New school
Who succeeds in distance learning? Evidence from quantile panel data estimation
Marigee Bacolod, Stephen Mehay & Elda Pema
Southern Economic Journal, April 2018, Pages 1129-1145
Abstract:
This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the distributional effects of distance learning (DL) on academic success, as measured by course grades and completion. Using data of over 1.2 million courses taken by about 200,000 U.S. Navy sailor-students at more than 1800 U.S. institutions during 1994–2007, we find that distance delivery of education is associated with poorer outcomes. At the mean, DL delivery is associated with 0.19 lower course grade points; however, the mean effect masks the more pronounced negative effects of DL in the bottom two-thirds of the distribution — where DL lowers grades by as much as 0.8 points. Using variation only among marginal students — those who tend to fail some of the courses that they take, our estimates indicate traditional face-to-face delivery is associated with 2.4 times greater likelihood of successful course completion than if it was delivered distant. These findings suggest that targeting DL courses to certain students may be more cost-effective.
Disciplining Play: Digital Youth Culture as Capital at School
Matthew Rafalow
American Journal of Sociology, March 2018, Pages 1416-1452
Abstract:
Adults may still be catching up to digital age, but digital youth bring to school digital skills they learn from each other. Comparative ethnographic analysis of three middle schools that vary by student class and race reveals that students’ similar digital skills are differently transformed by teachers into cultural capital for achievement. Teachers effectively discipline students’ digital play but in different ways. At a school serving working-class Latino youth, students are told their digital expressions are irrelevant to learning; at a school with mostly middle-class Asian American youth, students’ digital expressions are seen as threats to their ability to succeed academically; and at a private school with mainly wealthy white youth, students’ digital skills are positioned as essential to school success. Insofar as digital competency represents a kind of cultural capital, the minority and working-class students also have that capital. But theirs is not translated into teacher-supported opportunities for achievement.
Ability Tracking, School and Parental Effort, and Student Achievement: A Structural Model and Estimation
Nirav Mehta & Chao Fu
Journal of Labor Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We develop and estimate an equilibrium model of ability tracking in which schools decide how to allocate students into ability tracks and choose track-specific teacher effort; parents choose effort in response. The model is estimated using data from the ECLS-K. Our model suggests that a counterfactual ban on tracking would benefit low-ability students but hurt high-ability students. Ignoring effort adjustments would significantly overstate the impacts. We then illustrate the tradeoffs involved when considering policies that affect schools’ tracking decisions. Setting proficiency standards to maximize average achievement would lead schools to redistribute their inputs from low-ability students to high-ability students.
Changes in Self-Efficacy and Outcome Expectations From Child Participation in Bicycle Trains for Commuting to and From School
Cathy Huang et al.
Health Education & Behavior, forthcoming
Background: Active commuting to school (ACS) is associated with increased physical activity and lowered risk of obesity. In observational studies, ACS was associated with child self-efficacy, parent self-efficacy, and parent outcome expectations, although few experiments have assessed changes in these behavioral constructs. Aim. This study examined the effects of a bicycle train intervention (BTI) on child self-efficacy, parent self-efficacy, and parent outcome expectations in a diverse, low socioeconomic status population.
Method: Data were from a 2014 BTI pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) on fourth to fifth graders aged 9 to 12 years, n = 54, from four schools serving low-income populations in Seattle, Washington. The BTI was a group of children and study staff who cycled together to/from school daily, while controls received no intervention. Responses to validated child self-efficacy, parent self-efficacy, and parent outcome expectations questionnaires ranged from 1 to 3. Adjusted linear mixed effects models estimated standardized coefficients for child self-efficacy, parent self-efficacy, and parent outcome expectations comparing intervention and controls from Time 1 (preintervention) to Time 2 (final 4-6 weeks of intervention).
Results: The intervention group had increases in child self-efficacy of 0.84 standard deviations (95% confidence interval [CI] [0.37, 1.31]), parent self-efficacy of 0.46 standard deviations (95% CI [0.05, 0.86]), and parent outcome expectations of 0.47 standard deviations (95% CI [0.17, 0.76]) compared with controls from Times 1 to 2 (all ps <.05).
