School value-added models for multivariate academic and non-academic outcomes: A more rounded approach to using student data to inform school accountability

Abstract: Education systems around the world increasingly rely on school value-added models to hold schools to account. These models typically focus on a limited number of academic outcomes, failing to recognise the broader range of non-academic student outcomes, attitudes and behaviours to which schools contribute. We explore how the traditional multilevel modelling approach to school value-added models can be extended to simultaneously analyse multiple academic and non-academic outcomes and thereby can potentially provide a more rounded approach to using student data to inform school accountability. We jointly model student attainment, absence and exclusion data for schools in England. We find different results across the three outcomes, in terms of the size and consistency of school effects, and the importance of adjusting for student and school characteristics. The results suggest the three outcomes are capturing fundamentally distinct aspects of school performance, recommending the consideration of non-academic outcomes in systems of school accountability.