Although the importance of primary schools in the long term is of interest in educational effectiveness research, few studies have examined the long-term effects of schools over the past decades. In the present study, long-term effects of primary schools on the educational positions of students 2 and 4 years after starting secondary education are…

Academic emphasis, collective efficacy, and faculty trust in students and parents (3 school characteristics positively associated with student achievement) are assumed to form a higher order latent construct, "academic optimism" (Hoy, Tarter, & Woolfolk Hoy, 2006a, 2006b). The aim of the present study is to corroborate the latent…

The current study examines the impact of alternative education on children's early school engagement in terms of school enjoyment and independent participation. A sample of 2,776 children from traditional (e.g., mainstream) and alternative (Freinet and Waldorf) Flemish schools was followed from their 3rd year of kindergarten until 3rd grade. The…

Research and scholarship into educational effectiveness research (EER) is comprehensively reviewed from the UK, The Netherlands, the US, Cyprus, Belgium, Sweden, France, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, and other societies, dating from the field's origins in the 1970s. Issues include its history, methodological and theoretical advances, scientific…

Background: The dynamic model of educational effectiveness (DMEE) is a comprehensive theoretical framework including factors that are important for school learning, based on consistent findings within educational effectiveness research. Purpose: This study investigates the impact of teacher and school factors of DMEE on mathematics and science…

This paper illustrates the surplus value of multilevel exploratory factor analysis in educational effectiveness research. Educational researchers often use measures for process variables at the class or school level to explain differences in student outcomes. Recently, van de Vijver and Poortinga (2002) have developed a procedure for multilevel…

Summer learning studies have been set up to investigate the evolution of initial group differences in academic achievement, for example, between low- and high-socioeconomic status (SES) children. Moreover, this approach has been used to demonstrate the absolute effect of going to school on children's learning. In the present study, we used…

Introduction to the two articles in this issue. Provides background information on a longitudinal study of Flanders secondary schools and on the study's sample, method, and variables relevant to the two articles. Also describes the organization of secondary education in Flanders. (Contains 33 references.) (PKP)

This study examined effects of school context, student composition and school leadership on school practice and outcomes in secondary education in Flanders. The study reveals that relations between school characteristics do exist and that it is possible to explain an important part of the differences in mean effort and mathematics achievement of…

Reports on the effects of individual background characteristics, classes, and school on four noncognitive secondary education outcomes in Flanders: Degree to which the student feels at home in the school environment, extent to which the student does his/her best for the schoolwork, academic self-concept, and social integration in the class.…

Explores the effects of secondary schools, teachers, and classes on mathematics achievement in Flanders secondary schools. After controlling for within-class and school recruitment differences, finds that class-level group composition remains an important explanation of difference in mathematics achievement. Also finds that the school-level…

In educational effectiveness research, multilevel models are increasingly used because these models take the multilevel structure of the data into account. In this paper, the effect of ignoring one or more levels of variation in hierarchical linear regression is explored, using a model with four hierarchical levels (individual pupil, class group,…

The application of multidimensional item response theory (IRT) models to longitudinal educational surveys where students are repeatedly measured is discussed and exemplified. A marginal maximum likelihood (MML) method to estimate the parameters of a multidimensional generalized partial credit model for repeated measures is presented. It is shown…

Explores effects of schools, teachers, and classes on first-year secondary students at year's end in Belgium, using multilevel analysis. Classes' and schools' relative influence on achievement is much higher than on well-being. An academic climate can discourage nonmotivated students. A communitarian climate can motivate all pupils. (Contains 54…