school effectiveness and school improvement: sustaining links

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School Effectiveness andSchool Improvement:Sustaining LinksBert P.M. Creemers a & Gerry J. Reezigt aa GION, Groningen Institute for EducationalResearch , University of GroningenPublished online: 09 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Bert P.M. Creemers & Gerry J. Reezigt (1997) SchoolEffectiveness and School Improvement: Sustaining Links, School Effectiveness andSchool Improvement: An International Journal of Research, Policy and Practice, 8:4,396-429, DOI: 10.1080/0924345970080402

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School Effectiveness and School Improvement 0924-3453/97/0804-0396$12.001997, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 396-429 © Swets & Zeitlinger

School Effectiveness and School Improvement:Sustaining Links

Bert P.M. Creemers and Gerry J. ReezigtGION, Groningen Institute for Educational Research, University of Groningen

ABSTRACT

Ideally, school effectiveness research and school improvement might have a relationshipwith a surplus value for both. In reality, this relationship is often troublesome. Someproblems can be attributed to the intrinsic differences between effectiveness and improve-ment, such as different missions. However, an analysis of the current situation in effec-tiveness and improvement shows that there are many possibilities at all stages of researchstudies and improvement projects for a more fruitful relationship. In this article, strongerlinks between effectiveness and improvement are advocated. Such links can be achievedby better-guided processes of application and reconstruction of knowledge during effec-tiveness research and improvement. These processes, illustrated by some successful projectswhich have started recently, are described under the heading of sustained interactivity.

THE PROBLEM: UNLINKING SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS ANDSCHOOL IMPROVEMENT?

A major aim in the field of school effectiveness always was to link theorydevelopment and research on the one hand and practice and policy mak-ing, especially school improvement, on the other hand. This is not new ineducation. Almost all movements start out to make knowledge useful foreducational practice and policy making, or state as their goal to providepolicy and practice with a knowledge base supplied by theory and re-search. From a cyclical point of view, the next step is to use practicalknowledge for further advances in theory and research. In this way, re-search and improvement can have a relationship with a surplus value forboth. But in reality the relationship between theory and practice is always

Correspondence: Bert P.M. Creemers, GION, Groningen Institute for Educational Re-search, University of Groningen, P.O. Box 1286, 9701 BG Groningen, the Netherlands.Tel .: +31 50 3636635/3636660. Fax: +31 50 3636670. E-mail: [email protected].

Manuscript submitted: September 1, 1995Accepted for publication: May 12, 1997

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SUSTAINING LINKS 397

troublesome. A beautiful combination seldom exists and hardly ever suc-ceeds. Why then should it be expected in the area of school effectivenessand school improvement?

Historical Links between School Effectiveness and School Improve-mentOne important reason could be that from the start school effectivenesshad its roots not only in theory and research (for example, the work ofBrookover, Beady, Flood, & Schweitzer, 1979; and Rutter, Maughan,Mortimore, & Ouston, 1979) but in educational practice as well, for ex-ample improvement projects introducing effective factors in schools (Ed-monds, 1979). Even earlier, however, doubts about the importance ofeducation for student outcomes (Coleman et al., 1966; Jencks et al., 1972;Jensen, 1969) had caused, maybe for the first time, a coalition of practi-tioners (teachers, principals, school improvers, and sometimes also edu-cational policy representatives) and researchers. This coalition stayedinvolved in the development of theories about education and the testingof these theories, based on a shared involvement in educational qualityand the importance of education.

School effectiveness has led to major shifts in educational policy inmany countries by emphasizing the accountability of schools and theresponsibility of educators to provide all children with possibilities forhigh achievement, thereby enhancing the need for school improvement(Mortimore, 1991). School effectiveness pointed at the need for schoolimprovement in particular by focusing on alterable school factors (Mur-phy, 1992). School improvement projects were necessary to find out howschools could become more effective. These projects were often sup-posed to implement effective school factors in educational practice (Schee-rens, 1992) and in doing this, could yield useful feedback for schooleffectiveness. School improvement might point at inaccurate conceptionsof effectiveness, such as the notion of linearity or one-dimensionality(Hargreaves, 1995). Also, school improvement might give more insightinto the strategies to change schools successfully in the direction of effec-tiveness (Maughan, Ouston, Pickles, & Rutter, 1990).

Views on Linking: Successes and FailuresThe relatively short history of school effectiveness and improvement showssome successes of linking. Research results are being used in educationalpractice, sometimes with good results. School improvement findings aresometimes being used as an input for new research. The foundation of theInternational Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement

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398 B.P.M. CREEMERS AND G.J. REEZIGT

(ICSEI), the start of a joint journal (School Effectiveness and SchoolImprovement), and the cooperation of researchers and practitioners insettings such as the American Educational Research Association are alllandmarks in the history of school effectiveness. Some authors thereforehold very favourable views on linking. Renihan and Renihan (1989) statethat "the effective schools research has paid off, if for no other reasonthan that it has been the catalyst for school improvement efforts" (p. 365).

Most authors, however, are more sceptical (Reynolds, Hopkins, & Stoll,1993). Fullan (1991) states that school effectiveness "has mostly focusedon narrow educational goals, and the research itself tells us almost noth-ing about how an effective school got that way and if it stayed effective"(p. 22). Stoll and Fink (1992) think that school effectiveness should havedone more to make clear how schools can become effective. According toMortimore (1991), a lot of improvement efforts have failed because re-search results were not translated adequately into guidelines for educa-tional practice. Changes were sometimes forced into schools, and whenthe results were disappointing the principals and teachers were blamed.Teddlie and Roberts (1993) suggest that effectiveness and improvementrepresentatives do not cooperate automatically, but tend to see each otheras competitors. Links between school effectiveness and school improve-ment were stronger in some countries than in others (Reynolds, 1996a).In the early years of school effectiveness, links were rather strong in theUnited States and never quite disappeared there. Many districts haveimplemented effective schools programs in recent years, but research inthe field has gone down at the same time and because of this, schoolimprovement is sometimes considered "a remarkable example of (...)over-use of a limited research base" (Stringfield, 1995, p. 70). In Austral-ia, links have always existed and continue to exist. In some countries thebalance between effectiveness and improvement is lost. Sometimes thereis a lot of effectiveness research going on, but there are no strong linkswith improvement. The Netherlands and the United Kingdom are exam-ples of such countries (Mortimore, 1991; Reynolds et al., 1993), althoughthe situation in the United Kingdom seems to be changing recently (Rey-nolds, 1996a).

Intrinsic Differences between School Effectiveness and School Im-provementIt is important to find out whether more successful linking is a realisticoption. It is rather obligatory to say that school effectiveness and im-provement can and should learn from each other (Hopkins, 1995), but thedifferences between the two may be so large that unlinking seems more

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School effectiveness School improvement

1. program for research program for innovation2. no time limits need for immediate action3. focus on theory and explanations focus on change and problem solving4. searching for stable causes and effects dealing with changing goals and means5. searching for objective knowledge dealing with subjective knowledge6. strictness in methodology and analysis design/development instead of evaluation7. focus on student learning/classroom level expanding universe of factors and partici-

pants

Fig. 1. Differences between school effectiveness and school improvement.

rational. This depends, of course, on the actual kinds of differences. Somemerely reflect a suboptimal situation, that can easily be changed. Forexample, school effectiveness as yet has paid little attention to policycontexts, which are very important for school improvers (Brown, Duff-ield, & Riddell, 1995). Also, researchers have not been very keen onstudying school change, while improvers need data on processes andoutcomes of change (Evans & Teddlie, 1995; Teddlie & Roberts, 1993).These differences can be changed fairly easily by putting new topics onthe research agenda.

