Evaluating Academic Improvement Target Program in Korea

• In Event: Evaluation of Performance-Driven School Accountability Interventions in Korea Versus the United States

Abstract

In the era of educational accountability, academic improvement is a fundamental purpose of schools. Korean government also has made efforts to reduce academic achievement gap among students, schools, and regions, by supporting low-performing schools. A major policy named “school program targeted at improving learning ability”, has been implemented since 2009. Schools with high percentage of low-achieving students in national academic achievement test were selected and supported both financially and administratively.
The main purpose of the study is to examine the implementation of academic improvement target program and investigate what factors (e.g., personal, school, policy) might be more influential on the improvement of student academic achievement test score in the selected schools for this program.
Methods
1. Descriptive Analysis of Program Implementation and Initial Results
Based on the Ministry of Education program documents and reports, this study examined the overall status of implementation and efficacy of academic improvement target program during its first year (2009). It describes the characteristics of selected schools and their programs, particularly the characteristics of ones that showed satisfactory progress and thus exited the programs vs. ones that failed to show adequate progress and remained in the program. Key implementation problems and challenges are described.
2. HLM Analysis of Program Effects and Contributing Factors
Based on input-process-output model for school effectiveness (Scheerens, 1990) as theoretical framework, the study employed Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM).
Data for the study come from the Seoul Educational Longitudinal Study 2010, which was conducted by Seoul Metropolitan city in Korea. The data were collected to explore how educational policy at national, local, school levels might have an impact on cognitive, affective, social, and physical development of students in Seoul city. Among 154 schools, 32 schools and 350 students (treatment group) are the schools targeted at improving learning ability and the same number of schools and students (comparison group) that are similar to the selected schools is used in the non-selected schools. The study analyzes test scores in Korean and English language, employing the same analytic framework.
Preliminary Findings and Implications
Among total 1,440 schools which were appointed as ‘academic improvement target program’, 86.8% (1,250 schools) passed basic academic standard, whereas 13.2% (190 schools) could not pass the standard. The passing schools showed 1) principal’s strong leadership and teacher effort, 2) system of ‘prevention-diagnosis-management’, 3) instructional guidance program, and 4) partnership with parents and community. On the other hand, the failing schools showed 1) limited understanding of the program, 2) unorganized teacher training program, 3) located in poor, rural, inferior academic environment.
The preliminary results show that the students in the treatment group (selected schools for improvement) performed worse in math than their counterparts in the comparison group, especially at the middle school level. When controlling for school-process variables, the achievement gap between the selected schools and the non-selected schools decreased by 10%, which suggests that financial and administrative support for the low-performing schools could be effective.
This study provides useful information on factors affecting improvement of student academic achievement, including policy elements.

Authors

• Sung-Hyun Cha, Korean Educational Development Institute

• Byeongcheol Min, Seoul National University