Secular vs. Islamic Education: An Investigation of Factors Affecting English Achievement Gaps between Sekolah and Madrasah Schools in South Sulawesi, Indonesia

Abstract

In the last decades, there has been a growing interest regarding the underperformance of students in language learning in Islamic or Madrasah education compared to those attending secular or non-Islamic schools. Although numerous investigations have sought to explore the possible factors influencing poor learning outcomes for Madrasah students, there remains an insufficiency of existing research which adequately investigates the multifaced nature of these complex issues. For this reason, this study aims to shed light on the absence of current investigations by examining the disparities in student English achievement between Indonesian secular, or Sekolah, and Islamic, or Madrasah, schools, specifically possible factors such as school demographics, autonomy, resources, climates, teacher demographics and characteristics, professional development, cooperative competencies, job-related attitudes, teaching effectiveness, student demographics, wellbeing and learning behaviours, as well as how those factors contribute differently through direct and indirect effects on student performance. This study involved 30 schools, 64 English teachers and 1,319 Year 12 students from Indonesian secular (Sekolah) and Islamic (Madrasah) schools. They were selected using a multi-stratified sample design and completed questionnaires and tests, and six school principals and six teachers from both groups, identified using random purposive sampling, were interviewed. Through a series of analyses including descriptive statistics, independent sample t-tests and a three-way ANOVA using SPSS, Multi-Group/Structural Equation Modelling (MG/SEM) with Mplus, Hierarchical Linear Modelling using HLM, and thematic analysis with NVivo software, this study offers some interesting findings. For example, a new trend of English achievement gaps between secular and Islamic schools was revealed with Madrasah students obtaining higher scores than secular students. The poorer English scores of boys who were enrolled in full-day and private secular schools might become a very critical issue given the lowest overall scores were achieved by the Sekolah group. Simultaneously, this study highlighted that student learning motivation contributed a weak effect on student achievement in Islamic schools, while no direct effect of motivation on performance was detected in secular schools. The strong influences of wellbeing and learning problems (‘anxiety and difficulty’) on student English achievements, in contrast, were evident in both groups and these need to be prioritized. For the effects of teacher-level factors, the findings show that teacher professional development and cooperative competencies through collaboration and team-teaching have direct and indirect effects on their attitudes (efficacy and job satisfaction) and teaching performance as well as on student learning across the groups. Likewise, the significant roles of autonomous schools, school resources and positive school climates, such as teacher morale and support, were found to facilitate effective teaching and learning in secular and Islamic schools. The disciplinary and achievement pressures showed different effects on student English achievement in both groups; high disciplinary climates and low achievement pressures were aligned with better performance in secular schools, while greater pressure to achieve and lower discipline were aligned with higher English achievement in Islamic schools. However, this study acknowledges that low efficacy, a lack of job satisfaction and inadequate learning facilities in Islamic schools, as well as poor quality resources in secular schools, are still problematic and may hinder school, teaching and learning effectiveness. Finally, advanced instrument validity tests, Measurement Invariance (MI) and Differential Item Functioning (DIF) analysis were used to obtain a reliable and meaningful comparison.