SCHOOL SIZE EFFECTS ON ACHIEVEMENT IN SECONDARY-EDUCATION EVIDENCE FROM THE NETHERLANDS, SWEDEN AND THE USA

In this article the results of an investigation into the relation betw een school size and achievement are reported. The findings relate to m athematics achievement in Dutch, Swedish and American secondary educat ion and to science achievement in the Netherlands. The analyses sought to provide an answer to the following questions: (1) Is school size r elated to achievement independently of student background characterist ics such as sex, achievement motivation, socio-economic status and cog nitive aptitude? (2) Is the effect of school size related to any of th e aforementioned background characteristics? (3) Does the effect of sc hool size on achievement differ between the educational systems of the Netherlands, Sweden and the USA? (4) Is the effect of school size the same for different measures of student achievement (mathematics versu s science)? It was hypothesized that school size would be most strongl y related to achievement in the USA. The analyses, however, revealed l ittle empirical evidence for the existence of school size effects on a chievement in any of the three countries, possibly because school size and curriculum comprehensiveness are not strongly related in these co untries. Because the investigations involved the analysis of five sepa rate datasets, the research outcomes revealed some useful additional i nformation with respect to the robustness of the detected relations be tween the five covariates and student achievement.