The effectiveness of alternative education: A study on the differences in cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes between Dalton schools and traditional schools in primary education

With nearly four hundred schools, Dalton education is the largest form of alternative education in the Netherlands. Given the size and popularity of Dalton education, it is rather remarkable that the effects of these alternative schools have scarcely been the subject of research and the research that does exist suffers from methodological limitations or reveals indistinct results. The aim of the present study is to compare the cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes and citizenship competencies of students attending Dalton schools with those of students from traditional schools. We compared the scores of students in kindergarten, grades 3 and 6 on language, reading, mathematics (cognitive outcomes), well-being, cognitive self-esteem, task-motivation (non-cognitive outcomes) and citizenship competencies, based on data that were collected in a national cohort study (COOL5-18). Most of our analysis showed no significant differences between the scores of students attending Dalton schools and those from traditional schools.