When the cat is near, the mice won't play: The effect of external examiners in Italian schools

Bertoni, Marco; Brunello, Giorgio; Rocco, Lorenzo

doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2013.04.010

Cited by 73 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…As documented byAngrist et al (2017) andBertoni et al (2013) many schools follow a "cheating to the test" practice. Since cheating significantly affects the reliability of test scores, INVALSI has developed a statistically solution to purge the data from this problem.…”

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confidence: 92%

“…On the contrary, we find a negative but not always statistically significant effect when we look at grades assigned by teachers. This might depend on the fact that teachers' evaluations, in spite of standardized test scores, are the results of a more complex assessment process, which reflects the objective level of skills achieved by students, but also a number of other factors such as the perceived student effort, motivation, behaviour as well as parents' expectations (OECD, 2012;2013). Then, teachers of multigrade classes, aware of the more complex environment faced by their students, possibly reward more generously their effort.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The effect of multigrade classes on cognitive and non- cognitive skills. Causal evidence exploiting minimum class size rules in Italy✰

Checchi

Paola

2018

Economics of Education Review

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We analyse how schooling in multigrade classes affects the formation of student cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Our identification strategy is based on some institutional features of the Italian educational system establishing a minimum number of students per class. Classes that do not reach the minimum number of pupils are organized in multigrade classes. In addition, the Italian law also establishes a maximum number of students for multigrade classes, which implies that class size in multigrade classes is very similar to class size in small single grade classes with a number of students just above the minimum size. Using census data on 5 th grade Italian students, we find that pupils in multigrade classrooms obtain worse test scores both in literacy and numeracy standardized tests compared to comparable pupils in single grade classroom. While the effect is small and not always statistically significant for the literacy score, we find a large and highly statistically significant effect on the numeracy score. We also find that pupils placed in multigrade classes tend to have a more external centred locus of control. Our results are robust to different specifications including controls for class size and a number of student and school characteristics.JEL classification: I21, I28, C36

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confidence: 92%

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confidence: 99%

The effect of multigrade classes on cognitive and non- cognitive skills. Causal evidence exploiting minimum class size rules in Italy✰

Checchi

Paola

2018

Economics of Education Review

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“…The first obvious controls are dummies for whether an external examiner was present in the class or in the school. Bertoni, Brunello, and Rocco (2012) showed, in fact, that the presence of an external observer is an effective way to reduce cheating not only in the monitored class, but also in other classes of the same school.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Three recent studies investigate the extent, the causes and consequences of cheating bias using our very same data. Ferrer-Esteban (2012) proposes an alternative method to identify cheating behaviour and compares it to the one used by Invalsi; Bertoni, Brunello, and Rocco (2012) show that having an external examiner (sent by Invalsi to randomly selected schools) administering the test significantly reduces average test scores, presumably by strongly reducing cheating behaviour; Lucifora and Tonello (2012) estimate a structural model of social interactions to compute a "social multiplier" for cheating.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

School Cheating and Social Capital

Paccagnella

Sestito

2014

SSRN Journal

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In this paper we investigate the correlation between cheating in school tests and social capital in the context of Italian standardized tests administered by Invalsi. Given that such tests are low-stakes, we find natural to interpret the strong opposition showed by teachers and students (sometimes resulting in explicit boycotting of the tests) as signs of low trust towards the central education authority. Indeed, we find a robust negative correlation between cheating and social capital. We also confirm previous results that have documented that: (i) the presence of an external examiner strongly reduces cheating (Bertoni, Brunello, and Rocco, 2012); and (ii) in less homogeneus classes cheating is more difficult (Bertoni, Brunello, and Rocco, 2012; Lucifora and Tonello, 2012). Furthermore, we show that cheating is instead positively correlated with measures of particularistic social values: such measures (as opposed to universalistic social values) are signs of strong and close links that end up facilitating collusive behaviours.

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“…Some recent contributions showed that this opportunistic behaviour is still present in many Italian schools, see Bertoni et al. ().…”

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confidence: 95%

Competition Among Italian Junior‐Secondary Schools: A Variance‐Decomposition Empirical Analysis

Agasisti

2013

Ann Public Coop Econ

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The public economic theory emphasizes the potential role of competition in fostering the performance of educational systems. The rationale for procompetitive policies in education (i.e. vouchers, charter schools, tax deductions) is that schools can improve their quality responding to 'pressures' from nearby competitors. The objective of this paper is to analyze the potential relationship between (i) competition among schools and (ii) students' achievement in Italy. While previous studies used OECD-Pisa data for this purpose, here a new dataset about Italian schools has been employed: about 19,000 students in 150 schools constitute the sample. The reference framework is the idea that the presence of more schools in a certain area, and/or the proportion of students enrolled in private schools, should raise the performance of schools operating in that area through a 'competition effect'. A multilevel strategy, which allows separating between-areas variance in achievement scores, is employed. The findings support the view that competition has an impact, albeit little, on students' achievement, and such competitive pressure is due to the number of schools, no matter if public or private.

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When the cat is near, the mice won't play: The effect of external examiners in Italian schools

Cited by 73 publications

References 20 publications

The effect of multigrade classes on cognitive and non- cognitive skills. Causal evidence exploiting minimum class size rules in Italy✰

The effect of multigrade classes on cognitive and non- cognitive skills. Causal evidence exploiting minimum class size rules in Italy✰

School Cheating and Social Capital

Competition Among Italian Junior‐Secondary Schools: A Variance‐Decomposition Empirical Analysis

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