Some School Effectiveness Indicators and Their Relation to School Characteristics

Effective school research has not led to unequivocal insight into the relations between school characteristics and output measures like the extent of truancy, drop-out and class-repeating. One of the problems is that data collection with regard to school output is mainly based on school leader or student perceptions of the extent of truancy which often leads to unreliable data. As part of the ARS study on the effectiveness of using a computerised Absenteeism Registration System, the extent of truancy in 36 secondary schools was measured in an accurate and systematic way, while school characteristics were also determined. The results indicate that schools differ with regard to the rate of truancy, drop-out and class-repeating. Several simple Pearson PM-correlations and Kendall’s Tau rank correlations were found between school contextual and school organisational characteristics on the one hand and the output measures on the other (p < .10). Multiple regression findings indicate that the percentage of non-Dutch pupils, together with the average class size, are particularly important in determining the extent of truancy.