School effectiveness is a crucial aspect of education that has long been a focus of research and practice. Research on school effectiveness explore different aspects of school work to measure its contribution to students' perfromance. For this project, we define school effectiveness as the stability and consistency of school effects on results, as proposed by Thomas, Sammons, Mortimore, and Smees (1997), and the stability of school students' performance across subject areas, as outlined by Ma (2001).
In the Russian tradition of school effectiveness research, it is not typical to study effectiveness of the school as a measurable characteristic. Our study aims to bridge this gap in knowledge and analyze the effectiveness of Russian schools exploring stability in academic performance over five years. Specifically, we address these research questions:
- How stable is a school's academic performance across years in Russian language and Mathematics?
- Does the stability of academic performance differ across schools with varying levels of socio-economic status (SES)?
- How much of the individual performance variance can be attributed to the school?
To find answers to these questions, we (IOE HSE) conducted a longitudinal study in the Tyumen region of Russia in 2019. We collected data from all participants in the educational process, including principals, students, teachers, and parents. Our study included over 85% of all schools in the region, with a total of 287 participating schools from 25 municipalities. We collected data on school personnel, resources, and infrastructure in 2019, along with performance on the Unified State Exams in 2015-2019 for more than 30 000 graduates.
Our study sheds light on the effectiveness of Russian schools and can inform evidence-based policy-making to improve educational outcomes. By analyzing school effectiveness as a stability in academic performance, we aim to contribute to the development of effective education policies. We hope that our study will inspire more research in this area. To see the results of this analysis, check .md report file.
We presented the results of our analysis using a different approach at the CIES 2021 international conference. You can view our report presentation on ResearchGate page.