Instruction time, Classroom Quality, and Academic Achievement

Abstract

It seems likely the magnitude of any causal link between achievement and instruction time depends upon the quality of instruction, the classroom environment and the rate that students translate classroom time into added knowledge. In this article, we use panel data methods to investigate instruction time effects in the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment data. The empirical analysis shows that achievement increases with instruction time and that the increase varies by both the amount of time and the classroom environment. The results indicate that school circumstances are important determinants of the benefits and desirability of increased instruction time.

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

“…Indeed the PISA data reveal that schools with the highest level of instruction time (observed in the data) in a given subject are more likely to have less than the maximum instruction time in each of the other two subjects and also of all other subjects. Similar evidence is reported in Rivkin and Schiman (2013) based on the PISA 2009 data. Certain additional issues regarding the data and methodology bear mention.…”

The Effect of Weekly Instruction Time on Academic Achievement: The Spanish Case

“…Within these research works we find Lavy (2015Lavy ( , 2010 analysing PISA 2006 for over 50 countries. This result was also found by Rivkin and Schiman (2015) for 72 countries in PISA 2009 andAndersen et al (2016) for Denmark. Cattaneo et al (2017) built on Lavy (2015) to analyse the case of Switzerland with data on PISA 2009 and also found that a higher number of hours of instruction would mean better academic results, although they claimed that this effect was lower than they expected.…”

Can School Sports Reduce Racial Gaps in Truancy and Achievement?

“…For example, in a countrylevel design, Lee and Barro (2001) find that more time in school improves math and science test scores although reading scores may suffer. Using international survey data, Lavy (2012) and Rivkin and Schiman (2013) leverage within-school across-subject variation in weekly instruction time and find positive effects on standardized-test scores. Evidence from charter schools also suggests that successful schools tend to have longer school days or years, and that instructional time correlates with school effectiveness (Angrist, Pathak, and Walters 2013;Dobbie and Fryer 2011;Hoxby and Murarka 2009).…”