However, changes may not be so easy for more intrinsic differencesbetween effectiveness and improvement. These are summarized in Fig-ure 1.

School effectiveness and school improvement have different missions,carrying out a program for research versus carrying out a program forinnovation. These missions have very practical implications, such as dif-ferences in the time perspectives of activities. For school effectivenessresearch there are no time limits, while school improvement always is ananswer to a question requiring immediate action. There are, however,theoretical implications originating from the different missions as well.Maybe it is possible to reconcile these, but then school effectiveness andschool improvement will have to do more than they are doing now (seealso the last section).

School effectiveness is ultimately directed at developing knowledgebased on questions, theories, and research results about phenomena ineducational practice. School effectiveness is directed to understand, toknow objectively how education works, and to explain its processes andoutcomes in terms of stable causes and effects (Hopkins, Ainscow, &West, 1994). Educational practitioners, policy makers and school im-provers are focused on changes of education (Hopkins, 1995). They do

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not focus on the stability of characteristics, but are interested in the possi-bilities to change them (Hopkins et al., 1994). Making changes in educa-tion in schools and in classrooms always includes the cooperation ofschools, teachers and society in general. Validated objective knowledgeis an important tool for this, but many other factors can influence thecooperation and involvement necessary to carry out school improvement.School improvers always have to deal with changing goals and means andwith the subjective knowledge of everyone involved, that is the specificcultures of students, teachers and schools (Hargreaves, 1995). As a resultof changes in education in general, change agents move from one place toanother and from one innovation to another. They have to make changesin strategies, change what they are doing, and the way they want to achievetheir goals. Although "new" goals and means sometimes can be translatedinto "old" causes and effects, improvement does not have the time andpatience to wait, and effectiveness research often does not show the flex-ibility and creativity to make the translation. In fact, this translation isviewed by some as unallowed, or as an untolerable and unprofessionaladdiction to fashions.

School effectiveness also differs from school improvement in its meth-odology. Research studies have increasingly made use of sophisticatedtechniques for data analysis, and are supposed to meet strict methodolog-ical requirements. School improvement projects traditionally have had amore developmental character, do not always begin with a well-phrasedquestion and do not always end with a clear answer to that question. Theyhave mainly focused on qualitative techniques and have often spent a lotof time on the involvement of every participant in the project.

Finally, school effectiveness has shifted its focus to student learningand classroom level processes. Recent studies are paying more attentionto the actual teaching and learning processes in classrooms and schools.School improvement, however, has shown an expanding universe of fac-tors, levels, and participants, for example in the restructuring movement.Traditionally, the school level was the level where most of the improve-ment actions took place, but now school improvement has expanded,starting out from the school level to encompass other educational levels,such as the school context. This has led to a proliferation of variables andsupposedly important factors for improvement, and to the participationof, among others, parents, communities, and school district personnel(Mortimore, 1991; Murphy, 1992). The classroom level is still somewhatneglected in school improvement.

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Questions and DefinitionsSchool effectiveness and school improvement seem to have independentdevelopments, separate from each other. Maybe, however, they can bene-fit both, like in the past, from being linked. School effectiveness andschool improvement, then, will have to offer something to each othersuch as knowledge, opportunities for research, and experimentation. Thecurrent status and experience in effectiveness and improvement can pro-vide arguments for such a relationship. Moreover, both requirements canbe formulated to strengthen relationships and to enlarge mutual benefits.These issues will be discussed in the section on school improvement andthe section on school effectiveness. The last section will outline the con-cept of sustained interactivity, a procedure for better links.The sections will subsequently answer the following questions:

(a) what is the current situation in school improvement, and what canschool improvement do to create better links with school effective-ness;

(b) what is the current situation in school effectiveness, and what canschool effectiveness do to create better links with school improve-ment;

(c) which procedure can be advised when sustaining links between schooleffectiveness and school improvement are advocated?

In this article, school effectiveness refers to all theories and researchstudies concerning the means-ends relationships between educational proc-esses and outcomes, in particular student knowledge and skills in severaldomains (Creemers, 1994; Scheerens, 1992), aiming at explanations fordifferences in student achievement between schools and classrooms. Schoolimprovement refers to all theories and studies concerning strategies foreducational change that enhances student outcomes as well as strengthen-ing the school's capacity for managing change (Hopkins, 1995; Hopkinset al., 1994; Van Velzen, Miles, Ekholm, Hameyer, & Robin, 1985). Inthis article the first part of the definition (enhancing student outcomes)will be emphasized.

SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

In this section, the current situation in school improvement will be de-scribed with regard to types and outcomes of improvement and the devel-opment of theories of improvement. In addition, ways for better linkingwith school effectiveness will be discussed.

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Types and Outcomes of School ImprovementSchool improvement is a very widespread phenomenon and a wide varie-ty of improvement efforts can be found. To be of any importance forschool effectiveness, school improvement should use the school effec-tiveness knowledge base, and be directed (at least to some extent) to theapplication of this knowledge as a focused intervention, emphasize (fi-delity) implementation, emphasize outcomes, and use evaluation tech-niques and preferably (quasi-)experimental designs. However, schoolimprovement in general does not live up to these expectations.

School effectiveness is not always the primary knowledge base. There isa lot of improvement going on which has little relevance for effectivenessbecause it does not aim at enhancing student outcomes at all (Louis &Smith, 1991). These types of improvement focus, for example, on careerdevelopment of teachers or restructuring the organization of the school, theway decisions are made or the relationships between schools and theirclients (Leithwood, Jantzi, & Steinbach, 1995). Sometimes restructuringtakes place at the classroom level. For example, Peterson, McCarthey, &Elmore (1996) have described changes in writing practices of elementaryschool teachers in great detail. Still, the actual impact of the changes onstudents and on student achievement is left out. Even when improvementprojects are rooted in school effectiveness, however, the problem is thatthey seem to bring together all kinds of different projects, for examplechanges in education at the national level such as the reforms in the formerSoviet Union, changes in a school district such as the Halton Project (Stoll& Fink, 1992, 1994), and the development and implementation of bettercurricular materials in classroom settings, such as the Dutch school im-provement project for initial reading (Houtveen & Osinga, 1995). Thesedifferences make it rather difficult to draw unambiguous conclusions.

Concerning (fidelity) implementation, some schools practice improve-ment on their own and try to find their own solutions for their problems(Stringfield & Teddlie, 1990). For them, the notion of fidelity implemen-tation is not appropriate. Other schools have chosen to implement im-provement programs developed elsewhere. Fairly often they have notthought of alternative educational options. For example, they have decid-ed on a specific program because another school was satisfied with it(Stringfield, 1995). Some schools are only involved in improvement be-cause their government expects them to be (Hopkins et al., 1994). De-pending on the extent to which educational policies are translated intoclear outlines and contents, fidelity implementation is a more or lessappropriate concept. When the educational policy is rather prescriptivewith respect to curricular content and outcome levels, such as in the

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United Kingdom (Hopkins et al., 1994), it is theoretically possible tocheck whether schools are implementing this policy. When the educa-tional policy is rather open-ended, such as the Dutch policy on education-al priorities (Van der Werf, 1995) or the Dutch inclusion policy (Meijer,1995), it is virtually impossible to handle the notion of fidelity implemen-tation. These problems about what should be implemented lead to inter-pretation problems when changes in student learning are found. Whatcaused these changes? A new method, a textbook, the implementation ofeffective classroom, or school level factors?

