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Part I: A National and International Perspective![]()
1
LINKING RESOURCES TO LEARNING OUTCOMES
Rosalind LevaÄiÄ
DO RESOURCES MATTER?
There is a paradox concerning the relationship between expenditure on education and outcomes. While parents, students, teachers and managers are convinced that with more resources they could produce better educational outcomes, the findings of academic research on the link between educational expenditure per student and educational outputs at the school, college or system level are still subject to much controversy. Eric Hanushek, a leading US researcher in this field, concluded from literature surveys that: âThe close to 400 studies of student achievement demonstrate that there is not a close or consistent relationship between student performance and school resourcesâ (Hanushek, 1997, p. 141). However, in an analysis restricted to good quality US studies, Laine, Greenwald and Hedges concluded:
resource variables such as per pupil expenditure show positive, strong and consistent relations with [student] achievement. Smaller classes and smaller schools are also positively related to student achievement. In addition, resource variables that attempt to describe the quality of the teachers (teacher ability, teacher education and teacher experience) show very strong relations with student achievement. Indeed the most consistently positive relation is that of teacher ability.
(Laine, Greenwald and Hedges, 1996, pp. 57â8)
In the UK, we do not have the range of research on resources and learning outcomes that is funded in the USA to draw upon in order to inform practice and policy. However, the Labour government, demonstrating a belief that both the quantity of spending and what it is spent on matter, increased educational spending by ÂŁ19 billion over the years 1999â2002. It also introduced a number of specific expenditure programmes, such as reducing all classes of 5- to 7-year-olds to 30 or below.
What we do have in the UK is considerable discretion at school and college level to determine the allocation of a delegated budget. This power places great responsibility in the hands of school and college managers and governing bodies to allocate resources to the best possible effect. Schools and colleges are held accountable for the quality of their resource management, through external financial audit and inspection. Thus great reliance is placed on the quality of the professional judgements of decision-makers in educational organizations.
Given the state of knowledge, this chapter cannot provide a blueprint for efficient patterns of resource allocation in education. Rather the chapter aims to clarify thinking about the relationship between resources and learning outcomes in order to promote better understanding and improved decision-making.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
In this chapter âlearning outcomesâ is used as a catch-all term to refer to desired impacts on studentsâ learning as a consequence of experiencing a formal programme of education. This learning includes both cognitive attainment, as can be measured by tests and examinations, as well as the development of desirable skills, attitudes and behaviour. The latter in particular are difficult, if not impossible, to measure. Consequently, those learning outcomes that can be measured predominate in quantitative research on the relationships between resource inputs and learning outcomes. However, when determining resource allocations, education managers and policy-makers need to take into account both measurable and intangible learning outcomes.
Learning outcomes also differ according to the time-scale over which they occur. Education economists usually distinguish between educational outputs and outcomes. The outputs of an educational organization are the direct effects it has on its students in terms of their acquiring knowledge, skills, beliefs and attitudes. Educational outcomes are the longer-term impacts on individuals and on society of the educational provision received at some earlier date. The additional income individuals earn as a result of their education is a direct private monetary benefit. Other learning outcomes are less easily measurable, such as the enjoyment of cultural activities, and include those outcomes that benefit society as a whole as well as the individual, such as adherence to moral codes of behaviour and participation in democratic institutions.
Thus the term âlearning outcomesâ is used in this chapter to include both outputs and outcomes and has a particular focus on the learning outcomes of the school, college or university for its students. Because of the greater ease of measurement, examination results, test scores and student destinations (to employment or to the next stage of education) are the most frequently used measures of outputs of educational organizations. Given the importance of studentsâ prior attainment and social background factors in determining their later educational attainment, educational organizationsâ outputs can only be fairly measured using value-added statistical techniques which take account of these factors. As these measures are statistical estimates they cannot be treated as precise measures of educational outputs, but only as reasonably good indicators within a stated range of probability.
The danger of focusing on measurable outputs is that the less easily measured and intangible outputs, which are nevertheless important, get neglected. Another problem for educational organizations is what relative weight to give to different educational outputs (e.g. knowledge in depth of mathematics and language compared to breadth of knowledge over a wide range of subjects; knowledge of academic subjects versus personal and social skills). Sometimes different outcomes can be produced together (e.g. co-operative learning can promote both social and cognitive objectives) but at other times one learning outcome can be produced only at the expense of less time spent on another. Also what is viewed as desirable educational outputs and outcomes is contested, affected as it is by customs, values and interests.
Despite all these difficulties, policy-makers and educational managers have to make choices and decide how best to use the resources over which they have discretion in order to achieve learning outcomes for students. This book aims to assist in clarifying thinking about these important issues and in providing guidance for such decision-making.
The rest of the chapter is split into the following sections:
- Organizational perspectives: this examines how resource management is conceived from different organizational perspectives.
