1. Introduction
Secondary schools in the Netherlands are trying to prepare their learners for an increasingly internationally orientated society. One of the ways to do so is the implementation of bilingual study programs at schools (the program is called TTO, Tweetalig Onderwijs). Moreover, schools can distinguish themselves from other schools by offering a bilingual program. Out of 659 secondary schools in the Netherlands, 123 currently offer bilingual education (European Platform, 2013). At TTO schools, pupils have their classes in English in the lower forms. They get at least 560 hours per year of lessons in subjects such as biology, geography and history. In addition, they receive 280 hours a year of English. The remaining 200 hours are taught in Dutch (European Platform, 2013). In the upper forms, the pupils prepare for the Dutch exam and have additional lessons in the English languages.
There are multiple benefits of TTO education. According to Dessing (2012) pupils enrolled in a TTO program develop a much better command of the English language, they are more challenged, become involved “citizens of the world” and develop a stronger positive self-image. The enrolment in a TTO program does not lead to underperformance in Dutch or in subjects as mathematics or geography that have been taught in English.
TTO covers mainly VWO (Voorbereidend Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs, pre-university secondary education), and in few cases also HAVO (Hoger Algemeen Voortgezet Onderwijs, higher general continued education) or VMBO (Voorbereidend Middelbaar Beroeps Onderwijs, vocational education). Even though TTO programs have become popular, schools are faced with challenges. For example, an aging population in some parts of the Netherlands leads to less pupils enrolling in schools. This may cause a need to raise enrolment levels of pupils in order to keep a viable TTO program. With this in mind, the authors had been invited by a TTO school in the Netherlands to undertake a problem based research project. From hereafter the authors will refer to the school involved in the research as ISB.
In this research, the authors intended to investigate the factors that influence the perception of the TTO program at ISB among pupils attending the school and their parents. The final aim was to advise the school about the possibilities for improving the communication about the TTO program towards different groups of pupils and their parents.
This research can also benefit other institutions, because even though the results are specific to an individual school, the type of questionnaire and our method could be used for a different school. The results could be useful to other schools, since it gives an idea about the perception of TTO by pupils and their parents. Furthermore, this research has a practical relevance to the
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European Platform, a Dutch agency that aims to stimulate the internationalization of Dutch secondary education because it illustrates the opinion that TTO pupils, non-TTO pupils and their parents have.
2. Context
ISB has offered the TTO program since 2005. At present, the school has about 35 pupils attending the TTO program. Because of past experiences and future developments, the management of the TTO program formulated an assignment for a practice-based research.
ISB is a school for HAVO/(T)VWO in a small city in the middle of The Netherlands. In 2017, the school had 249 pupils mainly from the surrounding area. In 2018, staff numbered 47 teachers (36,8 full-time employees) and 25 other employees (19,8 full-time employees). In comparison to the Dutch average, the exam results of the school are average, however, there was a slight underperformance at the VWO level in 2015. There are three more schools that offer pre-university education in the same area as ISB.
ISB offers a TTO program with a lot of extracurricular activities such as internships abroad and trips to English speaking countries. The program is aimed at high achievers with a CITO Score (A test in the Netherlands taken in grade 8 of primary school in order to advice about the most appropriate further education for pupil) the participating student could be an image. of 545 or more (J. Stiphout, 2013). Despite the efforts to offer a high quality TTO program, the number of participants is still relatively small at ISB. In the present year, there was one class of 30 pupils. Unfortunately, the school has had to refuse students because there have not been enough enrolments to make two classes. As some students drop out during the program, the number of pupils in the higher forms becomes smaller. Teaching smaller groups is more expensive for the school. If groups become too small, the threshold may not be met anymore and the school may be forced to end the program. The school would like to retain as many students as possible in TTO and preferably attract more students to strengthen the program further.
In order to promote the TTO program, the school sends information to primary schools, distributes information at the “open house” in January, organizes a specific evening for people with an interest in TTO and has a subpage about the TTO on the school’s website.
3. Theoretical Framework
To support this research a theoretical framework has been formulated. The choice as to whether to enrol in the TTO program is a very specific concern; there are many different aspects that come in to play. As a matter of fact, it is an example of a “once in a life time” decision that can be considered to be a “trade-off”. We define a trade-off is a situation that involves losing one quality or aspect of something in return for gaining another quality or aspect. Pupils who choose TTO do not choose a regular school career and vice versa. These concepts of choice, perceptions and opportunities all come in to play in the theoretical framework, explained below.
3.1 Research to date on school choice
At the moment in literature there is little knowledge about motives to enroll in TTO and to resign from TTO. There is, however, an academic debate about motives for parents and pupils to enroll in different types of education. The motives to choose for schools may be relevant for a study about choosing a career within a school as well. What follows is a discussion of some of the motives to choose for a school that have been identified by relevant research.
