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Effects and Effect Sizes in Educational Effectiveness Research

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Educational Effectiveness and Ineffectiveness

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Abstract

In this chapter, various methods to express effects and effect sizes in educational effectiveness research are discussed. A distinction is made between “unit effects” in the sense of the difference it makes to be taught by one teacher or the next, to go to one school or another etc. and the influence of malleable variables, such as implementing a specific teaching approach. A major issue is to separate deliberate actions and treatments from other influences on the dependent variable. The process of attributing educational outcome differences to specific malleable variables can be seen as a process of extended decomposition, where the remaining “net” effects are often relatively small. An innovative approach in establishing educational effects is to compare schooling to (episodes of) non-schooling, as in the case of evaluating the effects of summer learning by applying regression discontinuity designs. Other relevant issues are the application of longitudinal designs, path analysis methods to establish indirect effects and mediation and the application of experimental and quasi-experimental designs.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For example, when school choice by parents is at stake, as compared to school Inspectorates assessing the merit of a school.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Jaap Scheerens

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  1. Jaap Scheerens
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Scheerens, J. (2016). Effects and Effect Sizes in Educational Effectiveness Research. In: Educational Effectiveness and Ineffectiveness. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7459-8_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7459-8_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-017-7457-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-7459-8

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