Not all school improvement emphasizes educational outcomes. Ac-cording to Fullan (1991) school improvement often has become a goal initself. Many schools do not really ask themselves what should be achievedby their innovatory efforts. They are mainly dedicated followers of inno-vation faddism. Hopkins et al. (1994) say that school improvement "shouldhave some impact on student learning. Unfortunately many school im-provement efforts have neglected this bottom line by underemphasizingthe end of the chain" (p. 39).

Only a small part of school improvement is research based (String-field, 1995). Innovations are hardly ever tested before they are imple-mented in educational practice, and an adequate evaluation of their im-pact is rare (Creemers & Reynolds, 1989). The same holds for the occur-rence of experimental or quasi-experimental designs in improvementprojects. Therefore, even when some projects refer to school effective-ness, they cannot automatically be considered as effectiveness-relatedimprovement projects because they are not systematically planned, car-ried out, and evaluated. Some school improvers have preferred forms ofaction research instead of research-based experiments. Sometimes projectsbased on changing only a couple of factors report great successes. It maybe that changes in just a few important areas can alter a whole system, butthe question is whether these changes, often a case of educational masshysteria, will last over time. The margins for change are generally smallin education, because of the impact of non-educational factors, such asindividual characteristics of students.

Only some projects, such as Success for All, are strongly related toschool effectiveness, and are in some sense more or less experimentalstudies within effectiveness theory and research (Madden, Slavin, Kar-weit, Dolan, & Wasik, 1993; Ross, Smith, Casey, & Slavin, 1995; Slavin,Madden, Karweit, Livermon, & Dolan, 1990). These projects yield re-sults that are interpretable in terms of school effectiveness, and contributeto further theory development in both effectiveness and improvement. Onthe other side of the continuum, there still are many studies that suggest

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to be related to school effectiveness, that in fact do not deserve that name.Evaluations are often not satisfactorily carried out or are carried out aftera too-short time span. School improvement projects have shown that ittakes time to design, develop, implement, and evaluate changes in schools,more time than is often available. Because of inadequate evaluations,questions about the causation of effects, extremely important for the schooleffectiveness knowledge base, cannot be answered. School improvementtherefore should consistently pursue the assessment of its results, shouldpay attention to its failures and try to learn from these, and should limit itsgoals to prevent mix-ups of causes and effects (Gray, Reynolds, Fitz-Gibbon, & Jesson, 1996).

School improvement based on school effectiveness is not an easy proc-ess. Eventually school effectiveness may even make it more difficult tocarry out improvement, because of its strict requirements in terms of theselection, the implementation, and the evaluation of innovations.

Theories of School ImprovementIn the literature on school effectiveness and school improvement, a dis-tinction is often made between theory and research on the one hand,mirrored by effectiveness, and practice and policymaking on the otherhand, mirrored by improvement. Even though improvement is rooted ineducational practice, however, there is also a need for explicit theories onhow to improve schools. Currently there are no empirically validatedimprovement theories that map what can and should be done to bringschools to a higher level of performance. Although in educational prac-tice schools and classrooms can be found that succeed much better thanothers, theories cannot be based on exemplary practice only. When theo-ries are derived from a unique practice of a teacher, a school or a country,they will be filled with concrete, unexact, unique, specific concepts whichare not applicable to other contexts. The school improvement literaturepays more attention to the description of projects and to the formulationof practical advices for improvers than to the development and systemat-ical testing of theories on what to improve and how to do this. Also, thereare neither clear notions about the range of educational levels that im-provement should deal with simultaneously, nor about the range of per-sons that should be involved. Even when school effectiveness would beperfectly able to say what should be changed in schools, school improve-ment in its turn would now not be able to make predictions about the waychanges should be put through and the time that is needed to do so.

Insofar as theoretical notions were developed, they have not yet beenempirically and systematically tested. The typologies of school cultures

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for example (Hargreaves, 1995) have not been studied in educationalpractice and their effects on the success of school improvement are as yetunknown. Moreover, their relationships with the first criterion for schoolimprovement (enhancing student outcomes) are not always very clear.The same holds for the factors that are supposed to be important in differ-ent stages of educational change outlined by Fullan (1991), and his ideasabout the essential elements in educational change at the classroom level(beliefs, curriculum materials and teaching approaches). Even thoughthese ideas are derived from school improvement practice, their impor-tance, and their potential effects are not accounted for in detail, and havenot yet been studied in research. A useful contribution to theory develop-ment is the generic framework for school improvement delivered by Hop-kins (1996). In this framework three major components are depicted:educational givens, a strategic dimension, and a capacity-building dimen-sion. Educational givens cannot be changed easily. Givens can be exter-nal to the school (such as an external impetus for change) and internal(such as the school's background, organization and values). The strategicdimension refers to the competency of a school to set its priorities forfurther development, to define student learning goals and teacher devel-opment, and to choose a strategy to achieve these goals successfully. Thecapacity-building dimension refers to the need to focus on conditions forclassroom practice and for school development during the various stagesof improvement. Finally, the school culture has a central place in theframework. Changes in the school culture will support teaching-learningprocesses which will in their turn improve student outcomes (Hopkins,1996).

Despite the obvious gaps in theory development and testing in the field ofschool improvement, there are already some elements of a knowledgebase that can be useful for school effectiveness as well. By trying toimprove schools, knowledge became available about the implementationof classroom and school effectiveness factors in educational practice.That provided the possiblity to study in different degrees the influence offactors and variables with respect to educational outcomes (Stoll & Fink,1994).

Even more important is the fact that school improvement, by its specif-ic nature, can point at shortcomings in school effectiveness theory andresearch. The emphasis in improvement is on schools in change, schoolsin transition mostly from an ineffective situation to a more effective situ-ation. This has not only made clear that different improvement strategiesmay be necessary (for example, strategies for failing schools trying to

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406 B .P.M. CREEMERS AND G.J. REEZIGT

become good schools, strategies for good schools to become better schools,and strategies for better schools to stay at their high levels of effective-ness; Hopkins, 1996), but has also yielded questions about the level ofeffectiveness, and the effective characteristics that schools should havebefore any improvement efforts can take place (Hopkins, 1996; Hopkinset al., 1994; Reynolds, 1996b). Some authors suggest that school im-provement may appeal to the very factors that ineffective schools arelacking (Ouston, Maughan, & Rutter, 1991). Maybe school effectivenessshould pay more attention to the description of essential conditions forany level of effectiveness (Hopkins et al., 1994).

The question of how schools can become effective has often beenanswered in improvement projects by pointing to the role of the schoolculture. Although there may not be a direct impact of the school cultureon student outcomes, "it is said that school culture should be a target forchange, on the grounds that in due course it will exercise an improvingcausal influence on other variables, and eventually on student outcomes"(Hargreaves, 1995). School effectiveness should try to define and opera-tionalize the main elements of school culture. Especially more formalcriteria such as consistency, cohesion, constancy and control, broughtforward by improvement projects, have recently been incorporated inschool effectiveness theories and should be the object of further research(Creemers, 1994).

In addition, school improvement projects pointed out the fact that theexternal factors outside the school might influence processes within schools,and the outcomes of these processes (see, for example, Hopkins et al.,1994; Houtveen & Osinga, 1995; Reynolds et al., 1993). To tackle thesefactors, school effectiveness should focus more on school contexts than ithas done before.