In 2005, Bell researched the reasons and backgrounds that influence parents to select a school or college for their children in the U.S.A. The author found that educational attainment of the parents, family income, available information, and the child’s prior academic record influenced school choice. In other studies (Bell, after David 1994) the motives for the choice were subdivided into three P’s: “the academic results or Performance, the atmosphere/ethos or Pleasant feel; and the school’s location or Proximity to home”.
Bell concluded that parents prefer schools which have better results, are welcoming and inviting, are close to home, match their values, and have high levels of parental involvement both in and out of school. In another article (2009), Bell concluded that schooling markets are often perceived as open, unbiased and fair. This means that parents and pupils have a freedom of choice and are well informed to choose the best school available. Bell concluded that this is not the case: parents are prone to “bounded rationality”. They construct a choice set from where they choose a school: that is, they cannot take all alternatives into account when choosing a school. There are almost invisible and social and historical inequities that constrain the schools parents are willing to consider.
Regarding the discussion about this topic in U.S.A., literature about school choice is often based on what is known as the “trap hypothesis” (Lukas 2008). According to Ben-Porath (2009) children from a low-income household in an urban area, with mostly parents from a minority cultural background, are “trapped” by default in their potential choice of
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school. Those children could have better school results if their parents had better access to information about the schools in their surroundings. According to the “trap hypothesis”, school choice is a prominent example of choice based on social policies. Public institutions that are in charge of enabling school choice need to pay close attention to minimizing the cost of information acquisition. According to a liberal theory of the state, an informed citizen can only make the best choice for a school career based on clear information.
Ben-Porath also concluded that the classic “rational choice” axiom does not hold in school choice. The author cited Kahneman and Tversky (1982) to illustrate that choice acts primarily on the basis of intuition and other factors beyond a stricter model of rational calculation. An example to clarify this concept was a study showing that parents believe that if they send their children to suburban schools, they will do better academically.
One of the conclusions of Ben-Porath’s article (2009) is that framing the choice set is a meaningful way to influence the school choice decision. School choice policies should take into account diversity of personal backgrounds, the contexts and the challenges that those present. Parents strive to be rational when making a school choice, but they usually feel that they fail.
In the Netherlands, school choice is not a target of social policy. There is, however, a tendency to make performance indicators of schools available about schools to support parents with the choice of a school. For example, the website 10000scholen.nl provides information as diverse as exam results, the age structure of the staff, the percentage of employees employed in non-teaching jobs and the dropout rate of the school.
According to Konings and van der Wiel (2010) “the Netherlands presents an interesting setting to study the direct effect of information on school choice. It is a densely populated country, so that within a ten kilometre radius a child can reach on average 11 relevant secondary schools. Negligible school fees, good public transport, and more importantly, unrestricted free school choice furthermore ensure that school choice reflects preferences more strongly than in countries with school catchment areas and heterogeneity in school fees.” In their research they investigated the relation between quality assessment of schools by a Dutch newspaper (Trouw) and school choice. They found that its quality score affects the probability of attending a school. This is especially true for the pre-university education, although the choice is still driven mainly by the distance between the school and home address. Based on an analysis of the school choice of 23,923 pupils, Konings and van der Wiel (2010) found that pupils are willing to travel 220 meters more in order to attend a well-performing rather than an average school. They did not find differences in information
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responses between socio-economic groups. On the contrary, Bell (2005) and Bast (2004) showed that in the United States there is an unequal distribution of information among parents of different socio-economic groups about school choice.
Even though choice sets for school selection in the Netherlands may be more equal than elsewhere, it is still relevant to investigate this topic. Using the concept of bounded rationality as coined by Simon (1955) and also applied by Kahneman (1982), we may assume that school choice (and also the choice to be made for enrolment in a TTO program) is limited by three tree unavoidable constraints (Simon, 1955):
(1) Only limited, often unreliable, information is available regarding possible alternatives and their consequences;
(2) The human mind has only limited capacity to evaluate and process the information that is available;
(3) Only a limited amount of time is available to gather information and make a decision.
Some of these factors may influence the limitations of bounded rationality. Ben-Porath (2009) citing Mcgrath and Kuriloff (1999) explains that higher socio-economic status individuals are more likely to have higher quality education networks. Networks can reduce the cost of information gathering. By making data about available schools and their desirability more accessible, the quality of one’s network has an influence on the decision. In the next section, a conceptual model is presented that can be used to apply the insights from school choice theory (based on bounded rationality) as discussed above to the choices made with regard to bilingual education at ISB.
