Measuring Success in Education: The Role of Effort on the Test Itself

Gneezy, Uri; List, John A.; Livingston, Jeffrey A.; Sadoff, Sally; Qin, Xiangdong; Xu, Youpeng

doi:10.3386/w24004

Cited by 30 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 5 publications

(5 reference statements)

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“…Taken together, we conjecture that the main reason for the variation in estimated treatment effects across tests is the greater salience of the high-stakes tests in the Incentive schools and a resulting increase in student effort on these tests. The estimated difference in the treatment effects across the two sets of tests -0.10-0.15σ, is exactly in line with recent experimental estimates that quantify the role of testing-day student effort on measured test scores (Levitt, List, Neckermann, & Sadoff, 2016;Gneezy et al, 2017).…”

Section: )supporting

confidence: 86%

“…The confirmation that test-taking effort is a salient component of measured test scores by Levitt et al (2016) and Gneezy et al (2017) presents a conundrum for education researchers as to what the appropriate measure of human capital should be for assessing the impact of education interventions. On one hand, low-stakes tests may provide a better estimate of a true measure of human capital that does not depend on external stimuli for performance.…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Inputs, Incentives, and Complementarities in Education: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania

Mbiti

Muralidharan

Romero

et al. 2018

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We present results from a large-scale randomized experiment across 350 schools in Tanzania that studied the impact of providing schools with (a) unconditional grants, (b) teacher incentives based on student performance, and (c) both of the above. After two years, we find (a) no impact on student test scores from providing school grants, (b) some evidence of positive effects from teacher incentives, and (c) significant positive effects from providing both programs. Most importantly, we find strong evidence of complementarities between the two programs, with the effect of joint provision being significantly greater than the sum of the individual effects. Our results suggest that combining spending on school inputs (which is the default policy) with improved teacher incentives could substantially increase the cost-effectiveness of public spending on education.A randomized controlled trials registry entry is available at https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/291 1 Some of these include poor student health and nutrition, low student attendance, mismatch between curriculum/pedagogy and student learning levels, and low levels of teacher effort and accountability. Each of these challenges has been extensively documented in multiple developing country settings. See Glewwe and Muralidharan (2016) and Mbiti (2016) for reviews and references to primary sources. 2 The Government's capitation grant policy aimed to provide schools with TZS 10,000/student. The program we study provided another TZS 10,000/student over and above this grant, effectively doubling the school grant. Since teacher salaries were paid directly by the government and did not pass through the schools, these grants (from the government and the program) were the main source of discretionary funding available to schools. Schools were not permitted to use grant funds to augment teacher salaries or hire new teachers (consistent with government rules for capitation grant expenditure). 1We conducted the experiment in a large nationally-representative sample of 350 public schools (and over 120,000 students) across 10 districts in mainland Tanzania. We randomly allocated schools to four groups (stratified by district): 70 received unconditional school grants, 70 received the teacher performance pay program, 70 received both programs, and 140 were assigned to a control group. The study was powered adequately to test for complementarities, and we gave the same importance to testing for complementarities as testing for the main effects of the two programs. 3 All programs were implemented by Twaweza, a leading Tanzanian non-profit organization.We report four sets of results. First, the school grant program significantly increased per-student discretionary expenditure in treated schools. We find evidence of reduction in school and household spending in the Grant schools. Even after this reduction, there was a significant increase in net discretionary school-level spending per student in treated schools (excluding teacher salaries). However, this increase in spend...

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Section: )supporting

confidence: 86%

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

Inputs, Incentives, and Complementarities in Education: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania

Mbiti

Muralidharan

Romero

et al. 2018

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“…Examinee initiative is also a ubiquitous problem in international tests (Evans, 2018). As cited in Evans (2018), Gneezy et al (2017) estimate that increasing American students' motivation on the PISA would result in an increase of 22-24 points in mathematics, "equivalent to moving the U.S. from 36th to 19th in the 2012 mathematics rankings" (p. 4). Besides student motivation, political ambition also is a factor which skews PISA results given the results receive mass public attention and governments are likely to take measures to avoid bad publicity.…”

Section: Research and Measurement Gapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Cognitive Skills Accumulation on Educational Quality and Economic Growth

