Search

The present study uses doubly latent models to estimate the effect of average mathematics achievement at the class level on students’ subsequent mathematics achievement (the “Peer Spillover Effect”) and mathematics self-concept (the “Big-Fish-Little-Pond-Effect; BFLPE”), controlling for individual differences in prior mathematics achievement. Our data, consisting of 13-year-old students from Canada, the USA, and New Zealand, come from a unique cross-national database with a longitudinal design at the student level: the Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS80). This historical survey was administered by IEA in the 1980s and highly influenced the development of educational policies in the following decades. We replicate a widely cited study based on SIMS80, interrogating the validity of its findings of a positive peer spillover effect. When we adjust for measurement error, using doubly latent models, we observe that originally positive peer spillover effects become less positive or disappear altogether. On the contrary, negative BFLPEs become more negative and remain statistically significant throughout. Our study is the only cross-national study to have evaluated both the BFLPE and the peer spillover effect with controls for a true measure of prior achievement — and the only study to test the peer spillover effect cross-nationally using doubly latent models. Our findings question the empirical results of past and current research evaluating school- and class-level compositional effects based on sub-optimal models that fail to control for measurement error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this study was to quantify the impact of failing to account for measurement error on school compositional effects. Multilevel structural equation models were incorporated to control for measurement error and/or sampling error. Study 1, a large sample of English primary students in Years 1 and 4, revealed a significantly negative compositional effect associated with school-average achievement that became more negative after controlling for measurement error. Study 2, a large study of Cypriot primary students in Year 4, showed a small, positive but statistically significant compositional effect that became non-significant after controlling for measurement error. Our findings have important methodological, substantive, and theoretical implications for on-going debates on the school compositional effects on students’ outcomes, because nearly all previous research has been based on traditional approaches to multilevel models, which are positively biased, due to the failure to control for measurement error. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Big-Fish-Little-Pond Effect (BFLPE) suggests that school-average achievement has a negative effect on academic self-concept (ASC); some research has also verified a negative effect on students' academic achievement. Our study evaluates the compositional effects of school-average achievement on both outcomes, using a longitudinal sample of English early primary school students in Year 1 and Year 4. We provide evidence for BFLPEs in children as young as six to nine years of age. Further, we show that the BFLPE is a potential mechanism in the negative compositional effect of school average achievement in Year 1 on students' achievement in Year 4. Once adjustments for measurement error are made, the negative effect of school-average achievement on students' self-concept, and on their subsequent achievement, becomes even more negative. Our findings question previous research suggesting that attending a school with higher average achievement necessarily advances students' outcomes. • The Big-Fish-Little-Pond-Effect is verified for English students between 6 and 9 years old. • No evidence for a positive school compositional effect on subsequent achievement (i.e. a peer spillover effect) is detected. • Corrections for bias due to measurement error lead to both the effect of school-average achievement on subsequent achievement and academic self-concept becoming more negative. • Evidence for academic self-conceptmediating the negative school compositional effect of average achievement on subsequent achievement is detected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Omitted prior achievement bias is pervasive in international assessment studies and precludes causal inference. For example, reported negative associations between student-oriented teaching strategies and student performance are against expectations and might actually reflect omitted prior achievement bias. Namely, that these teaching strategies are negatively correlated with unobserved prior achievement performance, because teachers offer more support to lower performing students, and not that these strategiescauselower performance. This paper examines omitted prior achievement bias in teaching effects with prior achievement data available for students in England participating in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study. Further, it proposes an analytical approach to account for omitted prior achievement bias in international estimates. The paper argues that the bias is not simply a technical artefact, but reflects educational mechanisms unobserved in international assessment studies, which can be captured with matched assessment data-sets or with evidence from previous studies. Estimates of these mechanisms can be used to postulate scenarios of the bias across education systems and thereby adjust international estimates of teaching effects as if prior achievement were observed. Potentials and limitations of this approach for studying educational effectiveness with international assessment data are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

School-average achievement is often reported to have positive effects on individual achievement (peer spillover effect). However, it is well established that school-average achievement has negative effects on academic self-concept (big-fish-little-pond effect [BFLPE]) and that academic self-concept and achievement are positively correlated and mutually reinforcing (reciprocal effects model). We resolve this theoretical paradox based on a large, longitudinal sample (N = 14,985 U.S. children) and improved methodology. More appropriate multilevel modeling that controls for phantom effects (due to measurement error and preexisting differences) makes the BFLPE even more negative, but turns the peer spillover effect from positive to slightly below zero. Thus, attending a high-achieving school has negative effects on academic self-concept and a nonpositive effect on achievement. The results question previous studies and meta-analyses showing a positive peer spillover effect that do not control for phantom effects, along with previous policy and school selection decisions based on this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]