Effectiveness of School Management Systems in Inclusive Education: A Meta-Analysis of Educational and Organizational Outcomes

Abstract

This study aims to examine, through meta-analysis, the effectiveness of school management systems on educational and organizational outcomes in the context of inclusive education. In the study conducted in the Web of Science and Scopus databases in May 2026, 121 studies were identified, and after the inclusion/exclusion criteria were applied, 15 independent studies representing a total of 6,275 participants were included in the analysis. Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) was taken as the basis for calculating effect sizes; different statistical indicators were converted to r by standard formulas and synthesized using a random-effects model. Operationally, effect size was defined as Pearson's r, and all reported statistics (beta, t, and mean/standard deviation values) were converted to r using standard formulas, Fisher's z-transformed prior to synthesis, and interpreted using Cohen's (1988) benchmarks. The findings showed that school management systems had a statistically significant and medium-to-large effect on inclusive education outcomes. A high level of heterogeneity was observed across studies, which made it necessary to conduct moderator analyses. According to the results of the funnel plot and the trim-and-fill test, the risk of publication bias was found to be low. In the moderator analyses, only the type of measured outcome led to a significant differentiation in the overall effect size; stakeholder type was close to the boundary but remained below the significance threshold, whereas publication year and cultural context did not reveal a significant difference. In light of these findings, future research is recommended to deepen moderator analyses with a larger number of studies, to increase studies focusing particularly on special education and psychological/emotional outcome categories, and to examine inclusive school management practices comparatively across different cultural contexts.