Finally, school improvement can provide an excellent possibility forschool effectiveness to carry out research in a quasi-experimental naturalsetting. So, in summary, school improvement can offer school effective-ness research and theory a very useful type of knowledge, in particularabout "what works" in changing from ineffective to effective schools,and a natural setting to test hypotheses as well.

A serious problem, however, is that the school effectiveness knowledgebase is in fact still quite small and undertested, even though a lot ofresearch has been carried out (see also the section on school effective-ness) and even though some think highly about the robustness of thisknowledge base (Hopkins et al., 1994). In the past, school effectivenesssometimes made more promises than it could deliver (Stringfield & Her-

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man, 1996). Theoretically speaking, improvement should start (prefera-bly also on the basis of its own theories about school change) when anempirically validated school effectiveness knowledge base and soundtheories are available, but that is hardly a very realistic option. As statedbefore, school improvement cannot wait for empirical evidence. Thisimplies that school improvement, even when it refers to school effective-ness, cannot have strong connections with a "proven" theory at this mo-ment. If school improvement works, it is not necessarily because of schooleffectiveness theories and knowledge. Also, when school improvementdoes not work, school effectiveness cannot exclusively be blamed forthis. However, stronger links between effectiveness and improvementmay succeed in changing this situation to some extent.

Better Links with School EffectivenessTo link school improvement with school effectiveness, it should fulfillseveral requirements which concern the various stages of improvementprojects.(1) Phrasing the improvement problem in terms of school effectiveness.

This means that, next to a diagnosis of what is wrong and should beimproved, it should also be made clear what is to be expected ofsuccessful improvement in terms of student outcomes (achievement,social skills, thinking processes). This requirement will be most easi-ly met when the improvement project takes place at the classroomlevel and refers to teaching and learning processes. Also when projectsfocus on higher levels in the educational system, however, for exam-ple staff development projects at the school level, it is possible todefine the expected results in terms of student outcomes (Brandsma &Edelenbos, 1992; Roelofs, Raemaekers, & Veenman, 1991) becauseultimately all kinds of improvement should favour the students in oneway or the other. Phrasing the problem in terms of student outcomesfurther may help to overcome one of the major pitfalls of schoolimprovement, that is choosing an innovation first and defining whatshould be achieved later or not at all (Hopkins, 1995). It is also help-ful to decide on the success of the improvement efforts in later stagesof the project. As yet, unfortunately, the question as to whether im-provement actually has an impact on outcomes is often forgotten (Rey-nolds et al., 1993), not only in self-initiated improvement of schools,but also in educational policy.

(2) Making use of the knowledge base of school effectiveness to outlinethe actual contents of the improvement project. Both the first and thesecond requirement imply references to theories, concepts and factors

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408 B.P.M. CREEMERS AND GJ. REEZIGT

of school effectiveness, but also arguments for the choice of levels.Insofar as the school effectiveness knowledge base has been used inimprovement up till now, this mainly meant using the lists of factors,the so-called effectiveness correlates (Stoll & Fink, 1992, 1994) asthe input for improvement. Recently, the primacy of the classroomlevel has been emphasized as the starting point for improvement (Rey-nolds et al., 1993). However, innovations in classrooms need supportat the school level for further incorporation (Fresko, Robinson, Fried-lander, Albert, & Argamon, 1990; Fullan, 1991). The school effec-tiveness theories and models can be helpful in examining the way thelevels are interacting, and finding out which factors are important atwhich level and which persons should be involved at which level(Evans & Teddlie, 1995).

(3) Design and development of a plan for action based on 1 and 2 andimplementation of this plan, making use of empirical evidence when-ever possible. In this stage, the school effectiveness knowledge baseis not the only one to be investigated. Other knowledge bases, forexample organizational theories, and especially theories on educa-tional change and interventions, should also be consulted. The mostimportant feature of this stage is to achieve a clearly conceptualizedimprovement plan which preferably can take enough time for imple-mentation, for example at least two or three years (Pink, 1990). Quick-fix solutions mostly do not turn out to be successful (Stringfield,1995). Fullan (1991) advocates institutional development instead ofseries of isolated innovations: "the greatest problem by school sys-tems is not resistance to innovation but taking on too many changesindiscriminately" (p. 348). In this stage, school improvers should alsowork on the conditions under which implementation can take placeeffectively. They should study the context specificity of the schoolsand then develop adequate strategies for implementation (Hopkins,1995).

(4) Implementation of the evaluation of the project, according to stages 1,2 and 3. To find out whether school improvement has achieved thegoals outlined in stage 1 by the innovation formulated in stage 2 andimplemented on the basis of the plan of stage 3, an evaluation shouldbe carried out. When this stage is neglected, it will not be possible tomake statements about the success of the improvement efforts andfeedback to school effectiveness is virtually out of the question. Ac-cording to Hopkins (1995), school improvement should start to movebeyond case studies, anecdotal evidence and unsystematic collectionof data. Instead, school improvement projects should be set up as

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experiments or quasi-experiments whenever possible. If necessary,specific new techniques for data collection should be developed oradapted for use in the context of school improvement.

(5) Discussion of the results and conclusions, not only with respect tofurther school improvement but also with respect to school effective-ness. In this stage, reflection on the improvement efforts has to becarried out: what turned out to be successful and why, what are impor-tant new insights for school improvement and for school effectivenessas well? These activities can be seen as reconstructions of practicalknowledge, in order to make a contribution to further development ofschool effectiveness theories. Unfortunately it is very hard to findexamples of improvement projects where the requirements of thisfifth stage are met. Even projects which are very sophisticated withrespect to all other stages (projects that were theory driven, show aclear formulation of problems and goals, have clearly outlined imple-mentation plans and evaluation procedures; e.g., the Dutch Educationand Social Environment Project, Slavenburg & Peters, 1989) suffer ofshortcomings in this final stage. Improvement findings, however, canbe of great importance for school effectiveness theories. For example,the context specificity of improvement projects may hinder clear con-clusions about effectiveness, but when contexts are described andanalyzed in detail they may shed some light on the question of theneed for differential school improvement and therefore on the exist-ence of differences in effective configurations at the classroom andthe school level. Other examples of questions raised by school im-provers (about the configurations of factors constituting ineffectiveschools, conditions for becoming effective, the role of formal criteriasuch as staff cohesion and consistency at the school level, and theimportance of external factors) were described earlier.

The stages outlined above start on the assumption that there is a schooleffectiveness knowledge base and that it can be important for schoolimprovement. The question that has to be answered now refers to thecurrent status of the knowledge base of school effectiveness and futuredevelopments in this field.

SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS

After the initial enthusiasm about school effectiveness in the early 1980s,severe criticism arose because of the insufficient quality of research projectsand the persistent absence of a theoretical basis (Scheerens & Creemers,

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1989a, 1989b). As a result, in the second half of the 1980s there wasmuch attention to better research designs and statistical procedures, andto theory development and conceptualization (Bosker, Creemers, & Schee-rens, 1994). In this section, the current situation in school effectiveness isdescribed with regard to types of research and its outcomes, and thedevelopment of effectiveness theories. In addition, ways for better link-ing with school improvement will be discussed.

Types and Outcomes of School Effectiveness ResearchAlthough school effectiveness research has been declining in the UnitedStates of America, a lot of effectiveness studies are now being conductedin Europe and Asia (Creemers & Osinga, 1995). The proliferation ofstudies is accompanied by progress in the field of research methodologyand techniques for data analysis. In addition to case studies and outlierstudies, the types of research that school effectiveness started out with,more studies than ever before use longitudinal and cross-sectional de-signs. Instead of drawing conclusions merely on the basis of correlationalanalyses, studies are increasingly applying better techniques for data anal-ysis, in particular multilevel and LISREL procedures. In the near future, acombination of these two procedures may offer even more possibilities tocarry out better research.

