This review presents the relevant scientific findings on the relation between primary school educational achievement and different student characteristics, elements of their social environment, features of schools, the teaching process and specific teachers’ characteristics. The relative contribution of each of the considered attributes in explaining school success and overall effectiveness of these predictors in a given prediction model are illustrated. Results of numerous studies have shown that the basic students’ characteristics, particularly their cognitive abilities, are the best predictors of school success. A much smaller part in the variability of educational achievement can be attributed to the characteristics of the student’s family and its wider social environment, while the rest can be accounted for by characteristics of teachers, elements of the teaching process and school features. In addition to these insights, the paper discusses the use of Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HML) as an adequate statistical-methodological approach in studying this phenomenon.

school achievement, student characteristics, teachers, teaching, school, hierarchical linear modeling