School productive performance and technology gaps: new evidence from PISA 2018

Improving educational outcomes is a global political imperative due to its favourable influence on a country’s economic prosperity. Although researchers have endeavoured to gauge school performance through diverse data resources and techniques, there remains a lack of clarity regarding the factors that enhance school effectiveness. Using the latest version of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA, 2018), this paper employs a bootstrapped data envelopment analysis (DEA) to investigate the factors underlying the performance of 8825 schools across 34 OECD countries in terms of their national and international technological capabilities. The central idea is that technological heterogeneity and the technology gap significantly influence the benchmarking process. The findings confirm the presence of substantial technology gaps, indicating that the examined schools are unable to fully harness their potential due to limitations in metatechnology. These gaps are influenced by student characteristics, school features and educational practices.

提升教育成果是一项全球性政治要务，因其对一国经济繁荣具有积极推动作用。尽管研究者已尝试通过多元数据资源与技术手段评估学校办学绩效，但学界对于提升学校效能的核心影响因素仍缺乏清晰认知。本文采用最新版国际学生评估项目（Programme for International Student Assessment，简称PISA，2018）数据，运用bootstrap数据包络分析（DEA），针对34个经合组织（OECD）成员国的8825所学校，从国家与国际技术能力维度探究其办学绩效的核心影响因素。本研究的核心逻辑在于，技术异质性与技术缺口会对基准测评流程产生显著影响。研究结果证实了显著技术缺口的存在，表明受限于元技术瓶颈，受访学校无法充分挖掘自身办学潜力。此类技术缺口受学生特征、学校办学条件与教育实践的共同影响。