Do Differences in Schools’ Instruction Time Explain International Achievement Gaps? Evidence from Developed and Developing Countries

Abstract

The time that children spend in school varies across countries. Do these differences explain international gaps in pupils' academic achievements? In this paper, I estimate the effects of instructional time on students' achievement using PISA 2006 data, which includes data samples from over 50 countries. I find that instructional time has a positive and significant effect on test scores, and that the effect is much lower in developing countries. Evidence also suggests that the productivity of instructional time is higher in countries which implemented school accountability measures or that gave schools autonomy in budgetary decisions and in hiring/firing teachers.

What happens when econometrics and psychometrics collide? An example using the PISA data

“…We decided to replicate Lavy (2015), published in a leading economics journal (The Economic Journal), purely due to methodological considerations; we have little argument to make against the key substantive results. Rather, the work of Lavy (2015) serves as an interesting case study as the empirical analysis does not make any adjustment for many of the subtle technical aspects of the PISA data.…”

“…Rather, the work of Lavy (2015) serves as an interesting case study as the empirical analysis does not make any adjustment for many of the subtle technical aspects of the PISA data. For instance, the final student weights we discuss in section 3 have not been applied, while the implications of the complex test design have not been explored.…”

“…PISA), to clearly articulate what their designs imply for secondary analyses of these data and to provide a case study investigating whether ignoring these features has a substantive impact upon one particularly interesting set of empirical results. 3 In order to achieve these goals, we replicate a recent study published in The Economic Journal by Lavy (2015).…”

“…Section 4 follows with a description of the PISA test, and what this implies for the pupil fixed effects strategy employed by Lavy (2015). We then provide our recommendations for researchers who wish to apply fixed-effects within international achievement datasets such as PISA in section 5.…”

La influencia del tiempo escolar en el rendimiento académico: un estudio comparativo en sistemas educativos de Europa y Latinoamérica.

“…En este caso concreto, salvando la excepción en Latinoamérica respecto a la comparativa entre Chile y México, podemos rechazar a partir de los datos expuestos tanto la tesis de Schiefelbein, Vélez y Valenzuela (1997), quienes sostenían que existía una correlación positiva entre el número de horas de instrucción y un mayor rendimiento académico; como la más actual de Lavy (2015), que afirma que un mayor número de horas es positivo para el desempeño y los resultados de los estudiante. Como podemos ver en nuestro estudio, el aumento de las horas lectivas sin considerar otros factores interdependientes como son los curriculares, pedagógicos o metodológicos, no conlleva un mejor rendimiento académico.…”