A teacher who knows me: The academic benefits of repeat student-teacher matches
Andrew Hill & Daniel Jones
Economics of Education Review, June 2018, Pages 1-12
Abstract:
We provide new empirical evidence that increased student-teacher familiarity improves academic achievement in elementary school. Drawing on rich statewide administrative data, we observe small but significant test score gains for students assigned to the same teacher for a second time in a higher grade. We control for selection into repeat student-teacher matches with teacher fixed effects and either student fixed effects or flexible controls for student past achievement. The effects are largest for minorities, and there is some evidence that gains are most evident for students with generally less effective teachers (as measured by value-added). We also provide suggestive evidence of spillover benefits: students assigned to classes in which a large share of classmates are in repeat student-teacher matches experience gains even if not previously assigned to that teacher themselves. This suggests that effects at least partly operate through improvements in the general classroom learning environment. Overall, our findings indicate that there may be potential low-cost gains from the policy of “looping” in which students and teachers progress through early school grades together, and may explain the recent experimental evidence that teacher specialization has negative effects on student achievement given that this likely decreases student-teacher familiarity.
Mental Well-Being and Changes in Peer Ability From High School to College
Noli Brazil & Matthew Andersson
Youth & Society, forthcoming
Abstract:
While transitions to college can be stressful, links between distinct types of college transitions and changing student well-being remain unclear. For instance, peer ability often shifts from high school to college, though students differ markedly in how much peer ability change they experience. Here, we draw on national longitudinal data (National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health [Add Health]; Waves 1 and 3; N = 1,453) to demonstrate how peer ability transitions from high school to college relate to changes in depressive symptoms and self-esteem, net of student personal background and school-average levels of peer ability. We find that depressive symptoms increase by 27% for students experiencing lowered peer ability across their college transition, relative to no substantial change in peer ability. Meanwhile, heightened peer ability in college links to neither diminished nor enhanced student well-being across the transition. Overall, student well-being relates more closely to collegiate than high-school peer ability.
Best in Class: The Returns on Application Endorsements in Higher Education
Emilio Castilla & Ben Rissing
Administrative Science Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
While scholars have shown that well-connected applicants are advantaged in selection processes, less understood is whether such applicants produce important returns to the organization when key decision makers favor them. We begin to address this gap by investigating whether and why application endorsements ― an informal practice whereby certain individuals (i.e., endorsers) advocate for particular applicants ― affect organizational selection during the screening of applicants. Through the analysis of the population of 21,324 applicants to a full-time MBA program over a seven-year period, we find that even after controlling for individual qualifications and competencies, endorsed applicants are advantaged over non-endorsed applicants in admissions interview and offer decisions. In seeking to explain this advantage, we develop and test four key theoretical explanations pertaining to the potential returns on application endorsements for the organization. We find inconsistent evidence that endorsed applicants are “better qualified” compared with non-endorsed applicants during screening: while endorsed applicants are sometimes assessed to be stronger “on paper,” they generally receive lower competency assessments than non-endorsed applicants later, during the admissions interviews. Further, our analysis of data on matriculating MBA students reveals that those endorsed as applicants are not “better performers” academically (measured by grade point average) or in the job market after graduation (measured by full-time salaries or signing bonuses) compared with non-endorsed individuals. In contrast, individuals endorsed as applicants appear to be “better citizens” upon joining the organization — in our research setting, they are more likely to participate in student club leadership roles than non-endorsed individuals. We also find that they are “better alumni” ― that is, they make larger monetary donations to the school after graduating than their non-endorsed counterparts. We conclude with implications for understanding the impact of application endorsements on labor and educational markets.
