Abstract
ABSTRACTTo plan group-randomized trials where treatment conditions are assigned to schools, researchers need design parameters that provide information about between-school differences in outcomes as well as the amount of variance that can be explained by covariates at the student (L1) and school (L2) levels. Most previous research has offered these parameters for U.S. samples and for achievement as the outcome. This paper and the online supplementary materials provide design parameters for 81 countries in three broad outcome categories (achievement, affect and motivation, and learning strategies) for domain-general and domain-specific (mathematics, reading, and science) measures. Sociodemographic characteristics were used as covariates. Data from representative samples of 15-year-old students stemmed from five cycles of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA; total number of students/schools: 1,905,147/70,098). Between-school differences as well as the amount of variance explained at L1 and L2 varied widely across countries and educational outcomes, demonstrating the limited generalizability of design parameters across these dimensions. The use of the design parameters to plan group-randomized trials is illustrated.
Highlights
For example, with respect to the sociodemographic composition of the student body and with respect to vital educational outcomes such as students’ achievement, learning-related motivation and affect, and learning strategies. How large are these between-school differences? Do differences in educational outcomes hold when the sociodemographic composition of the student body is taken into account? And are these differences the same in each country, or do they vary across countries? The answers to these questions provide vital design parameters that educational researchers need to plan intervention studies where educational treatments will be randomized at the school level, so-called group-randomized or cluster-randomized trials (Hedges & Hedberg, 2007)
Given the research focus of the present study, we summarize the results for r, R2L1, and R2L2 as obtained for two-level models and when sociodemographic covariates are used
This international study provides reliable design parameters for 81 countries across three vital outcomes for a broad array of domain-specific and domain-general measures. These design parameters and their standard errors as well as normative distributions represent a rich source for planning two-level group-randomized educational interventions where schools are randomly assigned to experimental conditions
Summary
For example, with respect to the sociodemographic composition of the student body and with respect to vital educational outcomes such as students’ achievement, learning-related motivation and affect, and learning strategies. A search in the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) identified 167 group-randomized intervention studies, most of which were conducted in the United States on students in secondary education (see Figure 1a). Most of these studies were related to health, a smaller number to achievement, and only a few to students’ motivation. When planning group-randomized trials, researchers need design parameters that provide information about between-school differences as well as the amount of variance that can be explained at the school level and the individual student level by means of vital covariates, or districts (Bloom et al, 2005)
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