The role of socioeconomic status and school quality in the Philippines: Revisiting the Heyneman–Loxley effect

In 1983, Heyneman and Loxley stated that in low income countries, school-level factors could account for a greater proportion of variance in student achievement as compared to student-level characteristics. The phenomenon has come to be known as the “HL effect” and signaled the important role of schools in developing countries. This study investigated the presence of the HL effect using a longitudinal sample of 1790 11.5-year-old students from 60 schools in a developing country, the Philippines. The main variables of interest were related to socioeconomic status and proxy measures of school quality. The correlates of achievement were explored using two-level multilevel modeling, while controlling for students’ prior ability. While findings did not support the presence of the HL effect in the sample, with schools accounting for only 3–5% of overall conditional variance, schools were found to be important in the production of higher achievement scores.