2 - The History, Value and Purpose of School Effectiveness Studies

Abstract

This chapter presents the history, value, and purpose of school effectiveness studies. There is a growing number of studies that address conceptual and theoretical questions concerning school effectiveness, for instance, in proposing integrated models for school and instructional effectiveness. There is a growing interest in ways to improve schools based on the results of school effectiveness research. The chapter presents the historical origins of what is commonly referred to as the school effectiveness movement, arising as it did out of dissatisfaction with the schools make no difference thesis of Coleman, Jencks, and many others. The five factor theory that originated in the earliest American research came under severe criticism and out of these criticisms has come an appreciation of a more complex theory that incorporates multiple levels classroom, school, nation, that is sensitive to the effects of different social and cultural contexts, which recognizes the need to link levels together conceptually and empirically, and which centers on the ways in which the instruction of students and their learning are affected by these multiple influences.