Closing the Gap: Modeling within-school variance heterogeneity in school effect studies |
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| Authors: | Junyeop Kim Kilchan Choi |
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| Institution: | (1) Charles Drew University, 1748 E, 118th Street. Building N, 90059 Los Angeles, CA, USA;(2) National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, University of California, Los Angeles, USA |
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| Abstract: | Effective schools should be superior in both enhancing students’ achievement levels and reducing the gap between high- and
low-achieving students in the school. However, the focus has been placed mainly on schools’ achievement levels in most school
effect studies. In this article, we focused our attention upon the school-specific achievement dispersion as well as achievement
level in determining effective schools. The achievement dispersion in a particular school can be captured by within-school
variance in achievement (σ2). Assuming heterogeneous within-school variance across schools in hierarchical modeling, it is possible to identify school
factors related to high achievement levels and a small gap between high- and low-achieving students. By analyzing data from
the TIMMS-R, we illustrated how to detect variance heterogeneity and how to find a systematic relationship between within-school
variance and school practice. In terms of our results, we found that schools with a high achievement level tended to be more
homogeneous in achievement dispersion, but even among schools with the same achievement level, schools varied in their achievement
dispersion, depending on classroom practices. |
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| Keywords: | school effect variance heterogeneity achievement gap hierarchical modeling latent variable regression |
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