Using the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition technique to analyze learning outcomes changes over time: An application to Indonesia's results in PISA mathematics

The Han-Minority Achievement Gap, Language, and Returns to Schools in Rural China

“…Oaxaca-Blinder type decomposition, originally used to analyze wage differences between groups, has now been applied in a wide variety of contexts. In education, previous research has used this approach to analyze differences in academic achievement across countries (e.g., McEwan and Marshall 2004; Ammermueller 2007), across time (Barrera-Osorio et al 2011), and between indigenous and nonindigenous students (McEwan 2004; McEwan and Trowbridge 2007; Sakellariou 2008). …”

PISA trends, social changes, and education reforms

“…Indonesia, for example, introduced competency-based curricula alongside some systemic changes like a more stringent teacher certification system in 2003 (UNESCO-IBE, 2011); therefore, it could be that its score increase in mathematics was due to better instruction. This was the conclusion reached byBarrera-Osorio, Garcia-Moreno, Patrinos, & Porta (2011) after they showed that the greatest share of score variance between 2003 and 2006 was not captured by school and student characteristics. This seems to contrast with further results; if 'the 2006 score was partly the result of reforms, policies, strategies, and interventions that were put in place years ago, even a generation ago' (Barrera-Osorio et al, 2011, p. 11), as they claimed, the trend should have continued, but it did not.In mathematics, the 2003In mathematics, the -2006 gain was followed by a 20-point decrease in 2009, and an overall flat trend emerges between 2003 and 2012 once socio-demographic changes are considered (OECD, 2014c).…”

Why is education performance so different across Latvian schools?

“…Originally proposed to study gender wage gaps, the Oaxaca–Ransom decomposition can be applied to explain the differences in any continuous outcome across any two groups. Some studies have already employed this method in assessing education performance (for instance, Barrera‐Osorio, Garcia‐Moreno, Patrinos, & Porta, ). The Oaxaca–Ransom decomposition splits the observed exam score gap into two components: one attributable to the differences in the observed school characteristics (the endowment effect) and the other one to the unexplained part.…”