Keskin¹,

Yilmaz²

2020

Finansal Araştırmalar Ve Çalışmalar Dergisi

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This paper inquires 'outcomes' in education quality by focusing on issues related to cognitive skill development. Cognitive skills, which include literacy and numeracy, are defined as the "ability to understand complex ideas, adapt effectively to the environment, learn from experience, and reason" (The World Bank, 2017). UNE-SCO (2005, p.2) mentions the importance of cognitive development as "the major explicit objective of all education systems" and as one of the principles of defining quality in education. The first section of this paper will elaborate on the role of cognitive skills within the purpose and quality of education, followed by a section on teacher quality, and early childhood education since an amalgam of research states both factors having a significant statistical impact on cognitive skill formation (HW, 2015; Cunha& Heckman, 2017;Dahmann, 2015). The paper will conclude by touching issues regarding measurement and research gaps. There are several factors which enhance cognitive skill formation, and the aim of this research is not about assessing importance/relevance weights on specific factors; instead, it is an inquiry on the lack of cognitive skills within education quality.JEL Codes: A12, A20, I25 ÖzBu makale bilişsel beceri gelişimi ile ilgili konulara odaklanarak eğitim kalitesindeki "çıktıları" araştırmaktadır. Okuryazarlık ve sayısal bilgiyi içeren bilişsel beceriler, "karmaşık fikirleri anlama, çevreye etkili bir şekilde uyum sağlama, deneyimden ve akıldan öğrenme" şeklinde tanımlanmaktadır (The World Bank, 2017). UNESCO (2005, s.2) bilişsel gelişimin "tüm eğitim sistemlerinin temel açık hedefi" ve eğitimde tanımlamanın ilkelerinden biri olduğunu vurgulamaktadır. UNESCO (2005, s.2) bilişsel gelişimin "tüm eğitim sistemlerinin temel açık hedefi" ve eğitimde kaliteyi tanımlamanın ilkelerinden biri olduğunu vurgulamaktadır. Bu makalenin ilk bölümü, bilişsel becerilerin eğitimin amacı ve kalitesi içindeki rolü üzerinedir. Araştırmalar, bilişsel beceri formasyonu üzerinde bir istatistiksel etkiye sahip faktörleri belirttiğinden (HW, 2015; Cunha ve Heckman, 2017;Dahmann, 2015) sonraki bölümler öğrenci kalitesi ve erken eğitim üzerinde tartışacaktır. Rapor, ölçme ve araştırma boşlukları ile ilgili konulara dokunarak sonuçlandırılacaktır. Bilişsel beceri oluşumunu geliştiren birkaç faktör vardır ve bu yazının amacı belirli faktörler üzerindeki önem ağırlıklarını değerlendirmek değildir; bunun yerine, eğitim kalitesi dahilinde bilişsel becerilerin eksikliğine dair bir soruşturmadır.Anahtar Kelimeler: Eğitimin kalitesi, ekonomik büyüme, bilişsel beceriler Jel Kodları: A12, A20, I25

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“…Por ejemplo, Zamarro et al (2019) analizan la caída a lo largo de la prueba PISA fruto de la bajada del esfuerzo, y se observa que España (y otros países de influencia latina) es uno de los países donde más penaliza a los resultados finales. El hecho de que la motivación del alumnado con las pruebas varíe por país obedece a factores intrínsecos o culturales del alumnado, algo que ha sido mostrado en un reciente estudio experimental, donde los alumnos de Estados Unidos responden significativamente a incentivos monetarios para hacer la prueba, mientras que los alumnos de Shanghai apenas responden a este tipo de incentivos (Gneezy et al, 2017). Esto confirma que los resultados de pruebas low-stakes como PISA deben ser interpretados con cautela en términos de política educativa, ya que recogen fenómenos que van mucho más allá de la escuela: un estudio reciente de Akyol et al (2018) muestra que una proporción relevante a nivel global, y que alcanza al 25,6 % del alumnado español, no se toma en serio la prueba ya que deja en blanco preguntas aún disponiendo de tiempo antes de finalizar la prueba.…”

Section: Aprendizaje Y Logro Educativo En Españaunclassified

¿Favorece el sistema educativo español la igualdad de oportunidades?

Gortazar¹

2019

Revista ICE

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Este artículo intenta responder a la pregunta de si el sistema educativo español favorece o no la equidad o igualdad de oportunidades. Para ello se analiza la relación del origen socioeconómico de los alumnos con tres indicadores diferentes de desempeño: los resultados del Programa Internacional de Evaluación de los Alumnos (PISA) (evaluación externa), la repetición de curso (evaluación interna) y el abandono educativo temprano (logro educativo). Los resultados son muy diferentes dependiendo del indicador de desempeño utilizado y plantean dudas preocupantes sobre la equidad del modelo educativo español que, de confirmarse, exigirían un replanteamiento del modelo de currículum y del sistema de evaluación interna.

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Measuring Success in Education: The Role of Effort on the Test Itself

Cited by 30 publications

References 5 publications

Inputs, Incentives, and Complementarities in Education: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania

Inputs, Incentives, and Complementarities in Education: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania

The Role of Cognitive Skills Accumulation on Educational Quality and Economic Growth

¿Favorece el sistema educativo español la igualdad de oportunidades?

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