According to Scheerens (1993), school effectiveness research consistsof three categories of studies: fundamental studies (explicitly aiming atthe building of models and theories and the testing of hypotheses); foun-dational studies (aiming at elementary conceptual issues such as stabilityand consistency of effects); and applied studies (for example nationalassessments and indicator systems). The proliferation of school effective-ness studies mainly concerns the foundational and applied types, whilefundamental studies are still rather rare. Also, there is a need for in-depthobservational data. Too many conclusions have been drawn on the basisof teacher or principal questionnaires, which raise serious doubts aboutthe validity of the data. Despite the impressive number of effectivenessstudies, there are hardly any studies which have used a wide range of datacollection techniques, including observation, and which have been able toactually link these data to student outcomes. Those comprehensive stud-ies that have been conducted are now beginning to become somewhatoutdated (Mortimore, Sammons, Stoll, Lewis, & Ecob, 1988; Teddlie &Stringfield, 1993) and substantial follow-ups have not yet started.

For school effectiveness to be of any importance for school improvement,all categories of studies should be available and naturally all studies

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should live up to the regular criteria for scientific research. More specifi-cally, school effectiveness should provide information on the factors whichconstitute effectiveness and the levels they are representing, on the stu-dent factors which influence outcomes, on multiple outcomes of school-ing, and on effectiveness in various types of education.

With regard to the knowledge base of school effectiveness, it is oftenforgotten that a major part of the empirically validated knowledge dealsonly with the dependent variables, the student outcomes. Many studiesonly focus on questions about these outcomes, for example the actualvariation between schools, the consistency and stability of school differ-ences in outcomes over subjects or over time, and differential outcomesfor different groups of students within schools (Sammons, 1995). Re-search on the relationships of the independent variables and outcomes isless abundant. The lists of correlates, the best known features of schooleffectiveness, in fact suggest much more than empirical evidence allowsfor. Since the early studies, many reviewers have produced their ownselections of correlates, the most extensive of which is the list by Levineand Lezotte (1990). Naturally these lists do appeal to school improvers:although they contain correlates and no causational factors, they look likesimple recipes promising instant success. However, most correlates arederived from pre-effectiveness studies in which each of them was theonly independent variable. The correlates have not often been studiedtogether. Unfortunately, the empirical status of correlates in terms ofeffects on student outcomes, even when they are studied together, isdoubtful (Creemers, 1994; Scheerens, 1992). As far as correlates do showeffects, these are not very stable. They often do not hold over time, sub-jects, grades, groups of students, departments within schools, districts,countries, and so on (Brandsma, 1993; Reezigt, Guldemond, & Creemers,1996; Van der Werf, 1995). The research shows that factors that shouldcontribute to learning outcomes often do not, and factors that do, do soonly a little bit. Moreover, school and classroom factors have often beenoperationalized and measured in a rather crude way, and easily measuredbehaviours have always stood in the forefront (Reynolds et al., 1993).Also, research looks at schools at a certain point in time and tends toforget the processes over longer time periods. In short, school effective-ness should pay more attention to schools in progress (schools trying tobecome effective, schools trying to stay effective). Also, school effec-tiveness should try to find the major correlates and to make clear howtheir influence might be from a causal point of view (Gray et al., 1996).

Factors at different levels of education (context, school, classroom, stu-dent) have often been confounded. Also, the lists suggest that all factors

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are equally important while it is very likely that outcomes are most heavilyinfluenced by specific configurations of factors, not by a whole bunch ofisolated factors. Overarching concepts such as consistency of factors havehardly been studied (Creemers, 1994). Facing the problem of unstable ef-fects more formal characteristics were developed such as consistency. Con-sistency at the classroom level means that curricula, grouping proceduresand teacher behaviour should be in the same line, show the same character-istics of effectiveness. Also, the formal criteria insist that teachers shouldhave the same mission as a team, and they have to keep each other on trackfor a longer period of time to achieve stable school effects.

Interactions between factors within levels or cross-level interactions,which may influence student outcomes in non-expected ways, have notoften been the object of research (Bosker & Scheerens, 1994). Consider-ing these remarks, the lists of correlates which are often the input forschool improvement give a much too simple impression of the function-ing of classrooms and schools.

Only a few student factors which influence outcomes have been inte-grated in research. Their role mainly was to contribute to a clear pictureof the added value of school and classroom factors, that is, the effects ofthese factors corrected for the influence of student characteristics such asgender and socio-economic status (Creemers, 1994). School effective-ness is not very much involved in motivational theories, and in the rela-tionships between motivation, outcomes, and student background varia-bles (Scheerens, 1994). In addition, school effectiveness might have topay more attention to students as active learners, for example by making adistinction between characteristics of effective education as provided bythe school and as perceived by students. To be more precise, maybe thecharacteristics of effective education should be measured at the studentlevel instead of the supply level of classrooms and schools. The time forlearning and the opportunities to learn offered by teachers may not deter-mine student outcomes, but the actual time spent by students on task andthe opportunities to learn that they are actually using (Creemers, 1994).In this way, the distance between the effective factors and the effective-ness criterion, student outcomes, is reduced. The student level can beconsidered as a mediating force between the school effectiveness factorsoffered by education at different levels and student outcomes. Ultimatelythis line of research can result in finding differential effects or interac-tions between characteristics at the school and the classroom level andstudent characteristics.

Multiple outcomes of schools, that is, various outcomes in the cogni-tive and affective domains such as higher order learning, metacognive

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skills, attitudes towards learning, and social skills, have up till now notbeen studied very frequently. School effectiveness has often been criti-cized for a too narrow focus on achievement in the basic skills as the mainoutcome of schooling (Creemers, 1994; Hopkins et al., 1994). This focuscertainly is defendable, first because of the historical view of effective-ness as the improvement of the position of disadvantaged students, andsecond because of the fact that basic skills and knowledge provide thebasis for further learning and therefore are the core outcome of education(Creemers & Scheerens, 1994). For improvement, however, it is veryimportant to have access to information about all types of outcomes.

With regard to types of education, school effectiveness traditionallystudied elementary and secondary schools. Because of this, findings fromother research fields such as the effectiveness of provisions for youngchildren (Slavin, Karweit, & Madden, 1989; Weikart, 1987) have notbeen fully integrated into the knowledge base. The same holds for voca-tional education, higher education, and adult education. For improversworking in these types of education, more attention of school effective-ness would be of great importance.

This overview of research findings, though very condensed, clearly showsthat although much research has been conducted, at this moment it is stillrather hard for school effectiveness to provide solid information whichcan easily be used to improve schools.

Theories of School EffectivenessSince the start of school effectiveness the need for theories was men-tioned very frequently. The development of theories was held back bystrongly changing opinions on the criteria of effectiveness. In the 1980s,effectiveness clearly was about outcomes of students. Now, in the 1990s,there is a more ideological touch. There are more objectives in education,and opinions on processes in schools and education in general differwidely, and have led to a proliferation of ideas. Probably, constructivismand restructuring can be seen at least partly as the result of this kind ofmulti-optional ideas about education (Murphy, 1992). However, the pri-mary function of schools which distinguishes them from other socialinstitutions is to achieve a wide range of outcomes especially in the cog-nitive domain. Other outcomes are fine, as long as they can be related tothis primary task of schools. When schools should function as institutionsthat like to start and to keep learning going in order to achieve cognitiveoutcomes in a broad area, then theoretical frameworks developed in schooleffectiveness should explain the differences in these outcomes. Theories

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also should give guidance to further research and the interpretation ofresearch findings.