Perform Better, or Else: Academic Probation, Public Praise and Students Decision-Making
Nicholas Wright
Georgia State University Working Paper, March 2018
Abstract:
This paper examines how college initiatives that ascribe public recognition or written reprimand to a set standard of academic performance impact students decision-making. Many colleges utilize programs such as the Dean’s list and academic probation policies as mediums to encourage student success. These policies impose a future cost on affected students, either through the loss of acquired benefits or the threat of expulsion if they fail to perform above an established standard in future semesters. To meet these standards, treated students may be induced into increasing the effort they subsequently exert. In addition, they have an incentive to manipulate their behavior along non-effort dimensions, such as through the courses and/or instructors they select. Using the regression discontinuity design, I provide convincing evidence that the students that are treated by either the Dean’s list or academic probation policy improve their academic performance in subsequent semesters. However, an increased effort may be only one of the mechanisms through which students change their behavior following treatment. In particular, there is evidence that the Dean’s list policy induces treated students to select courses and instructors that are more likely to award higher grades and have a lower failure rate. Similarly, the results suggest that the academic probation policy causes students to improve their match quality by switching majors and to employ a maximin strategy for expected grades when choosing courses. This result does not change when the probation policy becomes more restrictive by an increase in the GPA treatment threshold.
More than Just a Nudge: Supporting Kindergarten Parents with Differentiated and Personalized Text-Messages
Christopher Doss et al.
NBER Working Paper, March 2018
Abstract:
Recent studies show that texting-based interventions can produce educational benefits in children across a range of ages. We study effects of a text-based program for parents of kindergarten children, distinguishing a general program from one adding differentiation and personalization based on each child’s developmental level. Children in the differentiated and personalized program were 63 percent more likely to read at a higher level (p<0.001) compared to the general group; and their parents reported engaging more in literacy activities. Effects were driven by children further from average levels of baseline development indicating that the effects likely stemmed from text content.
Juvenile Crime and the Four-Day School Week
Stefanie Fischer & Daniel Argyle
Economics of Education Review, June 2018, Pages 31-39
Abstract:
We leverage the adoption of a four-day school week across schools within the jurisdiction of rural law enforcement agencies in Colorado to examine the causal link between school attendance and youth crime. Those affected by the policy attend school for the same number of hours each week as students on a typical five-day week; however, treated students do not attend school on Friday. This policy allows us to learn about two aspects of the school-crime relationship that have previously been unstudied: one, the effects of a frequent and permanent schedule change on short-term crime, and two, the impact that school attendance has on youth crime in rural areas. Our difference-in-difference estimates show that following policy adoption, agencies containing students on a four-day week experience about a 20% increase in juvenile criminal offenses, where the strongest effect is observed for property crime.
The persistence of preschool effects from early childhood through adolescence
Arya Ansari
Journal of Educational Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Cohort of 1998 (n = 15,070), this study used propensity scores to examine the short- and long-term academic and psychosocial benefits of preschool education for a diverse sample of middle-class children. Compared with children who attended informal care at age 4, preschool attendees consistently performed better on achievement tests from age 5 through early adolescence, but exhibited less optimal psychosocial skills. These negative behavioral effects of preschool were concentrated among children who attended preschool for 20 or more hours per week, but otherwise, there was little evidence of heterogeneity as a function of program type or child- and family characteristics. The long-term academic advantages of preschool were, however, largely explained by their positive effects on academic skills early in formal schooling and there was evidence for convergence in children’s academic test scores, which was partially attributed to the differences in children’s social skills during the early elementary school years.
Measuring Teacher Non-cognitive Skills and its Impact on Students: Insight from the Measures of Effective Teaching Longitudinal Database
Albert Cheng & Gema Zamarro
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Despite research showing labor-market returns to non-cognitive skills, we lack research on how teachers’ noncognitive skills relate to other available measures of teacher quality and student outcomes because datasets typically do not contain explicit measures of these skills. We overcome this limitation by validating several performance-task measures of teacher conscientiousness based upon the effort that teachers exert while completing a survey. We conduct our analysis using the Measures of Effective Teaching Longitudinal Database where teachers were randomly assigned to their classrooms in the second year of the study. We overcome issues of non-compliance by exploiting the random assignment in an instrumental variables approach to estimate the causal impacts of teachers on their students’ outcomes during the second year of the MET project. We find suggestive evidence that measures of teacher survey effort, capture important dimensions of teacher quality. These measures present small but significant correlations with classroom-observation measures and principal ratings of teacher quality and are predictive of student cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. Moreover, survey-effort measures capture teacher effects on students that are not necessarily captured by other available measures of teacher quality.
