The Effects of Student Composition on School Outcomes

By R. Harker, Peter Tymms. 2004

237 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article explores the concept of compositional effects in school effect studies, their generation and some of the difficulties that arise in their interpretation. Some basic issues are addressed using data from a New Zealand study of secondary schools, and further illustration of some of the “pitfalls” is provided from an English study of primary school performance indicators. The importance of model specification, predictor reliability, and cautious interpretation are highlighted.

Subfields: Education

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c7284e71076e63465380ccd01234291da7288732

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Education

Citations in the corpus

Differential school contextual effects for math and English : integrating the big-fish-little-pond effect and the internal/external frame of reference (2013, background): “Previous research has indicated that the composition of a school has a number of implications for students’ educational outcomes (Harker & Tymms, 2004).”
Inclusive Education of Students With General Learning Difficulties: A Meta-Analysis (2021, background): “Furthermore, composition effects seem to emerge: Students with GLD in higher performing classes (e.g., inclusive settings) perform better than students with GLD in generally lower performing classes (e.g., segregated classes for students with GLD; e.g., Harker & Tymms, 2004).”
DOES THE SCHOOL COMPOSITION EFFECT MATTER? EVIDENCE FROM BELGIAN DATA (2008, background): “In recent years, several educational effectiveness researchers ( Gorard, 2006 ; Harker & Tymms, 2004 ; Thrupp et al.”
International Evidence on Ability Grouping with Curriculum Differentiation and the Achievement Gap in Secondary Schools (2010, background): “Unfortunately, methodological issues arise in such research that cannot be lightly dismissed (Hanushek, Kain, Markman, & Rivkin, 2003; Harker & Tymms, 2004).”
The Effect of Peer Socioeconomic Status on Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis (2010, unknown): “This includes a few estimates from a study by Harker & Tymms (2004), that was previously excluded, since its purpose was not to estimate “true” peer effects, but to show under what conditions peer effects may appear as statistical artifacts.”
Classroom Climate and Contextual Effects: Conceptual and Methodological Issues in the Evaluation of Group-Level Effects (2012, background): “For example, Harker and Tymms (2004) noted that based on highly reliable pretests of individual student achievement, there was no contextual effect of school-average achievement on subsequent achievement.”
The multilevel latent covariate model: a new, more reliable approach to group-level effects in contextual studies. (2008, methodology): “…these estimates are biased because the aggregate measure is more reliable and “mops up” variance that would be explained at the individual level with more reliable measures—the so-called phantom effect or contextual fallacy (Harker & Tymms, 2004; see also Lüdtke, Robitzsch, & Köller, 2002).”