Agregar o no agregar valor contextual en lenguaje: un estudio de caso instrumental en dos establecimientoos chilenos de educacion media

This article reports a qualitative case study (Stake, 1995) carried out in two Chilean secondary schools, oriented to examine the school processes and/or dimensions that might explain observed differences in schools’ Contextual Value Added (CVA) scores in language. After analysing a longitudinal sample of a cohort of 176,896 students nested within 2,283 schools that took SIMCE tests in grades 8/10 in 2004-2006 and their family questionnaires through the statistical technique of multilevel modelling (Goldstein, 1995), schools’ CVA scores were used to choose one school with low and one with high performance. Complementing an analytical framework drawn from the literature (Scheerens, Glas, & Thomas, 2003), the study identified 11 dimensions that appeared to differentiate, as well as 5 dimensions that appeared similarly problematic in both schools. These dimensions were broadly in line -but also qualify and extended- the findings of a seminal Chilean Educational Effectiveness Research (EER) study (Belleï, Muñoz, Pérez, & Raczynski, 2004). This new evidence, although tentative and exploratory, locates the features of more and less effective Chilean secondary schools within the broader literature review on EER. Finally, the study provides timely contributions to the new assessment framework in place in Chile with the potential to inform and enhance educational policy and practice.