Falling Behind: Lingering Costs of the High School Transition for Youth Friendships and Grades
Diane Felmlee et al.
Sociology of Education, April 2018, Pages 159-182
Abstract:
This study investigates the influence of structural transitions to high school on adolescents’ friendship networks and academic grades from 6th through 12th grade, in a direct comparison of students who do and do not transition. We utilize data from 14,462 youth in 51 networks from 26 districts (Promoting School–Community Partnerships to Enhance Resilience). Results underscore the challenging nature of compulsory school changes. Students that structurally transition to high school between eighth and ninth grade, as compared with those who do not, receive fewer friendship nominations following the move and are more likely to become isolates, according to a three-level Poisson model. Students who transition also report significantly lower odds of obtaining high grades after the shift, and these penalties persist throughout high school. Our findings highlight the social and academic difficulties associated with this particular normative adolescent life transition and point to a disruption in social network ties as part of the problem.
School Improvement Grants in Ohio: Effects on Student Achievement and School Administration
Deven Carlson & Stéphane Lavertu
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
The federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) program allocated US$7 billion over nearly a decade in an effort to produce rapid and lasting improvements in schools identified as low performing. In this article, we use a regression discontinuity design to estimate the effect of Ohio’s SIG turnaround efforts on student achievement and school administration. The results indicate that Ohio’s SIG program significantly increased reading and math achievement, with effects in both subjects of up to 0.20 standard deviations in the second year after SIG eligibility identification. Estimates for the third year are somewhat larger, in the range of one quarter of a standard deviation. We provide evidence that these effects were primarily attributable to schools that implemented the SIG Turnaround model. We also show that SIG eligibility had a positive effect on per-pupil spending, but no average effect on administrative outcomes, including staff turnover, the number of staff members in the school, and school closure. These null overall effects mask heterogeneity across SIG models, however. Most notably, Turnaround schools experienced more turnover than they otherwise would have, whereas Transformation schools experienced less.
Leveling the Playing Field for High School Choice: Results from a Field Experiment of Informational Interventions
Sean Corcoran et al.
NBER Working Paper, March 2018
Abstract:
We conducted a field experiment in 165 high-poverty New York City middle schools to help students navigate a complex high school choice process and access higher-performing schools. Students in treatment schools were given a customized one-page list of proximate high schools with a graduation rate at or above the city median (70%). Some also received a supplemental list highlighting academically non-selective schools or high schools organized by academic interest area. The interventions changed student application behavior in ways that led to more matches to higher-performing schools. While treatment students did not apply to higher graduation rate schools, they applied to schools where their odds of admission were higher, were more likely to receive their first-choice high school, and were less likely to match to a school with a low graduation rate. Our findings also suggest that informational interventions may not reduce inequality, since both disadvantaged and comparatively advantaged students used our materials, and in some cases the latter benefited more from them by applying and matching to more schools on our lists. Students in non-English speaking households, who were particularly responsive to the intervention and were much less likely to match to a low-performing school, were one notable exception to this pattern.
Special Education Financing and ADHD Medications: A Bitter Pill to Swallow
Melinda Sandler Morrill
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Spring 2018, Pages 384-402
Abstract:
Accurate diagnosis of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children is difficult because the major symptoms, inattentiveness and hyperactivity, can be exhibited by any child. This study finds evidence of systematic differences in diagnosis and treatment of ADHD due to third party financial incentives. In some states, due to the financing mechanism for special education, schools face a financial incentive to facilitate the identification of children with ADHD. Using variation in special education funding policies across states, we find that children living in states with financial incentives are about 15 percent more likely to report having ADHD and are about 22 percent more likely to be taking medication for ADHD. We provide support that these findings are causal by leveraging variation from two states that implemented policy changes during the time period studied.
