Explaining Waldorf students’ high motivation but moderate achievement in science: is inquiry-based science education the key?

Large-scale Assessments in Education

An IERI – International Educational Research Institute Journal

Table 2 Univariate findings for PISA 2006 (N = 5080)

Construct	WS (N = 153)		Non WS (N = 4927)
Construct	M	SD	M	SD	d (WS-MS)
Student background
Gender (1 = female/0 = male)	0.58	0.49	0.49	0.50	0.18
Immigration background (1 = yes/0 = no)	0.11	0.31	0.13	0.34	− 0.08
Index of parental education in years of schooling	15.41	2.03	13.75	2.33	0.71
Index of parental occupational status	62.11	15.44	48.31	16.58	0.83
Index of cultural possessions at home	0.84	0.73	0.07	0.96	0.80
Instruction and outcome variables
Enjoyment of science	0.41	0.94	-0.21	1.10	0.57
General interest in learning science PISA 2006	0.52	0.74	0.05	0.89	0.53
Science achievement	523.90	81.50	510.84	97.86	0.13
Single IBSE variables assessed in both PISA 2006 and 2015 (percentage of students who report that this happens in most or in all science lessons)
Students are given opportunities to explain their ideas (2006)	0.86	0.35	0.54	0.50	0.63
Students are given opportunities to explain their ideas (2015)	0.85	0.36	0.62	0.48	0.47
Students spend time in the laboratory doing practical experiments (2006)	0.65	0.48	0.16	0.37	1.32
Students spend time in the laboratory doing practical experiments (2015)	0.66	0.48	0.18	0.38	1.25
Students are asked to draw conclusions from an experiment they have conducted (2006)	0.83	0.38	0.38	0.49	0.92
Students are asked to draw conclusions from an experiment they have conducted (2015)	0.81	0.40	0.28	0.45	1.17
Students are allowed to design their own experiments (2006)	0.27	0.45	0.12	0.33	0.45
Students are allowed to design their own experiments (2015)	0.24	0.43	0.11	0.31	0.44

Results are based on imputed manifest scores weighted by PISA total student weight. Cohen's d is computed relative with the SD of the weighted total Austrian PISA 2015 sample before matching. Scores for science achievement are based on plausible values, scores for all other instruction and outcome scales are based on Warm's Mean Weighted Likelihood Estimates (WLE)
WS Waldorf students