Resources and Student Achievement—Evidence from a Swedish Policy Reform*

A policy change is used to estimate the effect of teacher density on student performance. We find that an increase in teacher density has a positive effect on student achievement. The baseline estimate—obtained by using the grade‐point average as the outcome variable—implies that resource increases corresponding to the class‐size reduction in the STAR experiment (a reduction of seven students) improves performance by 2.6 percentile ranks (or 0.08 standard deviations). When we used test‐score data for men, potentially a more objective measure of student performance, the effect of resources appears to be twice as large.     

Financial Student Aid and Enrollment in Higher Education: New Evidence from Germany*

Means‐tested student aid might affect enrollment in higher education. To derive the potential influence of student aid, we use a tax‐benefit microsimulation model. The effect is a non‐linear function of parental income, with variation as a result of bracket creeping and various reforms. Therefore, the effect of student aid on enrollment can be separated from the effects of income and other family characteristics. Using the German Socio‐Economic Panel, we find a small but significant positive effect, similar in size to the effects reported in previous studies for European countries but smaller than in the US.     

The Lasting Effects of an Introductory Economics Course: An Exploratory Study

The author advocates the application of experiential learning in economics courses at the tertiary level. The author evaluates a range of learning methods, both passive and active, in a student survey that provides data on under-graduate attitudes to various class activities. The results indicate a clear student preference for learning activities in economics that can be described as experiential. Analysis of reported student preferences also detects differences according to gender and day or evening class attendance.     

Do peers affect childhood obesity outcomes? Peer‐effect analysis in public schools

This study investigates whether obese peers are a contributing factor in childhood body‐weight outcomes. Using an instrumental variables method on exogenously assigned peers (i.e., new peers), we find that the weight of peers within the same grade and school significantly impacts body mass index (BMI) z‐score of an individual student. The size of the peer effect, however, is negligible. We find no evidence of interaction between newly assigned peer groups prior to assignment. Furthermore, the obese peers variable is significant only for those peers with whom a student interacts.     

EXAM SCHEDULING AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE

This paper uses data from a single School of a UK university to estimate the impact of a switch from end‐of‐semester to end‐of‐year final exams on student performance. The identification strategy exploits the fact that while the timing of final exams changed, the timing of mid‐term exams remained the same. Estimates are based on a difference‐in‐differences methodology that compares final and mid‐term exam scores after the switch, with final and mid‐term exam scores before the switch. The empirical findings suggest that the shift of final exams to the end of the academic year had a negative effect on student achievement. Many changes in higher education are often done on the basis of financial, administrative or ideological considerations, underestimating the magnitude of their effect on student learning and student performance.     

Relative Age,Class Assignment,and Academic Performance: Evidence from Brazilian Primary Schools

Students in Brazil are typically assigned to classes based on the age ranking in their cohort. I exploit this rule to estimate how fifth‐grade students’ achievement in mathematics is affected when they are in classes with older peers. I find that being assigned to the older class leads to a drop in maths scores of about 0.4 of a standard deviation for students at the cut‐off. I provide evidence that heterogeneity in age is an important factor behind this effect. Information on teaching practices and student behaviour sheds light on how class heterogeneity harms learning.     

The Principles of Economics Course: A Historical Perspective

The author's research provides an amusing and thoughtful account of what has happened to the teaching of the beginning course in economics over the past century and should cause the profession to reflect upon what is known for sure about the relative effectiveness of various methods of presenting the subject to students. As one example, what is the role of close personal contact between teacher and student (as indicated by class size) in providing a favorable environment for learning the art and/or the science of economics?     

On the test score gap between Roma and non‐Roma students in Hungary and its potential causes

Using unique data from Hungary, the gap in reading and mathematics test scores between Roma and non‐Roma 8th grade students is assessed and a substantial gap between them revealed. Standardized test scores as well as the fraction of students with competences considered inadequate are examined. Regardless of measurement and subject area, the bulk of the gap is explained by social differences in income, wealth and parental education. Using reduced‐form regressions, two major mediating mechanisms are identified: first, on average the home environment of Roma children is less favourable for cognitive development; second, the educational environment of the average Roma student is different from the average non‐Roma student. Comparing students with similar home environments from the same school and class, the ethnic gap in test scores is found to be insignificant. Ethnic differences in the home environment are explained by social disparity, and ethnicity seems to play no additional role in that regard. The unequal distribution of Roma students in schools and classes is found to be explained predominantly by social difference, too, with a significant residual portion, indicating the effect of ethnic segregation.     

