effectiveness research base that seems relatively unused within practice and abused by the political sphere. Dutch studies evince context specificity (while failing to replicate some validated school-effectiveness factors), sophisticated theoretical formulation, multiple-level…

Discusses the educational and organizational theory of Ernst Marx, the educational-organizational models he developed, and their use in Dutch secondary schools, particularly to enhance policymaking capacity. Marx theory embraces several basic ideas: the capacity to individualize instruction, to offer a broad education, to enhance operational…

School effectiveness research has traditionally focused on basic cognitive pupil outcomes such as language and mathematics achievement. Article studies both cognitive and affective educational outcomes in combination with each other, using a sample of 7,000 pupils in 212 primary schools in the Netherlands. The correlations between cognitive and…

School-effectiveness research (SER) has an instrumental orientation. Although critics claim otherwise, SER researchers usually consider students'"innate" background characteristics when studying schools. Theory formation, foundational issues, and research viability are being addressed. The field is definitely alive and kicking, despite…

Research on school effectiveness has shown that schools differ in regard to outcomes of comparable groups of students. Some schools are found to be more effective than others and these more effective schools have identifiable characteristics that help them excel. Outcomes measured to determine educational effectiveness include basic skills and…

The six chapters of this theme issue consider three trends in educational effectiveness research: (1) integration of effectiveness phenomena at different levels, (2) a more model-driven approach than in the past, and (3) increased complexity of analysis tools and techniques to suit the new emphasis on process. (SLD)

School-effectiveness research is constrained by ambiguous factors of effectiveness and a lack of theory. This paper presents findings of a study that used simulation to improve school-effectiveness theory. Simulation is also used to explore the direct effects of schools on individual learning. After introducing simulation models, the paper…

This paper reports the results of an investigation into the relationship between school size and achievement. The study examined the impact of school size on mathematics achievement in Dutch, Swedish, and American secondary education and on science achievement in the Netherlands. The following research questions were explored: (1) Is school size…