The main interest of researchers in this area had been trying to
define and measure the school output, identifying the factors that influence
it most and linking the former with the latter while respecting the sector’s
special characteristics. The measurement of educational output is usually restricted to those aspects that are relatively easy to measure and are directly related
to the basic objectives of the relevant educational level. In the case of
secondary education, it is usual to use the results achieved by students in
an homogeneous test for all schools at the end of the school year.
With respect to inputs, despite the difficulties presented by the
specification of an educational production function, there is empirical
evidence to identify the factors that have a greater
influence on school output. The Coleman Report (1966), which analysed the behaviour of a
broad sample of non
-university educational schools and is one of the most
influential studies in the literature, concluded that the characteristics of
pupils – a variable on which the centres in principle do not exercise any