3.2 A conceptual model for school choice at ISB
Since this is an exploratory research, there is not an existing and proven conceptual model that we have been able to draw on. According to Routio (2007), the procedure to come to a conceptual model could be described as follows: “Start from what is known. Proceed by enlarging the mapped area, and connect the new intelligence to the known facts.” Therefore, the first phase to our research was to undertake the formulation of an effective and relevant conceptual model. For this research, the authors think that the factors influencing school choice may be applicable to choosing a TTO education at ISB, albeit this is a rather hypothetical assumption and the conceptual framework has therefore a hypothetical character.
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A primary function of a conceptual framework is to map the terrain surrounding the research subject. Each identified concept may represent a specific area about which information is needed. The conceptual framework defines the scope of the research, shows important concepts and places these into a logical structure showing the most important relationships, connections and influences that exist between concepts.
Based on the survey of relevant literature discussed above, it became clear that a decision in the choice of TTO or not is affected by bounded rationality. If we apply the constraints from Simon’s model (1995) on the choice for a TTO education, we find the following constraints:
• Pupils and parents may have limited knowledge about TTO education and its benefits. They may not be aware of (all) the benefits that TTO education offers and alternative choices and their consequences.
• Pupils and parents have only limited capacity to evaluate and process the information that is available about TTO. Maybe they were aware that ISB offers TTO, but they did not consider this to be an option.
• Only a limited amount of time is available to gather information and make a decision
about a school choice. Joining a TTO program is possible at the start of school career, not in the higher grades.
Based on the context and the theoretical framework, the following conceptual model has been designed:
Figure 1: Conceptual model “Choosing TTO education at ISB”.
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The model can be read as follows: the pupils and parents have characteristics that may influence the choice for a TTO education. The cost of the TTO is about €400, more than regular education. If parents are short of money, they may decide not to take TTO into consideration. For the pupils, meeting the requirements (CITO score of 545 or higher), will be crucial. A second part of the conceptual model is the information available. People with knowledge about international culture, may be more prone to choose TTO. People with good knowledge about the costs and benefits may be more inclined to choose TTO. Here we introduce the two concepts of perceived value and perceived cost. A perception is the way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted. This may be based on factual information, but not necessarily. To give an example: parents may think that TTO education is harmful for the command of the Dutch language, although research suggests that this is not the case (Verspoor et al, 2010).
3.3 Research Questions
In this research, the authors aimed to measure the perception of parents and pupils at ISB about TTO. The research focused on those pupils who attend TTO, who have attended TTO and who could have attended TTO. As a common denominator, all the students had a CITO score of 545 or higher. The authors compared the perceptions of the parents and the pupils with the intended value of the school and of the focus group.
The main question has been formulated in cooperation with the person in charge of the TTO program at ISB.
Main research question:
What is the perceived value (understood in terms of perceived benefits, costs and risk) of the TTO program at ISB as shown by pupils and their parents who choose for it in comparison with the intended value of the program as conceived by the TTO staff of the school?
Sub-questions:
1. What is an effective conceptual model for examining school choice in a bilingual context?
2. What are the background characteristics of the pupils and their parents who choose for TTO at ISB?
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3. What are the background characteristics of the pupils and their parents who do not choose for TTO at ISB?
4. Is the possibility to follow TTO education an important reason to decide for a school career at ISB?
5. How do teachers perceive the value and the cost of participating in the TTO program at ISB?
6. How do parents and students perceive the value and the cost of participating in the TTO program at ISB?
7. Is the perception of the parents and pupils different from the perception as conceived by the TTO teachers at ISB?
8. Can the conceptual model (based on bounded rationality) be used in an educational setting?
4. Methodology
Two different approaches have been used. In the first exploratory phase of the research, the authors used an action based research approach. In order to become familiar with the situation at ISB, several interviews were held with the coordinator of the TTO program. Moreover, as suggested by literature, a “Focus Group” session was organized with several teachers of the TTO program. A “focus group” is defined by Powell (1996) as a group of individuals selected and assembled by researchers to discuss and comment on, from personal experience, the topic that is the subject of the research. It may enable researchers to draw upon the attitude of respondent’s attitudes, feelings, beliefs, experiences and reactions that may not be available with other methods. Furthermore, “Focus Groups” are useful in particular when there are power differences between participants and decision-makers or professionals, when the everyday use of language and culture of particular groups is of interest, and when one wants to explore the degree of consensus on a given topic (Gibbs 1997; Morgan, 1997).
In our research, the outcomes of the panel session (discussed in the results section below) were firstly used to enrich the background information of the research project, secondly, to help tailor the conceptual model (see the conceptual model above) and thirdly, to receive input for the second phase of the research.
In the second phase of the research, the author developed a questionnaire for the different target groups, which was sent out to be completed online in 2017
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