Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement

by John Hattie

In the meta-analysis of 58 studies by Sirin (2005), the effect size between achievement and parental education was d = 0.60, parental occupation was d = 0.56, and parental income was d = 0.58: very similar indeed.

It is likely that the effects from socioeconomic resources are more influential during the pre-school and early years of schooling.

SES is more important at the school than at the individual level, and for the parents more than for the students.

employing former teachers as “home-school liaison persons”.

The greatest effects were an increased knowledge of the language of schooling and learning by the parents.

Either there can be efforts to reduce the barriers between school and home or the effects of the home on student learning can be compromised as the child is then asked to work in two worlds—the world and language of home, and the world and language of school. For many children this is asking too much. It is also difficult for children in these two worlds to build a reputation as a learner, learn how to seek help in learning, and have a high level of openness to experiences of learning.

They concluded that “to some extent the investment in national family policies explains why Australia ranks at the top but the United States and New Zealand rank last in the academic resilience of children from single-parent homes” (p. 695).

Enhanced parental attention and anxiety are seen as facilitating the development of achievement, intellectual ability, and character.

Studies show that parents who wprry more abput their children or.are.anxious on tgeir brhalf facilitate devlopment of achiemenrbt and intellectual ability and character

Maternal employment Since the 1980s, the majority of American mothers have been in employment, although the claim that this was somehow detrimental to their children was still a widely held belief. Goldberg, Prause, Lucas-Thompson, and Himsel (2008) showed that the effects of maternal employment on achievement were indeed trivial (r = 0.032). They could not find differences with respect to SES (middle/upper r = –0.043, lower-middle r = –0.055); ethnicity (white r = –0.028, majority African American and Hispanic r = 0.020), child's age (pre-school r = 0.020, elementary r = 0.061, high school r = 0.019), family structure (one parent r = 0.149, two parent r = –0.009), or whether the work was part time (r = 0.042) or full time (r = –0.005). It does not matter to a child's achievement whether a mother works outside the home or not.

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The adverse effects were greater for females and for those with high IQs.

Her argument was that these differences were more reflective of parental characteristics. Parents of children who allowed unrestricted and unsupervised viewing tended to have fewer expectations and lower educational aspirations for their children than those who assumed greater control over television viewing. She found no support for the displacement hypothesis as leisure reading, sports activities, and spending time with friends all seemed independent of the time spent watching television. There can also be positive effects of television on pro-social behaviors (d = 0.63) and this outweighs the effects of anti-social behaviors (d = 0.30, Hearold, 1980).

Hong and Ho (2005) concluded that parent aspirations were the most important influence on their children's achievement, whereas parental supervision in the forms of monitoring students’ homework, time watching television, and time going out with friends appeared to have a negative effect on the educational aspirations of adolescent students.

Similarly, Rosenzweig (2000) noted that the relationships between student achievement and parental participation (d = 0.56) and supportive parenting (d = 0.43) were much higher than with homework supervision (d = 0.19), participation in school activities (d = 0.14), communication with school and teachers (d = 0.14), monitoring school progress (d = 0.12), providing structure in the home (d = 0.00), and controlling and disciplining parental style (d = –0.09).

Overall, “the higher the hopes and expectations of parents with respect to the educational attainment of their child, the higher the student's own educational expectations and, ultimately, the greater the student's academic achievement” (Hong & Ho, 2005, p. 40). These high expectations are assisted by greater parent-student communication and the student's control over their own studies (see also Fan and Chen, 2001).

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The most successful involvement related to tutoring (d = 0.49), and home visits and interactions by teachers (d = 0.48), and the lowest were parent training (d = 0.15).

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For example, the effect size from studies where parents taught their children specific literacy skills were twice as effective (d = 1.15) as parents listening to their children read (d = 0.51), which, in turn, was much more effective than reading to the child (d = 0.18). These effects were reasonably consistent from kindergarten to grade 3, for students with (d = 0.38) and without reading difficulties (d = 0.74), and for families from different socioeconomic status groups.