Several theories have been developed recently in the field of schooleffectiveness, in particular in the United States (Slater & Teddlie, 1992;Stringfield & Slavin, 1992), and in the Netherlands (Creemers, 1994;Scheerens, 1992; Scheerens & Creemers, 1989a). The theoretical frame-works that have been developed can be considered comprehensive educa-tional theories, because they all comprise factors at different levels ofeducation (context, school, classroom, student) and try to give an integralexplanation of the influence of these factors on student outcomes (Creem-ers, 1994). They all start with the learning of students and emphasize theclassroom level and its components (such as curricula, grouping proce-dures and teacher behaviour), based on the idea that learning takes placein classrooms, and that factors at higher levels are of a conditional kind.

All theoretical frameworks that are now available show conceptualgaps. They have in common that they are all based on Carroll's model ofschool learning, although the initial version of this model is quite roughand leaves many questions about the classroom and the school level un-answered. A point of departure for a school effectiveness theory is thetime and opportunity part of the Carroll model. Other parts, like motiva-tion, are still underdeveloped in school effectiveness theories. In a furtherrefinement of the frameworks yet other aspects have to be taken intoaccount, such as the role of metacognitive abilities as an outcome varia-ble as well as a mediating variable between instruction and achievement.Interactions between factors of the frameworks should be emphasized,and ideas about effective combinations of factors within as well as be-tween levels should be specified.

Quite a lot of classroom factors are based on the idea that characteris-tics of quality of instruction, time for learning, and opportunity to learnshould work for all students in the same way. But some factors may bemore important for some students than other factors are for other stu-dents. Even though some effective factors seem to be the same for advan-taged and less advantaged students, maybe a differential theory (differen-tial for groups of students, for example students who are more responsi-ble for their own learning versus students who are more passive) andgroups of outcomes can be more powerful.

Finally, school effectiveness theories should add the time perspectiveto the models and frameworks. Many theories draw too heavily on thestatic character of schools, while research and educational practice haveshown that schools are certainly not very stable (Evans & Teddlie, 1995;Slater & Teddlie, 1992).

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Compared with school improvement, the advances in theory develop-ment in school effectiveness are clearly more impressive. Unfortunately,not many fundamental studies have been undertaken, and there is noempirical evidence (nor contra evidence) with respect to the theories. Infact, the discrepancy between refinements in the theories and the actualresearch sometimes seems to be growing instead of closing. Some (partsof) theories are currently being tested in reanalyses of old data, facing allthe problems related to the selection and operationalization of variablesthat can be expected. Many research and evaluation studies like the eval-uation of the Educational Priority Program in the Netherlands (Van derWerf, 1995) and international comparative studies might contribute to thetesting of theories. Mostly they offer very small contributions, because oflimitations in designs (in particular the choice and operationalization ofclassroom and school variables), and because of the practical constraintsdue to the survey character of these studies. Even when findings contra-dict expectations, for example when classroom level factors are found tohave a smaller impact on student outcomes than school level factors, thismay merely be an artefact of the operationalization of variables. Forexample, a study defined time for learning at the school level as theformal number of hours in the timetable and time for learning at theclassroom level as the implementation of the scheduled time by the teach-er (Weide, 1995). In this case there is nothing left for the classroom levelto explain. However, it may also be possible that contrary to the hierar-chical linear thinking about influences, factors at the school and the con-text level influence student outcomes immediately, without any media-tion by the classroom level. For instance, when there is no evaluationprocedure at the classroom level, evaluation policies at the school levelmay influence student outcomes. More research is needed for a betterinsight into these matters. A careful selection of variables according tothe theories should be made, and preferably the effects of configurationsof selected factors or profiles should be studied. Furthermore, more ob-servational in-depth studies are needed which can be combined with largescale studies, and improvement projects should be carried out in such away that data become available with respect to theoretically chosen vari-ables, like in the Dutch National School Improvement Project (Houtveen&Osinga, 1995).

An additional problem is the lack of empirically valid knowledge aboutcharacteristics of ineffective schools. It is often taken for granted thatthese schools are negatively mirroring the characteristics of effectiveschools, but there may also be other mechanisms which may hinder theimprovement of these schools. For example, ineffective schools may not

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even have the competencies for change, they may not be able to changeaccording to a rational plan and a rational strategy, or they may sufferfrom severe relational problems (Reynolds, 1996b). Research offers toolittle knowledge about these schools to give guidelines for successfulimprovement efforts.

The school effectiveness knowledge base is still in a stage of construc-tion, and research into the validity of some essential relationships is lack-ing. In spite of all recent research and recently developed theories, majorproportions of variance in student outcomes are still not accounted for. Infact, the concepts, theoretical frameworks and theories as well as thebetter research tools and statistical designs have not yet succeeded inexplaining more variance, although it should be stated that what is done isat least done more systematically than before. At this moment, maybe themost important message for school improvement concerns the complexi-ty of school effectiveness and, as a consequence, the impossibility to givesimple advices about what to do to improve schools and what to expect asa result. However, the problems which school effectiveness is facingprobably also have a meaning for school improvement, in the sense thatthey may point at issues that school improvement is struggling with aswell. These issues mainly refer to questions about the relative importanceof classroom and school factors, the relationships of the classroom andthe school level where school improvement should take place to have anyeffects (Evans & Teddlie, 1995), and to the influence of configurations ofclassroom and school factors on student outcomes (Creemers, 1994; Ful-lan, 1991). Essentially, the main question for both school effectivenessand school improvement is not which multitude of isolated factors mightbe of some influence on student outcomes, but which configurations offactors have a major impact and should therefore form the starting pointfor school improvement. It may take a long time effort directed to adiversity of factors at different levels of the educational system to estab-lish and then secure substantial improvements. Stronger links betweenschool effectiveness and school improvement seem to be necessary in thisrespect.

Better Links with School ImprovementWith regard to the different types of school effectiveness studies, linkswith school improvement will be easier for the applied studies, for exam-ple evaluations of policy measures, than for fundamental and foundation-al studies. To link school effectiveness with school improvement, thefollowing requirements should be met in the different stages of research:

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(1) Phrasing the research problem in terms of the educational practiceas well as in terms of theoretical concepts. All studies in the fieldof school effectiveness should at least have some conceptuallinks with what is actually going on in schools, and what might beissues for school improvement. Concerning the independent varia-bles, it is important to measure variables that are actually alterable(this in fact has always been one of the main concerns of schooleffectiveness and should continue to be so) but to measure variablesthat may not easily be altered as well, for example the school contextor the attitudes of teachers (Reynolds et al., 1993). The measurementof the latter is necessary to attribute school effects to alterable varia-bles and to "school givens" (Mortimore et al., 1988) separately, and toestimate the range for improvement effects accurately. Concerningthe dependent variables, according to Murphy (1992) school effec-tiveness has limited itself too strongly to basic skills, current teachingstrategies and existing curricular materials, thereby neglecting newideas about knowledge acquisition and the changing roles of teachersand students. Although a focus on basic skills is very defendablebecause of the central role of basic skills in education, it may causeschool effectiveness researchers to underestimate developments inother fields of research (such as educational psychology) and theirmeaning for education. Focusing on multiple outcomes and, as a con-sequence, on classroom and school factors that may enhance theseoutcomes (even though in the end these factors may turn out to be thesame as those enhancing the basic skills), may solve these problems.Nevertheless, the choice between studying what is currently takingplace in educational practice and studying what might eventually takeplace in the future is difficult to make in school effectiveness, inparticular in the light of the needs of school improvement. Preferablyof course both types of research questions should be studied at thesame time.

