The Good, the Bad and the Average: Evidence on the Scale and Nature of Ability Peer Effects in Schools

Abstract

In this paper, we study ability peer effects in secondary schools in England and identify which segments of the peer ability distribution drive the impact of peer quality on students achievements. To do so, we use census data for four cohorts of pupils taking their age-14 national tests, and measure students ability by their prior achievements at age-11. We employ a new identification strategy based on within-pupil regressions that exploit variation in achievements across the three compulsory subjects (English, Mathematics and Science) tested both at age-14 and age-11. We find significant and sizeable negative peer effects arising from bad peers at the very bottom of the ability distribution, but little evidence that average peer quality and very good peers significantly affect pupils academic achievements. However, these results mask some significant heterogeneity along the gender dimension, with girls significantly benefiting from the presence of very academically bright peers, and boys marginally losing out. In this paper we study ability peer effects in educational outcomes between schoolmates in secondary schools in England. Our aims are both to investigate the size of ability peer effects on the outcomes of secondary school students and to explore which segments of the ability distribution of peers drive the impact of peer quality on pupils" achievements. In particular, we study whether the extreme tails of the ability distribution of peers -namely the exceptionally low-and highachievers -as opposed to the average peer quality drive any significant ability peer effect on the outcomes of other students.To do so, we use data for all secondary schools in England for four cohorts of age-14 ( We link this information to data on pupils" prior achievement at age-11, when they took their end-of-primary education national tests, which we exploit to obtain pre-determined measures of peer ability in secondary schools. In particular, we construct measures of average peer quality based on pupils" age-11 achievements, as well as proxies for the very high-and very low-achievers, obtained by identifying pupils who are in the highest or lowest 5% of the (cohort-specific) national distribution of cognitive achievement at age-11. The way in which we measure peer ability is a major improvement over previous studies. The majority of previous empirical evidence on ability peer effects in schools comes from studies that examine the effect of average background characteristics, such as parental schooling, race and ethnicity on students" outcomes (e.g.

Does the Clustering of Immigrant Peers Affect the School Performance of Natives?

“…Our study relates to the economic literature analysing peer effect in education (Ammermueller and Pischke 2006, Black et al 2010, Lavy and Schlosser 2011, Gibbons and Talhaj 2008, Lavy et al 2012, especially the strand of the literature analysing ethnic peer effects (Hoxby 2000, Gould et al 2009, Card and Rothstein 2006, Hanushek et al 2009). Gould et al (2009) analyse the impact of immigrant concentration in elementary school on the long-term academic performance of native high school students in Israel.…”

Targeting Noncognitive Skills to Improve Cognitive Outcomes: Evidence from a Remedial Education Intervention

“…with the evidence in Lavy et al (2009), who show that a large fraction 'bad' peers in secondary schools (i.e. students from the bottom of the ability distribution) exerts a significantly negative effect on the learning of other school mates.…”

The Elite Illusion: Achievement Effects at Boston and New York Exam Schools

“…Examples include Hoxby (2000), Hanushek, Kain, Markman, and Rivkin (2003), Angrist and Lang (2004), Hoxby and Weingarth (2006), Lavy, Silva, and Weinhardt (2009), Ammermueller andPischke (2009), Imberman, Kugler, and, and Carrell, Sacerdote, and West (2012). Findings in the voluminous education peer effects literature are mixed and not easily summarized.…”