Conceptual review and meta-analysis of school effectiveness

A tabulation of studies after 1993

In order to update the presented reviews of school effectiveness studies in developing countries, I summarized the results of 13 studies, conducted after 1993. The schematic description is presented in table 12.

Table 12: School effectiveness studies in developing countries, since 1993

Project title (year of publication, authors)	Explanation	Country	Input/Process indicators (significant)	Label outcome variable	Adjusted outcome yes/no
Education Achieve­ments and School Efficiency in Rural Bangladesh, 1996, Shahidar R. Khandker	Indirect (community-development) and direct investment in schooling were compared. It was concluded that direct investment in schooling (teacher qualifications) was relevant	Bangladesh	mothers’ education teacher qualifications proportion of female teachers water and sanitation facilities electricity	school attainment in terms of survival rates	no
Primary school achievement in English and Mathematics in Zimbabwe, 1993, L.M. Nyagura & A. Riddell	Modeling between school variance in mathematics was quite successful. Not all between school variance in English could be explained.	Zimbabwe	mathematics teacher training instructional time pupil/teacher ratio textbook to pupils ratio supervised study English teacher training textbook to pupil ratio pupil/teacher ratio	mathematics and English achievement tests	yes
Student Achievement and Schooling Choice in Low-Income Countries. Evidence from Ghana, 1994, P. Glewwe & H. Jacoby	Study models selection bias school effectiveness and follows up with cost-benefit analysis.	Ghana	conditions of classrooms presence of blackboard (teacher schooling and teacher experience were not statistically significant)	Math. and reading test-scores (middle school level)	yes
When girls learn more than boys: The influence of Time in school and Pedagogy in Botswana, 1994, Fuller, Hua & Snyder	Cultural conditions are referred to in order to explain why instructional practices, effective in Western cultures, are ineffective in other parts of the world	Botswana	Time at school. Urban schools do better . Students perform better with female teachers. Supplementary reading material in-service training. Little effect of teaching practices & teacher attitudes. Negative effect of frequency of asking open-ended questions to girls.		yes/ achievement tests in English and math.
Improving Primary and Secondary Education in Madagascar, 1995, Jaekel & Carceles	Elements of a strategy for improving the quality of primary and secondary education: focus on learning outcomes strengthen school leadership providing more learning materials fostering community support creating positive climate for reform shifting budget allocations towards instructional purposes stimulate private education (performance contracts) finding ways to get teachers to serve in rural areas increase substitutes at lower income groups, through more efficient and greater mobilization of household expenditure	Madagascar	management of the school director teaching materials (teachers’ guides and textbooks) community support (especially for facilities and equipment provision and maintenance) Note: qualitative (case-study) research 24 secondary schools	repetition rates drop-out rates academic results (examination results)	No
An eclectic approach to estimating the determinants of achievement in Jamaican Primary Education, 1995, Glewwe, Grosh, Jacoby & Lockheed (primary schools)	As inputs may have reached the point of disminitive returns in Jamaican primary schools, pedagogical process variables are relatively the most important in determining achievement differences	Jamaica	significant for one or two subjects (math, language) household per capita expenditure vision testing of students textbooks arriving in past 3 years availability of desks for all pupils doing written assignments (-) testing students time spent in whole-class instruction (-) intensity of textbook use discussing curriculum & pedagogic issues at staff meetings hours of instruction and assistance by the principal frequency with which teachers help each other	California Achievement Test (CAT) vertically equated over all grade levels	yes
Do local contributions affect the efficiency of public primary schools?, 1996, Jimenez & Paquea	Micro-economic theory: local funding goes together with increased local demands on school achievement and a more efficient use of scarce resources (less investment in personnel as compared to operations)	The Philippines