The Drivers of Month-of-Birth Differences in Children’s Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills

Abstract

Previous research has found that children who are born later in the academic year have lower educational attainment, on average, than children who are born earlier in the year, especially at younger ages; much less is known about the mechanisms that drive this inequality. The paper uses two complementary identification strategies to estimate an upper bound of the effect of age at test by using rich data from two UK birth cohorts. We find that differences in the age at which cognitive skills are tested accounts for the vast majority of the difference in these outcomes between children who are born at different times of the year, whereas the combined effect of the other factors (age of starting school, length of schooling and relative age) is close to zero. This suggests that applying an age adjustment to national achievement test scores may be an appropriate policy response to overcome the penalty that is associated with being born later in the academic year. Age at test does not, however, explain all of the difference in children's view of their own scholastic competence. Age adjusting national achievement test scores may help to overcome differences in ability beliefs between children who are born at different times of the year, but our results suggest that additional policy responses may be required.

Younger children experience lower levels of language competence and academic progress in the first year of school: evidence from a population study

“…If children start school with inadequate language to meet the social and academic demands of the classroom, behaviour problems may increase through frustration, peer difficulties and experience of failing at academic tasks. Consistent with this, Crawford, Dearden, and Greaves () demonstrated that by age 8, older children in a year group held a significantly more positive view of their own academic competence relative to younger peers, even when actual academic attainment was equivalent. Thus, early school failure may have a negative impact on later attitudes to school and personal self‐esteem.…”

“…It is perhaps not surprising that teachers rated younger children as less competent relative to peers who are 12 months older. Recently, there have been calls to adjust educational assessments for age (Crawford et al., , ). This may not ameliorate the relative age effect however, because younger children still may not have sufficient language skills to meet the daily social and academic demands of the classroom and this in turn may affect their behaviour, social development and attitude to learning.…”

The Millennium Cohort Study: the making of a multi-purpose resource for social science and policy

“…MCS (along with ALSPAC) advanced our understanding of the differences in educational attainment by season of birth (Crawford, Dearden & Greaves, 2014). It was already well known that children born earlier in the academic year -in September or soon after -tend to perform better academically than those born later -i.e.…”

“…in the following August or other summer months, but there was little evidence on whether this is driven by differences in age at which tests are taken or in the age of starting school. Crawford et al (2014) exploit a key feature of the MCS that the children born at the start and end of the academic year are very similar in age at the survey assessments, whereas they are a year apart in sitting the national tests. They conclude that age at test is the most important factor behind the difference between the oldest and youngest children in an academic cohort, which suggests allowing for age at test is important when interpreting children's test scores.…”

The effect of schools on school leavers’ university participation

“…Age is not included since all the young people are from the same year group. Instead, we consider season of birth -an important distinguishing characteristic of young people within a year group that has been found to be associated with educational outcomes (Crawford, Dearden, & Greaves, 2014). We also distinguish between pupils with a registered special educational need (SEN).…”