National and International School-Effectiveness Research in Retrospect and Prospect / Bert Creemers and Others.

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 effectiveness, and combine theory with practice. A conclusion is that differences among countries are due not only to contextual factors, but to conceptual/methodological problems. The third section describes studies being conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and the Educational Testing Service (ITS). Conclusions are that secondary analysis of available international databases is useful to illustrate the differences among countries in terms of educational outcomes and determinants of educational effectiveness, and that international studies are strong in outcome measurement, but weak in determining factors at different levels. The concluding section suggests that school effectiveness research needs to develop a multilevel, multifactor framework that utilizes outcome-oriented measurement. Five tables and three figures are included. (15 references) (LMI)

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