(2) Making use of practical knowledge and rephrasing this practice inconcepts and theory. So far, school effectiveness has not paid a lot ofattention to school improvement knowledge laid down in examples ofbest practice, in-depth analysis, case studies, and practitioner knowl-edge (Reynolds, Sammons, Stoll, Barber, & Hillman, 1996). Still, thiskind of knowledge may point at new questions that should be an-swered by school effectiveness (such as the role of the school con-text), and because it may underline the practical importance of ques-tions that are already being studied in school effectiveness out oftheoretical interests (for example, the relationships within and be-

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tween levels, the relative impact of factors on outcomes, the impact ofconfigurations of factors on outcomes).

(3) Design and development of studies based on a practical and theoreti-cal knowledge base. Although the actual design of a research study isdependent on the questions that should be answered, there are certaintypes of designs that are especially important for both school effec-tiveness and school improvement. School effectiveness has mainlyconsisted of outlier studies with a descriptive character, and of corre-lational designs. To gain more insight into the factors constitutingmeans-ends relationships in education, there is a need for experi-ments, preferably in a longitudinal set up (Creemers, 1994; String-field, 1995). To gain more insight into the changes that schools makeover time, longitudinal studies are necessary (Evans & Teddlie, 1995).Currently, there is not enough knowledge to explain change process-es, although many researchers try to explain their findings by pointingat such processes. For example, unexpected negative effects of evalu-ation procedures on student achievement in cross-sectional designsmight be explained by saying that schools have started evaluation justbecause student achievement was so low. The same holds for adaptiveinstruction. Generally adaptive instruction is assumed to have posi-tive effects, but research does not always support this (Reezigt, 1993;Van der Werf, 1995). Adaptive instruction is a result of the effective-ness of grouping procedures, adaptive teacher behaviour, adaptivetextbooks and characteristics with respect to adaptive education at theschool level. Especially longitudinal studies are suited to find outwhether teachers succeed in adapting their instruction to their stu-dents. Teachers probably start their adaptive instruction with the groupof students they had one year earlier in mind, so their actual adaptiveinstruction may in fact be lagging behind. Studying schools over timewill also make clear whether the same factors are responsible foreffectiveness at a certain point in time, sustaining effectiveness, andchanges in effectiveness.

(4) Implementation in educational practice of the empirical testing ofhypotheses. School effectiveness might profit from experiments inlaboratorium settings, but ultimately hypotheses should be tested ineducational practice. In this stage, school effectiveness and schoolimprovement activities might actually mix. The school effectivenessknowledge base is now extensive enough to come up with clearlyformulated hypotheses about the impact of combinations of certainfactors on student outcomes (Creemers, 1994). The testing of thesehypotheses will generally involve some kind of manipulation of edu-

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cational practice, which may very closely resemble a school improve-ment effort. Already carefully designed improvement projects such asSuccess for All (Madden et al., 1993) offer opportunities for the test-ing of school effectiveness hypotheses. Better links in the other stagesof school effectiveness and school improvement will only make coop-eration in this stage easier.Discussion of the results and conclusions, not only with respect tofurther school effectiveness but also with respect to school improve-ment. When findings have been reported, the discussion and the draw-ing of conclusions are often dealt with very briefly. Many researchersfind it difficult to put their findings in a wider school effectivenessperspective, not to mention a school improvement perspective. It isvery rare for researchers to reflect substantially on the meaning oftheir findings for school improvers, especially when this reflectionshould be somewhat more elaborated than just stating that factors x, yand z should be reinforced in educational practice (Scheerens, 1992).Still, each study may yield useful knowledge for school improvement.To begin with, researchers should give more information about thecontext from which their findings were derived (Reynolds et al., 1993)and they should clearly outline the limitations of their study concern-ing school type, selection of variables, types of data collection. May-be individual researchers may find it too difficult to link their findingsto school improvement. In any case, reviewers of research and per-sons influencing the school effectiveness research agenda should bemore concerned about the possibilities to link their ideas to schoolimprovement.

BETTER LINKS BETWEEN SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS ANDSCHOOL IMPROVEMENT: SUSTAINED INTERACTIVITY

In this article the question of the necessity of links between school effec-tiveness and school improvement was raised. The links that previouslyexisted have disappeared sometimes, such as in the United States, and noteveryone seems to feel the need to change that, although some initiativesare currently taken (Gray et al., 1996). Some arguments were given againstlinks. School effectiveness and school improvement have different mis-sions and different responsibilities and priorities. These were outlined inFigure 1. School effectiveness is essentially a research program that triesto develop a knowledge base of what happens in education, and to supportthis knowledge base by empirical findings. School improvement is re-

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sponsible for innovation, for changes towards better schools, and cannotwait for a knowledge base. School effectiveness is a research and theory-oriented program, school improvement is a practice and problem-solvingoriented program. But more important than the different missions is thecommon mission that school effectiveness and school improvement stillshare: a mutual involvement in educational quality and the importance ofeducation. As such, the key questions in both fields are essentially thesame and there clearly is a need to integrate school effectiveness andschool improvement more strongly (Gray et al., 1996; Reynolds & Stoll,1996; Stoll & Fink, 1996).

The description of the current situation in research and theory develop-ment in both fields showed that school effectiveness and school improve-ment, when looked upon separately, struggle with a lot of unansweredquestions, unexplained findings, and unsolved problems. Some problemsare inherent to the specific field, but others are not. Because some prob-lems show remarkable similarities (such as the impact of configurationsof factors, the relationships between educational levels, the change proc-esses in schools over time), better links would certainly help to tacklethem more adequately.

Now that there is a school effectiveness knowledge base or at leastelements of a knowledge base, improvers should make use of it in plan-ning their projects. In return, researchers should use practical improve-ment information for the further refinement of their theories. Effective-ness theories including statements about causes and effects in means-ends relationships can be tested in educational practice. The other wayaround is also possible by means of a reconceptualization of the means-ends relationships suggested by school improvers at a more theoreticallevel.

Sustained InteractivityThese remarks suggest that school effectiveness and school improvementideally start out from a common problem, use each others' knowledgebase, then go about their own business and start communicating againwhen both have finished their separate cycles of research and improve-ment projects. Better links would then refer to the processes of applica-tion and reconstruction of knowledge. However, as the requirements inthe previous sections have shown, relationships can be created in allstages. Links are also possible when studies or projects are being con-ducted. For example, school improvement can make use of notions on theneed of longitudinal set-ups and strict evaluation procedures. School ef-fectiveness should pursue the study of changes in schools and develop

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hypotheses that can be tested in improvement projects. Actually, a mix ofactivities can take place in the stages that are mostly forgotten when thelinks between school effectiveness and school improvement are underdiscussion. The need for communication between school effectivenessand school improvement in all stages of research studies and improve-ment projects can be summarized under the heading of sustained interac-tivity, a concept introduced by Huberman (1990, 1993) in the area ofresearch utilization. Sustained interactivity means "multiple exchangesbetween researchers and potential users of that research at different phas-es of the study" (Huberman, 1993, p. 4). This concept may be useful in

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V/ \

application

effectiveness

\making use of school effectivenessknowledge base

design of a plan for action andimplementation of the plan

•evaluation of the project

Idiscussion and conclusions,also with respect to schooleffectiveness

Tknowledge

reconstruction

Fig. 2. Sustained interactivity between school effectiveness and school improvement.