The Role of Middle Class in Economic Development: What Do Cross‐Country Data Show?

This paper investigates the channels through which the middle class may matter for consumption growth. Using several different middle‐class measures and a panel of 105 developing countries spanning the period 1985–2013, we find that a larger middle class influences consumption growth primarily through higher levels of human capital accumulation. There is also a significant direct effect of middle‐class size on consumption growth, which is more pronounced in the latter half of the sample, the 2000–2013 period.     

How important are school principals in the production of student achievement?

As school leaders, principals can influence student achievement in a number of ways, such as hiring and firing of teachers, monitoring instruction and maintaining student discipline, among many others. We measure the effect of individual principals on gains in math and reading achievement between grades 4 and 7 using a value‐added framework. We estimate that a one standard deviation improvement in principal quality can boost student performance by 0.289 to 0.408 standard deviations in reading and math, while the principal at the 75th percentile improves scores by 0.170 to 0.193 relative to the median principal. Our results imply that isolating the most effective principals and allocating them accordingly between schools can have a significant positive effect on reducing achievement gaps.     

Tenure system and its impact on grading leniency,teaching effectiveness and student effort

This study provides new evidence of the causal effect of the tenure system on grading leniency, teaching effectiveness, and student effort by taking advantage of a natural experiment in one public university in Taiwan. The results show that assistant professors subject to the tenure system tend to grade more leniently and fail fewer students, as opposed to assistant professors not affected by the policy. The tenure policy lowers the probability of failing a class by 15%. Teaching effectiveness measured by the valued-added model also falls significantly by 0.32 standard deviation of the average grades in subsequent courses, roughly 6.6% of the sample means. The effect on student effort also is significant. Study time and class absences decline by 3 and 10%, respectively. The results suggest that the tenure system reduces teaching effectiveness and leads to lenient grading. Moreover, although used as a measure of teaching effectiveness in tenure promotion, student evaluation of teaching cannot truly reflect teaching quality.     

THE IMPACT OF PUBLICLY PROVIDED EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION PROGRAMS ON DISTRICT‐LEVEL TEST SCORES

While the existing literature largely finds that standardized test scores are positively associated with participation in pre‐kindergarten programs at the student level, there is little research on the policy effect of publicly providing these programs to entire school districts. We attempt to partially fill this void by examining the effect that publicly provided pre‐kindergarten and full‐day kindergarten programs have on fourth grade student achievement in math and reading at the district level. The models utilize panel data from districts in Wisconsin along with fixed effects estimations. We find that once time‐invariant unobserved heterogeneity of a district is accounted for, preschool programs have small but significant impacts on a cohort's future math scores, particularly in less‐educated communities. Additionally, there is no evidence that preschool or full‐day kindergarten has an impact on future reading scores at the district level. (JEL I20, I28)     

Interpolating the Lorenz Curve: Methods to Preserve Shape and Remain Consistent with the Concentration Curves for Components

C¹‐class interpolation methods that preserve monotonicity and convexity and are thus suitable for the estimation of the Lorenz curve from grouped data are not widely known. Instead, parametric models are usually applied for such estimation. Parametric models, however, have difficulty in accurately approximating every part of income/expenditure distributions. This paper proposes two types of C¹‐class shape‐preserving interpolation methods. One is a piecewise rational polynomial interpolation (proposed independently by Stineman and Delbourgo) that enables consistent interpolation of the concentration curves for income/expenditure components, attaining approximately the same accuracy as that of the existing methods when applied to decile‐grouped data or to more detailed aggregation. Another is a Hybrid interpolation that employs pieces of curves derived from parametric models on end intervals. Empirical comparisons show that the Hybrid interpolation (with the assistance of parametric models for class‐boundary estimation) outperforms the existing methods even when applied to quintile‐grouped data without class boundaries.     

