This book is a critical assessment of the knowledge base on educational effectiveness, covering a period of five decades of research. It formulates a “lean” theory of good schooling, and identifies and explains instances of “ineffectiveness”, such as low effect sizes of malleable conditions, for which expectations are highly strung. The book presents a systemic outlook on educational effectiveness and improvement, as it starts out from an integrated multi-level model that comprises system level, school level and instructional conditions. It offers a classification of school improvement strategies and scenarios for system level educational improvement. Above all, the analysis is very systematic, comprehensive and strongly grounded in theory. The book includes a case study analysis of various strands of improvement-oriented educational policy in the Netherlands as an illustration of some of the arguments used.
Inhoudsopgave
PART I: MODELLING EDUCATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS AT TEACHING, SCHOOL AND SYSTEM LEVEL .- Preface.- 1. An Overarching Conceptual Framework.- 2. Modelling Teaching and Learning.- 3. Defining the Key Factors in Instructional Effectiveness.- 4. Modelling School Effectiveness.- 5. School Effectiveness Research and the Meaning of the Most Important Effectiveness Enhancing Conditions.- 6. System Level Context and Effectiveness Enhancing Policies.- PART 11 QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH RESULTS .- 7. Effects and Effect Sizes in Educational Effectiveness Research.- 8. Meta-analysis of School and Instructional Effectiveness.- 9. System Level Conditions: Miscellaneous Results.- 10. Other Syntheses of Empirical Findings.- PART III: THEORETICAL INTERPRETATION AND PRACTICAL APPLICATION .- 11. Theories on Educational Effectiveness and Ineffectiveness.- 12. Recapitulation and Application.- 13. Case Study: Quality Oriented Educational Policy in the Netherlands.- Epilogue.