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the field of school effectiveness and school improvement. It may preventresearchers from thinking that they have done all that they could afterreading some improvement case studies, and it may prevent school im-provers from merely learning a set of effectiveness correlates by heart,dropping them into educational practice, and then blaming school effec-tiveness when this does not work out well enough.

The procedure for better links between school effectiveness and schoolimprovement by means of sustained interactivity can be laid out in a flowchart (see Figure 2).

Recently, several projects have started (Stoll, Reynolds, Creemers, &Hopkins, 1996) to integrate school effectiveness and school improve-ment. They form successful examples of the concept of sustained interac-tivity. These projects all share a clear definition of the problem whichshould be overcome, in terms of student outcomes and classroom strate-gies to enhance these outcomes within the context of the school. Often,the outcomes are clearly specified for one school subject or elements of aschool subject, such as comprehensive reading (Houtveen & Osinga, 1995).The content of the projects is a balanced mix of the effectiveness knowl-edge base and the concepts from school improvement. The projects havedetailed designs, both for the implementation of school improvement andfor the evaluation in terms of empirical research. By means of a researchcomponent integrated into the projects from the start, it is possible to testeffectiveness hypotheses, and to evaluate the improvement outcomes atthe same time. The use of control groups is essential in this respect, andvarious projects now incorporate control groups or choose to comparetheir results to norm groups on the basis of nationwide tests. Also, manyprojects are longitudinal in their designs. Although most integrated projectshave recently started, some of them have lasted for almost a decade nowand they have been disseminated to various educational contexts (Ross etal., 1995; Slavin, 1996). Therefore, long-term effects and context-specif-ic effects can easily be tracked by means of follow-up measurement.

An additional feature of projects which last for several subsequentyears is the possibility to test the effectiveness of school improvementstrategies and to change strategies whenever necessary. The Halton'sEffective Schools Project illustrates this feature clearly (Stoll & Fink,1996; Stoll et al., 1996). The project started in Canada in 1986 with theintention to implement British effectiveness knowledge in the Haltondistrict schools. Soon it became clear that the effectiveness knowledgebase in itself would not automatically lead to changes in educationalpractice. Over the years, the project paid a lot of attention to questions on

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the processes of change in schools. The project focuses on the planningprocess in schools, the teaching and learning processes in classrooms,and staff development. Successful changes turned out to be enhanced by acollaborative school culture, a shared vision of where the school willstand for in the future, and a climate in which decisions are made in atransparant way. Based on their Halton experiences, Stoll and Fink (1996)have developed a conceptual model which links school effectiveness andschool improvement through the school development planning process.The model blends the school effectiveness knowledge base with the knowl-edge about change processes in schools. The school development plan-ning process is at the center of the model. The process is consideredmulti-layered. Two outer layers are constituted by invitational leadership,and continuing conditions and cultural norms. The inner cycle layer isformed by the ongoing planning cycle of assessment, planning, imple-mentation, and evaluation of educational processes. The two central corelayers refer to a strong focus on the teaching-learning processes and thecurriculum, and the students in the school. The school development plan-ning process is influenced by the context of the school, and foundationssuch as research findings, and in its turn influences intermediate out-comes at the teacher and school levels as well as student outcomes. Final-ly, the planning process is influenced by several partners (outside agen-cies, educational networks).

In the United Kingdom, 66 per cent of improvement programs nowpursue goals which fit in the school effectiveness tradition of studentoutcomes (Gray et al., 1996; Reynolds et al., 1996). Still it is not clearwhether real improvements will always occur. Some projects are current-ly under evaluation. For example, the IQEA-project (Improving the Qual-ity of Education for All; Hopkins et al., 1994) started in 1991 as a staffdevelopment project. Gradually, a focus on classroom improvement andits effects on student achievement has taken over. The project does notstop with the implementation of priorities for development, but also paysattention explicitly to conditions which will sustain the changes. Theseare staff development, involvement, leadership, coordination, enquiry andreflection, and collaborative planning (Stoll et al., 1996). In addition,when the classroom level came into the center of attention, the projectspecified classroom level conditions which are necessary for effectiveteaching and student achievement. These are authentic relationships, rulesand boundaries, teacher's repertoire, reflection on teaching, resourcesand preparation, and pedagogic partnerships. Other promising projects inthe United Kingdom are the Lewisham School Improvement Project andthe Hammersmith and Fulham LEA Project. Both projects actively try to

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424 B .P.M. CREEMERS AND GJ. REEZIGT

enhance student achievement by means of school effectiveness knowl-edge, and both projects are cooperating with a research institute (Rey-nolds et al., 1996).

Because of the integrated approach which characterizes the projectsfrom the moment that they have started, they will yield useful informa-tion for both school effectiveness and school improvement. Some projectshave become large-scale enterprises over the years, such as IQEA whichstarted with nine schools and now involves 40 schools. Success for Allfor example (Slavin, 1996) started out with one school in 1987 and is nowreaching about 400 schools in 26 states of the USA as well as three othercountries. Especially because repeated measurements are available in ex-perimental and control groups (students were matched) over longer peri-ods of time, and for various school subjects, this project is a very impor-tant database for school effectiveness and school improvement. Also,Success for All clearly shows that it is possible to develop an innovationbased on scientific insights, and to conduct ongoing evaluations of thevalue of the project (Stringfield & Herman, 1996). In contrast, the numberof schools involved in some other projects is very small. The Barclay-Calvert Project in the United States, for example, refers to two elementa-ry schools: one successful school which acts as a role model for one otherschool. A recent Dutch experiment refers to four elementary schools ineducationally deprived areas, which receive considerable coaching in class-room instruction processes (Hoogendijk & Wolfgram, 1995). Still, bothprojects are studied very carefully and longitudinally with respect to theimplementation phase and the evaluation phase. Both projects comparestudent outcomes to national standards. Because of their strict researchand implementation designs, even these small-scale projects can contrib-ute to a better knowledge of school effectiveness and school improve-ment.

There is always a special reason in education to keep links between schooleffectiveness and school improvement. Theory and research only have afew possibilities to introduce factors into educational practice, and to seewhether they work or not. School improvement is a very powerful tool forthe testing of theories. The same holds for school improvers: in the end,what is more practical than a good theory, is an empirically validatedtheory. A theory can prevent improvers from constantly inventing newsolutions for old problems or, even worse, new problems for old solu-tions. A theory, used in practice, can be supported or changed by imple-menting its core elements in improvement projects in a very careful de-sign. More improvement projects are needed that meet higher standards.

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Stronger links between school effectiveness and school improvement canalso shed some light on questions about the possibilities for integration ofthe two, questions which are relevant for further research. Both traditionsmay have to leave the idea that there is 'one right way' for all schoolsbehind. For example, there are more effective and less effective schoolsand there are slowly improving and rapidly improving schools. This leadsto four types of schools, and all these types may need different improve-ment approaches. More complications arise when schools cannot be linkedto one of these four types consistently for different types of outcomes, fordifferent teachers, subjects and departments, and so on (Gray et al., 1996).To find this out, more attention should be paid to detailed case studies ofsuch types of schools.

Sustained interactivity between school effectiveness and school im-provement, essential for the further development of educational scienceand educational practice, ultimately depends on the efforts that research-ers and improvers will invest in cooperation. In any case, an infrastruc-ture for cooperation has been established in recent years. School effec-tiveness and school improvement at least are on the same track.

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school effectiveness and school improvement: sustaining links

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