Testing the Cultural Differences of School Characteristics with Measurement Invariance

• Published in: Journal of education and learning 2016-04, Vol.5 (2), p.337
• Main Author: Demir, Ergül
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1927-5250; 1927-5269
• DOI: 10.5539/jel.v5n2p337

In this study, it was aimed to model the school characteristics in multivariate structure, and according to this model, aimed to test the invariance of this model across five randomly selected countries and economies from PISA 2012 sample. It is thought that significant differences across group in the context of school characteristics have the potential to explain the effectiveness of schools and educational systems. This study was conducted with correlational model as a basic research. Secondary level analyses were conducted on PISA 2012 School Questionnaire data. To construct “school characteristics model”, whole data from 65 participant countries and economies were considered. One country from each proficiency level and totally 5 countries were randomly selected for the research sample. These countries and economies are Shanghai-China, Korea, Ireland, Turkey and Uruguay. In this way sample was composed of totally 835 schools. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the invariance of school characteristics across countries. According to the results, Shanghai and Uruguay differed from each other and other countries. Across Korea, Ireland and Turkey, School characteristics provide strong invariance. These three cultures were more similar. Main result of this study is that school characteristics cannot be invariant across some cultural groups or sub-groups. In order to provide equal opportunity to all stakeholders of the educational system, and also provide school effectiveness, such kinds of differences are considered carefully.