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on Education |
| By: | van Lent, Max (Leiden University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the relationship between the creative abilities of study peers and academic achievement. We conduct a novel large scale field experiment at university, where students are randomized into work groups based on their score on a creativity test prior to university entry. We first show that the creative abilities of peers matter for a student's academic achievement. A one standard deviation higher creativity peer group improves study performance by 8.4 to 10 percentage points. Notably, this effect is driven by the average group creativity, there is no special impact of creative superstars. Further analysis suggests that students exposed to creative peers become more creative, but do not adjust their overall study effort. This is in line with the idea that creative approaches and questions of peers help students to master the study material better. Overall, our study highlights the importance of peer effects of creative students in shaping academic outcomes. |
| Keywords: | peer effects, academic achievement, creativity, field experiment |
| JEL: | I21 I24 J24 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16847&r=edu |
| By: | Barbara Boelmann |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that the local availability of universities acted as a catalyst in the catch-up of women in higher education that has been documented for developed countries in the latter half of the 20th century. It uses the foundation of new universities in the 1960s and 1970s in West German regions which previously did not have a university as a case study to understand how women’s mobility and education decisions interact. I first document women’s low regional mobility in post-war West Germany along with their low educational attainment. Second, I exploit that the university expansion exogenously brought universities to women’s doorsteps in a difference-indifferences (DiD) strategy. Comparing regions which experienced a university opening within 20 km to those where no university was opened, I show that women benefited more than men from a close-by university opening, closing the local gender gap in university education by about 72%. Third, I provide evidence that local universities partly increased university education through reduced costs, while part of the effect is due to higher expected returns, highlighting an important second channel through which universities promote education to local youths. |
| Keywords: | college gender gap, geographic mobility, university expansion |
| JEL: | I23 I24 I28 J16 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2024_518&r=edu |
| By: | Deborah A. Cobb-Clark; Sarah C. Dahmann; Daniel A. Kamhöfer; Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch; Daniel Kamhöfer |
| Abstract: | While there is an established positive relationship between self-control and education, the direction of causality remains a matter of debate. We make a contribution to resolving this issue by exploiting a series of Australian and German educational reforms that increased minimum education requirements as a source of exogenous variation in education levels. Instrumental variables estimates suggest that, for people affected by the reforms, an additional year of schooling has no effect on self-control. |
| Keywords: | self-control, quasi-experiments, compulsory schooling reforms, Brief Self-Control Scale |
| JEL: | D90 I26 C26 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11007&r=edu |
| By: | Michela Carlana; Eliana La Ferrara |
| Abstract: | We study the Tutoring Online Program (TOP), where: (i) tutoring is entirely online; (ii) tutors are volunteer university students, matched with underprivileged middle school students. We leverage random assignment to estimate effects during and after the pandemic (2020 and 2022), investigating channels of impact. Three hours of individual tutoring per week increased math performance by 0.23 SD in 2020 and 0.20 SD in 2022. Higher-dosage yielded stronger effects, while group tutoring smaller effects. TOP enhanced students’ aspirations, socio-emotional skills and psychological well-being, but only during school closures. We also estimate the impact of TOP on tutors, finding increases in empathy. |
| JEL: | I21 I24 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32272&r=edu |
| By: | Eva M. Berger; Ernst Fehr; Henning Hermes; Daniel Schunk; Kirsten Winkel |
| Abstract: | Working memory capacity is a key component of executive functioning and is thought to play an important role for a wide range of cognitive and noncognitive skills such as fluid intelligence, math, reading, the inhibition of pre-potent impulses or more general self-regulation abilities. Because these abilities substantially affect individuals’ life trajectories in terms of health, education, and earnings, the question of whether working memory (WM) training can improve them is of considerable importance. However, whether WM training leads to spillover effects on these other skills is contested. Here, we examine the causal impact of WM training embedded in regular school teaching by a randomized educational intervention involving a sample of 6–7 years old first graders. We find substantial immediate and lasting gains in working memory capacity. In addition, we document positive spillover effects on geometry, Raven’s fluid IQ measure, and the ability to inhibit pre-potent impulses. Moreover, these spillover effects emerge over time and only become fully visible after 12–13 months. Finally, we document that three years after the intervention the children who received training have a roughly 16 percentage points higher probability of entering the academic track in secondary school. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11010&r=edu |
| By: | Kevin J. Mumford; Richard W. Patterson; Anthony Yim |
| Abstract: | What happens when college students are not able to enroll in the courses they want? We use a natural experiment at Purdue University in which first-year students are conditionally randomly assigned to oversubscribed courses. Compared to students who are assigned a requested course, those who are shut out are 40% less likely to ever take the oversubscribed course and 30% less likely to ever take a course in the same subject. While a course shutout is equally likely to occur to female and male students who requested the course, shutouts are much more disruptive for female students. In the short run, shutouts decrease the credits female students earn as well as their GPA. In the long-run, shutouts increase the probability female students drop out of school in the first year, decrease the probability they choose majors in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), decrease cumulative GPA, and decrease the probability of graduating within four years. In contrast, shutouts have no effects on short-run credits earned, dropout, majoring in STEM, cumulative GPA, or four-year graduation for male students. Shutouts do have one large measurable long-run impact on male students—shutouts significantly increase the probability that men choose a major from the business school. |
| JEL: | I23 J16 J24 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11005&r=edu |
| By: | Athira Vinod |
| Abstract: | Under the Right to Education Act (2009), the Indian government introduced a policy that required private schools to reserve 25% of primary school places for children from socially disadvantaged households. This paper examines the impact of the RTE Act’s reservation policy on private school expenditure by socially disadvantaged households. Leveraging the age of school entry and using a difference-in-difference approach, this paper finds a significant decrease in private school fees for disadvantaged children post-policy. This reduction is more pronounced in districts with higher enrolment rates under the policy. The change is attributed to a rise in low-cost private schools post-policy, facilitating cheaper education for disadvantaged students. Moreover, there exists a strong correlation between the growth of low-cost schools and increased policy enrolments at the district level. |
| Keywords: | Private schools, Disadvantaged groups, Right to Education Act, Reservation policy |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcre:24/02&r=edu |