(1485) EXPLORING THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ALBANIAN SCHOOLS THAT INFLUENCE THE EFFECTS OF GENDER AND SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT: A MULTILEVEL ANALYSIS

摘要

The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics of Albanian secondary schools whichinfluence the school performance and the effects of gender and socio-economic status on readingperformance of 15-year-old students. This study used data on the background and achievement of4,596 students in 181 Albanian schools from 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment(PISA). Given the nested structure of the data and research questions, I used two-level HierarchicalLinear Modeling (HLM) methods that combine a set of five plausible values for performance scores. Icomputed from the unconditional model that about a third of the total variance in reading performancelies between schools. Results of the within-school model show that factors like gender, family structure(two parent families versus others), socio-economic status (SES), student learning and readingengagement are significantly related to student reading performance. Considering the last threevariables as statistical controls, I found out that there is a significant variability between schools forboth the gender difference in student performance and the effect of SES on student performance. Thebetween school models show that school characteristics as school type, school SES and classroomenvironment are significantly related to school performance. Students attending general schoolsperform better than students of vocational schools after controlling for other variables. Moreover,students attending socio-economically advantaged schools have also much higher performance inreading than those attending socio-economically disadvantaged schools, regardless of their individualsocio-economic background. Similarly, students from schools with a positive classroom environmenttend to have better achievement in reading than students from other schools, even after accounting fordifferences in socio-economic status. I also revealed that school variables that influence gender effecton student performance are school administration (public/private), school location (urban/rural) andaverage reading engagement;;and school variables that influence SES effect on student performanceare school type (general/vocational), school location and average reading engagement. Thecharacteristics of schools that make them more or less equitable are summarized and implications foreducational policies and research are discussed.