Test-Mex: Estimating the effects of school year length on student performance in Mexico

Agüero, Jorge M.; Beleche, Trinidad

doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2013.03.008

Cited by 37 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Yet, this increase was accompanied by a change in funding formulas that altered school budgets. Agüero & Beleche (2013) found that in Ethiopia in 2005 resulted in first through third graders being 2.17 to 2.74 times more likely to be proficient in math and 3.51 to 4.18 times more likely to be proficient in writing, but had no impact on their writing proficiency.…”

Section: Increasing Resources At School a Number Of Interventions Hamentioning

confidence: 98%

Improving Educational Outcomes in Developing Countries: Lessons from Rigorous Impact Evaluations

Ganimian¹,

Murnane²

2014

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This paper reviews and interprets the evidence from 223 rigorous impact evaluations of educational initiatives conducted in 56 low-and middle-income countries. We consider for inclusion in our review all studies in recent syntheses, which have reached seemingly conflicting conclusions about which interventions improve educational outcomes. We group interventions based on their theory of action. We derive four lessons from the studies we review. First, reducing the costs of going to school and expanding schooling options increase attendance and attainment, but do not consistently increase student achievement. Second, providing information about school quality, developmentally appropriate parenting practices, and the economic returns to schooling affects the actions of parents and the achievement of children and adolescents. Third, more or better resources improve student achievement only if they result in changes in children's daily experiences at school. Finally, well-designed incentives increase teacher effort and student achievement from very low levels, but low-skilled teachers need specific guidance to reach minimally acceptable levels of instruction. Interventions.We include studies of educational interventions, such as offering computer-assisted learning or altering incentives for teachers. We also include studies of health interventions, such as providing deworming drugs and iron supplements, that include at least one of the educational outcomes mentioned above. Methods.We only include studies that take advantage of exogenous variation in the receipt of the intervention, either by randomly assigning individuals to a treatment or by exploiting quasi-random variation in treatment assignment from natural experiments. Included studies based on natural experiments use differences-in-differences, regression discontinuities, and/or instrumental variables to estimate the causal impacts of interventions. We do not consider studies that attempt to estimate counterfactual outcomes either by employing matching methods or fixed effects for individuals in pre-post comparisons. Literature SearchWe searched for studies in English in peer-reviewed journals, working paper series, and academic conferences. We conducted the final search that we describe below from January to September 2015. Figure 1 offers an overview of the search and review process. 3 Citation tracking. We consulted eight reviews of impact evaluations of educational interventions in developing countries and tracked the citations. These included meta-analyses, narrative, and vote-counting reviews. 4 This search produced 253 studies, of which 119 met our inclusion criteria.

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Section: Increasing Resources At School a Number Of Interventions Hamentioning

confidence: 98%

Improving Educational Outcomes in Developing Countries: Lessons from Rigorous Impact Evaluations

Ganimian¹,

Murnane²

2014

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“…First of all, longer school hours implies that students spend a greater number of hours per day under adult supervision, limiting the possibility to engage in risky behaviours (Bellei 2009;Aguero and Beleche 2013). Further, inasmuch as extended school days have been found to improve academic achievement in middleincome countries, this type of programme can be expected to reduce the prevalence of risky behaviours by increasing the opportunity cost of engaging in them (indirect effect).…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychosocial competencies and risky behaviours in Peru

Favara

Sánchez

2017

IZA J Labor Develop

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We use a unique longitudinal dataset from Peru to investigate the relationship between psychosocial competencies related to the concepts of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and aspirations, and a number of risky behaviours at a crucial transition period between adolescence and early adulthood. First of all, we document a high prevalence of risky behaviours with 1 out of 2 individuals engaging in at least one risky activity by the age 19 with a dramatic increase between age 15 and 19. Second, we find a pronounced pro-male bias and some differences by area of residence particularly in drinking habits which are more prevalent in urban areas. Third, we find a negative correlation between early self-esteem and later risky behaviours which is robust to a number of specifications. Further, aspiring to higher education at the age of 15 is correlated to a lower probability of engaging in criminal behaviours at the age of 19. Similarly, aspirations protect girls from risky sexual behaviours. JEL classification: J24, J13, O15.

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“…A branch of this literature focuses on analyzing the impact of policies that provide exogenous variation of instructional time by lengthening the school day or the school year (Bellei, 2009;Parinduri, 2014), by shifting state-mandated school start dates and/or test dates (Sims, 2008;Hansen, 2011;Agüero and Beleche, 2013;Carlsson, Dahl, and Rooth, 2015), or by reallocating instructional time to a specific subject (Cortes, Goodman, and Nomi, 2015) while keeping the curriculum unaltered, thereby reducing the intensity of learning. These studies generally find positive (albeit sometimes small) and significant effects of instructional time on standardized test scores or on other educational or labor market outcomes (e.g., grade repetition, educational attainment, wages) (Parinduri, 2014).…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The Causal Effects of Increased Learning Intensity on Student Achievement: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Andrietti

2015

SSRN Journal

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I exploit a unique educational policy -implemented in most German states between 2001 and 2007 -that reduced high school duration by one year while keeping its curriculum unaltered to investigate how the resulting increase in learning intensity affected student achievement. Using 2000-2009 PISA data and a difference-in-differences approach, I find robust evidence that the reform significantly improved the reading, mathematics, and science literacy skills acquired by academic-track high school students upon treatment. A more direct estimate of the effects of the increased learning intensity -as measured by the cumulative weekly number of instructional hours delivered in high school gradescorroborates the latter finding. Furthermore, there is some evidence that the effects of the reform differ by gender and grade retention. Finally, I find no evidence of a significant average effect of the reform on high school grade retention, although I do find that the latter increased significantly for boys and for students with a migration background.

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Test-Mex: Estimating the effects of school year length on student performance in Mexico

Cited by 37 publications

References 11 publications

Improving Educational Outcomes in Developing Countries: Lessons from Rigorous Impact Evaluations

Improving Educational Outcomes in Developing Countries: Lessons from Rigorous Impact Evaluations

Psychosocial competencies and risky behaviours in Peru

The Causal Effects of Increased Learning Intensity on Student Achievement: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

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