The School-Entry-Age Rule Affects Redshirting Patterns and Resulting Disparities in Achievement
Philip Cook & Songman Kang
NBER Working Paper, April 2018
Abstract:
Since, other things equal, older children do better in school, the extent and pattern of delayed entry affects observed patterns in academic performance. This paper provides three new sets of relevant findings, utilizing comprehensive data on birth cohorts of children who enrolled in first grade in North Carolina public schools.: (1) Delayed entry (redshirting) reduces the male-female achievement gap by 11%; (2) For each of 6 groups defined by sex and race/ethnicity, the likelihood of redshirting is strongly inversely related to academic ability; and (3) A recent shift in the cut date to earlier in the calendar year reduced redshirting, and provided clear evidence that parental decisions are tied to the absolute age of the child rather than age relative to classmates. The adaptation of redshirting to changes in the cut date is an important mechanism by which such changes affect patterns in academic outcomes.
Greek membership and academic performance: Evidence from student-level data
Cheng Cheng
Applied Economics, Spring 2018, Pages 3185-3195
Abstract:
Compared to other inputs of the ‘education production function’, less is known about the effect of social and non-classroom choices. This study examines whether joining fraternities and sororities improves academic performance. In order to account for the self-selection bias of Greek membership, I exploit plausibly exogenous cross-class variation in Greek student composition at the course-instructor level. My estimate shows that a 10 percentage point increase in Greek student composition translates to a 0.02 standard deviation increase in course grade for Greek students relative to non-Greek students. I further find that this effect is driven largely by low-achieving and middle-achieving white Greek members.
Collaboration incentives: Endogenous selection into single and coauthorships by surname initial in economics and management
David Ong et al.
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, March 2018, Pages 41–57
Abstract:
Many prior studies suggest that default alphabetical ordering of coauthors in economics confers disproportionate professional advantages on those with an early surname initial because of the greater prominence it gives to the first author. However, these studies do not consider that authors select into coauthorships according to the incentives identified. We develop a model of endogenous selection into single and coauthorships around the principle that no one wants to be second author when they expect to provide the larger contribution (i.e., are of higher “quality”). We test it with authorship data from economics, with management (which does not use default alphabetical ordering) as a benchmark. We predict for economics that lower quality authors with an early surname initial would be less desirable coauthors, whereas higher quality authors with a late initial would have a lower desire to coauthor. Most desired are early initial authors of high quality, who are therefore advantaged in forming high-quality collaborations. The combined effect predicts citation rank increases with surname initial for single-authored papers and decreases for coauthored. We find both effects for economics when compared to management and absolutely. Our findings indicate that part of the advantage enjoyed by early surname initial authors in economics could be due to the higher ability among them having more incentive-compatible collaborators, rather than merely to greater prominence.
The Negative Year in School Effect: Extending Scope and Strengthening Causal Claims
Philip Parker et al.
Journal of Educational Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The Negative Year in School Effect (NYiSE) claims that grade-relative-to-age influences academic self-concept. Being young for your grade is associated with lower self-concept, whereas being old for your grade is associated with higher self-concept. We extend this research in several ways. First, we aim to improve causal claims for the NYiSE by utilizing birth month as an instrumental variable. Using the Longitudinal Study of Australian Youth we find that the NYiSE is negative under instrumental variable regression. Given that NYiSE has focused on math self-concept we show that the effect extends to other measures of math, general academic, and English social comparison. Finally, using General Estimating Equations we show that the NYiSE also has an effect on university entry that is explained by self-beliefs. Our research has policy implications around how children enter school. Further, this research shows that the use of alternative causal modeling strategies is a useful asset to educational research especially when randomized control trials are not yet available or feasible.