Early Tracking and the Misfortune of Being Young

Recent research suggests that the relative age of a student within a grade has a causal effect on educational achievement, and that this effect fades with the duration of schooling. In this study, we estimate the causal relative‐age effect on track choice in Austria, a country where students are first tracked in grade 5 (at the age of 10 years), and again in grade 9. We find a strong positive relative‐age effect on track choice in grades 5–8. The age effect persists beyond grade 8 for students from less‐favorable socioeconomic backgrounds and students in urban areas.     

Class-size effects in school systems around the world: Evidence from between-grade variation in TIMSS

We estimate the effect of class size on student performance in 11 countries, combining school fixed effects and instrumental variables to identify random class-size variation between two adjacent grades within individual schools. Conventional estimates of class-size effects are shown to be severely biased by the non-random placement of students between and within schools. While we find sizable beneficial effects of smaller classes in Greece and Iceland, we reject the possibility of even small effects in four countries and of large beneficial effects in an additional four countries. Noteworthy class-size effects are observed only in countries with relatively low teacher salaries.     

Home versus School Learning: A New Approach to Estimating the Effect of Class Size on Achievement

The effects of class size on scholastic achievement are estimated using a seasonal feature of the school system. The fact that schools are in session during the school year and out of session during the summer makes it possible to control for non‐school influences on both the level of and changes in achievement. Using Swedish data, smaller classes are found to generate higher test scores and this effect is larger for immigrants. The results are also compared with those from applying the same data to the widely used value‐added model.     

International Differences in Student Achievement: An Economic Perspective

Abstract. International comparisons reveal large cross‐country differentials in average student performance. Although there is considerable public debate about these differences, their sources are hardly identified. Using school, teacher and student data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), the present paper attempts to explain what causes between‐country gaps in mathematics test score distributions. Following a three‐pronged strategy of micro‐level and cross‐country regressions as well as bilateral country comparisons, we show how these gaps are explained by differences in school, teacher and student characteristics, or financial resources devoted to the school system. Institutional characteristics, such as competition between schools and the composition of the faculty can also help to understand international differences in student achievement.     

The Effect of Information Technology on Economic Education

The author evaluated the effect on student performance of using a new information technology (IT) enhancement that permits students to participate in the recording of lectures that can be downloaded later from the Internet. The author compared two sections of the same Intermediate Microeconomics class and observed the sample students to be representative; the empirical model accounted for any differences in student characteristics between the comparison and test groups. Model results show that students exposed to the IT enhancement performed about 2 percentage points better on their final exam than did the comparison students; however, the difference was not statistically different from zero. The author concluded that the use of IT appears to not have any substantive influence on student performance.     

SYSTEMATIC INFLUENCES ON TEACHING EVALUATIONS: THE CASE FOR CAUTION*

In this paper, we examine eight years of Quality of Teaching (QOT) responses from an Economics Department in an Australian University. This is done to determine what factors, besides the instructor, have an impact on the raw average student evaluation scores. Most of the previous research on student ratings has been conducted in the US. One significant difference between US and Australian tertiary education is that, on average, the number of foreign undergraduate students in Australia is ten times the number in US institutions. We find that cultural background significantly affects student evaluations. Other factors that have an influence on the average QOT score include: year level; enrolment size; the quantitative nature of the subject; the gender of the student; fee‐paying status by gender; course of study; the differences between the course mark and previous marks; the quality of workbooks; the quality of textbooks; and the QOT score relative to those in other subjects taught at the same time. In addition, average QOT scores for instructors who have taught in a mix of subjects are similar to those based on scores adjusted to account for subject and student characteristics.     

Can Small Class Policy Close the Gap? An Empirical Analysis of Class Size Effects in Japan

Can smaller classes lead to better educational outcomes and greater equality in achievement? We estimate the causal effects of class size on achievement tests by using discontinuous changes in class size under the Japanese public compulsory education system. We employ a value‐added model that uses achievement tests conducted at two different times during the same school year. Our results show that a reduction in class size has significantly positive effects on Japanese language test scores in the sixth grade, especially at schools in wealthy areas. However, we find no evidence that a universal small class policy closes the achievement gap among schools.