In its simplest form, effectiveness can be regarded as the extent to which a set of goals is achieved and is a reflection of something being done well in an organisation or by an individual. Whereas a company, for example, can measure its effectiveness by reference to the profit or loss it makes, a school is a much more difficult enterprise in which to measure the extent to which it has achieved its goals[9].
The complexity of this is compounded somewhat by the diverse nature of a school’s goals. An examination of the goals of schools, as might be listed in their mission statements, shows that they try to accomplish many things. In addition to developing students’ academic potential, they may give students an awareness of different cultures, prepare them for university entrance, enhance their artistic and creative talents, give them an understanding of environmental issues, develop their civic responsibilities and help them to become positive members of society.
There are other ways to define effectiveness apart from this goal-achievement model[10]. The effectiveness of an organisation like a school could be gauged from the level of satisfaction of the people associated with it, or by a measure of the operation of its internal processes and procedures – for example, communication within the school, or between the school and parents.
In terms of outcomes, an effective school is one in which students are able to achieve, in a wide range of endeavours, at a level consistent with their potential. An effective school can lessen the impact that a student’s background may have on their level of achievement.
A further concept of school effectiveness is to consider the degree to which schools can add value to the achievement of the students over and above the progress or improvement that might be expected given the characteristics of the intake of the student body
[28]. The most effective schools are those where student outcomes exceed expectations.
More recently, the notion of ‘value added research’ has come into focus. This involves comparing school performance after taking into consideration contextual factors in a school, such as the socioeconomic status of the students. Multilevel analysis facilitates this process.
Multilevel analysis techniques now allow a school’s variation from its expected mean score in a test, for example, to be plotted after its intake characteristics have been taken into account. If the school’s mean score is well above its expected mean then the school can be thought of as ‘adding value’. Results plotted in this way give a better view of the quality of teaching and learning occurring across a number of schools, rather than a simple comparison of the schools’ mean scores. Whilst the term has been borrowed from the field of economics it is playing an increasing role in describing effectiveness in education.
The amount of variance in student performance related to school experiences can be gauged by calculating the amount of variance in performance between schools compared to the total amount of variance in performance. Generally, the research evidence in international and national studies over a number of years suggests that around 10-18 per cent of the variation in student learning outcomes is because of differences between schools, with a further amount of up to 50 per cent of the variation in outcomes attributable to differences between classrooms within schools
[11]. That is, about 60 per cent of the variation in the performance of students lies either between schools or between classrooms. The remaining 40 per cent is due to the individual characteristics of the students and the environment from which they come. In Australia
[12] the Victorian Quality Schools Project reported that 38-45 per cent of the variation in English scores and 53-55 per cent of the variation in Mathematics could be attributed to differences between classrooms.
There has been an increasing focus on the international aspects of school effectiveness research[13], especially due to studies such as the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). In the PISA 2000 survey of student performance in 32 countries[14], the amount of variance in student performance explained by attendance at a particular school (the between-school variance) ranged from around 9 per cent in Finland to around 60 per cent in Germany. In Australia, the between school variance was measured to be about 18 per cent. This indicates that schools in Australia are more similar to each other in terms of student performance than schools in Germany.