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The effect on cognitive outcomes was d = 0.18 and on socio-emotional outcomes d = 0.10.

cognition outcomes was d = 0.39,

the effect on social-behavioral outcomes (social functioning, interpersonal, self-esteem) was d = 1.01.

This seemed to be a consequence of the more powerful effects of parenting (d = 1.06) and parent social functioning (d = 1.52).

Parents have major effects in terms of the encouragement and expectations that they transmit to their children. Many parents, however, struggle to comprehend the language of learning and thus are disadvantaged in the methods they use to encourage their children to attain their expectations.

Too often, the alienation of the home from school reduces the initial expectations. The Flaxmere study, for example, found that, when their children started school, 98 percent of the parents considered that education was very or extremely important to their children's future. Two-thirds of these parents expected their children to attain diplomas and degrees. By the time they left elementary school, these aspirations had been dowsed and the parents mainly wanted their children to “get a job” (Clinton et al., 2007).

Parents should be educated in the language of schooling, so that the home and school can share in the expectations, and the child does not have to live in two worlds—with little understanding between the home and school.

Parental expectations are far more powerful than many of the structural factors of the home (e.g., single or two-parent families, families with resident or non-resident fathers, divorced parents, adopted or non-adopted children, or only children and non-only children).

The message is that, if you take two students of the same ability, it matters not which school they attend, but it may matter greatly who their teacher is. It is not so much that teachers matter, as that the variance within schools indicates that some teachers matter more than others!

most finances in schools are tied up not in discretionary but in fixed costs (such as teacher's salaries, busing, and buildings)

Miron and Nelson (2001) found an effect size of d = 0.20 when comparing achievement in charter and regular schools, but when the lower quality studies were excluded, this difference dropped to zero.

They concluded that, in spite of the topic's importance to the debate over charter schools and school reform, it is striking how little we currently know about the effect of charter schools on student achievement.

The dividend of attending religious schools is supposedly greater for those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Does going to summer school make a difference? In general, not much, but it is difficult to ignore even these small gains if they are critical to students who may be already marginal

the curriculum advantages of larger schools start to reduce in their effectiveness as they grow much beyond 800.

achievement gains in mathematics and reading over the course of high school were largest in middle-sized high schools (600–900 students).

the negative effect of summer did increase with grade level

It may be that if teachers were more attuned to the proficiencies that students bring into their classrooms, then the first month of the school year could be used to recapture the losses from the summer break reasonably quickly.

problems with friendship patterns, particularly friendships to support learning.

involved one-on-one tutoring (d = 0.50 in reading,

their major focus on creating a learning climate free of disruption, a system of clear teaching objectives, and high teacher expectations for teachers and students.

Transformational leadership refers to those principals who engage with their teaching staff in ways that inspire them to new levels of energy, commitment, and

moral purpose such that they work collaboratively to overcome challenges and...

The evidence from the meta-analyses supports the power of the former over the latter in terms of the...

School leaders who focus on students’ achievement and instructional strategies are the most effective (Connell, 1996; Henchey, 2001; Teddlie & Springfield, 1993).

the effects of instructional leadership on student outcomes (d = 0.55) were much greater than the effects of transformational leadership (d = 0.09). Specific

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ensuring an orderly and supportive environment such as protecting time for teaching and learning by reducing external pressures and interruptions and establishing an orderly and supportive environment both inside and outside classrooms (d = 0.49).

One reason for these small effect sizes relates to teachers of smaller classes adopting the same teaching methods as they were using in larger classes and thus not optimizing the opportunities presented by having fewer students (Finn, 2002).

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The results show that tracking has minimal effects on learning outcomes and profound negative equity effects.

teachers focused on remediation through dull, repetitious seatwork

benefit from access to high-status knowledge that low-income students and students of color are denied.

Students of average ability from advantaged families are more likely to be assigned to higher tracks because of actions by their parents, who are often effective managers of their children's schooling