- An organizational framework for understanding resource management: this includes a review of key terms, such as efficiency, effectiveness and equity.
- Linking resources to learning outcomes at organizational level.
- System-level incentives.
ORGANIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
The organization and its operational core
Organizational theory informs our understanding of the nature of links between resources and learning in schools, colleges and universities. We need to consider both the links that are internal to the organization and those which connect the organization to its external environment. Every organization concerned with the production of goods or services has what Mintzberg (1979) refers to as its operational core, where the primary activity, which is the purpose of the organization, takes place. For educational organizations the operational core is teaching and learning. Teachers and students are members of the operational core and the âcore technologyâ is teaching and learning.
The organizationâs resources that are directly utilized in teaching and learning are clearly teachers, classroom support staff (e.g. teaching assistants, laboratory and information technology (IT) technicians) and curriculum support resources1 (i.e. books, stationery, materials and equipment).
In order to support its operational core, an organization has to provide other functions (Mintzberg, 1979). One is leadership and management, including the strategy of positioning the organization in relation to its external environment. The operational core also needs support staff who provide services such as routine administration, cleaning and maintenance of the premises and an environment conducive to the work of the core. The key point is that some resource management is not concerned directly with learning but with providing the environment within which learning can take place. It is unlikely that direct links between the amount of expenditure on the learning environment and the learning outcomes of students can be established, though this expenditure is still necessary to support learning.
The distinction between the operational core and the support services part of the educational organization is an important one. There is a tension between the proportion of the budget that should be spent on each. Judgements have to be exercised on the appropriate division and to what extent expenditures on support functions are justified by the needs of the operational core.
Also crucial for resource management is the impact of the external environment on the educational organization. Hoy and Miskel (1989, p. 34) define the external environment to âconsist of those relevant physical and social factors outside the boundaries of the organization that are taken into consideration in the decision-making behaviour of individuals in that systemâ. The relationship of the organization with its external environment is crucial in relation to resources. The more open an organization is to its external environment and the more dependent it is on securing support from its stakeholders, the more its survival and success depend on sustaining a flow of resources into the organization and providing stakeholders with the services they demand.
The three key layers of organizational structure are depicted in Figure 1.1. These layers interact. The nature of the external environment is in part dependent on the way in which the educational system as a whole is organized for allocating resources to its constituent organizations â schools and colleges. Thus the introduction of quasi-market arrangements, whereby school and college budgets depend largely on the numbers and types of students recruited and where students have choice of institution, has greatly increased organizational dependence on the external environment. In turn, the advocacy of quasi-market arrangements for schools and colleges has been largely predicated on a view that financial incentives will induce educational organizations to improve their performance, just as they do for commercial organizations.
Figure 1.1 Organizational structure: core, support services and external environment
ORGANIZATION PERSPECTIVES AND EFFECTIVENESS
How one conceives of the linkage of resources to learning outcomes depends on the organizational perspective adopted. Three broad perspectives are frequently identified, as, for example, by Scott (1987) and Scheerens (1999), who relate organizational theory to school effectiveness research. These perspectives are:
- rational systems;
- natural systems or human relations approach;
- open systems.
The organization as a rational system
In this view the organization is defined as a collectivity with a distinct purpose. It has clear aims and goals, which are pursued through formal structures and rational decision-making. This requires the evaluation of alternative courses of action using relevant information and the selection of the alternative judged likely to be most successful in achieving the organizationâs goals. From the rational perspective organizational effectiveness is assessed in relation to how well organizational aims and objectives are achieved. The rational model is discussed further in Chapter 8.
A technical-rational model of school and college management has been promoted and strengthened by the educational policies pursued by governments around the world since the late 1980s. In the UK, for example, schools, colleges and universities are now held accountable through inspection for their educational standards. It is manifest, for example, in the OFSTED inspection framework (OFSTED, 1995a; 1995b; 1995c). Schools are expected to have clear aims and objectives, which should include the pursuit of high academic standards and the moral, social and personal development of students as reflected in the ethos of the school. The 1992 Education Act introduced the requirement that schools and colleges should be evaluated not only for the quality of their educational provision, but also for the efficiency of their resource management. Similar developments have occurred in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and in an increasing number of US states and Canadian school districts.
Organizations as natural systems
Whereas the rational perspective conceives of the organization as a goal-pursuing entity, the natural systems perspective focuses on the organization as a social unit and on the processes of social interaction between members. The organization is seen to exist in order to serve the human needs of its members. Thus its effectiveness is judged in relation to its ability to satisfy these needs and to promote social harmony between members. Staff morale and support are key measures of effectiveness. Management is therefore primarily concerned with human relations and with the creation and maintenance of social harmony. In Chapter 8, Tony Bush exa...
