IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aep/anales/4578.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

More time less time? The effect of lengthening the school day on learning trajectories

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Nistal
  • María Edo

Abstract

We investigate to what extent lengthening the primary school days affects learning trajectories. We use national administration reports at the school level to estimate the impact of more school hours on grade retention at the primary level. Using microdata available in Argentina from 2011 to 2019, we use the variation of 1,297 schools that added more hours of instructional time. The fact that the change from a simple regime (4 hours per day) to an extended regime (more than 4 hours but less than 8) was progressively and exogenous, conditional on infrastructure capacity, allows for estimating the effect through a difference-in-difference approach. We find that lengthening the school day reduces the grade retention of primary students by 23.1%.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Nistal & María Edo, 2022. "More time less time? The effect of lengthening the school day on learning trajectories," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4578, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    • Handle: RePEc:aep:anales:4578
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://aaep.org.ar/works/works2022/4578.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2007. "The Impact of Length of the School Year on Student Performance and Earnings: Evidence From the German Short School Years," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(523), pages 1216-1242, October.
    2. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2010. "The Credibility Revolution in Empirical Economics: How Better Research Design Is Taking the Con out of Econometrics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(2), pages 3-30, Spring.
    3. Bellei, Cristián, 2009. "Does lengthening the school day increase students' academic achievement? Results from a natural experiment in Chile," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 629-640, October.
    4. David Jaume & Alexander Willén, 2019. "The Long-Run Effects of Teacher Strikes: Evidence from Argentina," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(4), pages 1097-1139.
    5. Marco Manacorda, 2012. "The Cost of Grade Retention," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(2), pages 596-606, May.
    6. Meyer, Erik & Van Klaveren, Chris, 2013. "The effectiveness of extended day programs: Evidence from a randomized field experiment in the Netherlands," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-11.
    7. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    8. Marcotte, Dave E., 2007. "Schooling and test scores: A mother-natural experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 629-640, October.
    9. Agüero, Jorge M. & Beleche, Trinidad, 2013. "Test-Mex: Estimating the effects of school year length on student performance in Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 353-361.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martín Nistal, 2022. "More time less time? The effect of lengthening the school day on learning trajectories," Young Researchers Working Papers 4, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Oct 2022.
    2. Barrios-Fernández, Andrés & Bovini, Giulia, 2021. "It’s time to learn: School institutions and returns to instruction time," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    3. OIKAWA Masato & TANAKA Ryuichi & BESSHO Shun-ichiro & KAWAMURA Akira & NOGUCHI Haruko, 2022. "Do Class Closures Affect Students' Achievements? Heterogeneous effects of students' socioeconomic backgrounds," Discussion papers 22042, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    4. Agüero, Jorge M. & Beleche, Trinidad, 2013. "Test-Mex: Estimating the effects of school year length on student performance in Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 353-361.
    5. Sarah Cattan & Daniel A. Kamhöfer & Martin Karlsson & Therese Nilsson, 2017. "The short- and long-term effects of student absence: evidence from Sweden," IFS Working Papers W17/21, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    6. Huebener, Mathias & Marcus, Jan, 2017. "Compressing instruction time into fewer years of schooling and the impact on student performance," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 58, pages 1-14.
    7. Battistin, Erich & Meroni, Elena Claudia, 2016. "Should we increase instruction time in low achieving schools? Evidence from Southern Italy," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 39-56.
    8. Vincenzo Andrietti & Xuejuan Su, 2019. "The Impact of Schooling Intensity on Student Learning: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 14(4), pages 679-701, Fall.
    9. Michael Doersam & Verena Lauber, 2019. "The Effect of a Compressed High School Curriculum on University Performance," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2019-03, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    10. Rosa, Leonardo & Bettinger, Eric & Carnoy, Martin & Dantas, Pedro, 2022. "The effects of public high school subsidies on student test scores," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    11. Dörsam, Michael & Lauber, Verena, 2015. "The Effect of a Compressed High School Curriculum on University Performance," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 140876, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Martin Fischer & Martin Karlsson & Therese Nilsson & Nina Schwarz, 2020. "The Long-Term Effects of Long Terms – Compulsory Schooling Reforms in Sweden," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(6), pages 2776-2823.
    13. Thompson, Paul N., 2021. "Is four less than five? Effects of four-day school weeks on student achievement in Oregon," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    14. Huebener, Mathias & Kuger, Susanne & Marcus, Jan, 2017. "Increased instruction hours and the widening gap in student performance," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 47, pages 15-34.
    15. Camarero Garcia, Sebastian, 2022. "Inequality of Educational Opportunities and the Role of Learning Intensity," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    16. Almeida,Rita Kullberg & Bresolin,Antonio & Pugialli Da Silva Borges,Bruna & Mendes,Karen & Menezes Filho,Naercio, 2016. "Assessing the impacts of Mais Educacao on educational outcomes : evidence between 2007 and 2011," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7644, The World Bank.
    17. Strazzeri, Maurizio & Oggenfuss, Chantal & Wolter, Stefan C., 2022. "Much Ado about Nothing? School Curriculum Reforms and Students' Educational Trajectories," IZA Discussion Papers 15505, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. BAI Yu & TANAKA Ryuichi, 2024. "A Long-run Consequence of Relaxation-Oriented Education on Labor Market Performance," Discussion papers 24003, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    19. Yasmine Bekkouche & Kenneth Houngbedji & Oswald Koussihouede, 2022. "Rainy days and learning outcomes: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers DT/2022/07, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    20. Figlio, D. & Karbownik, K. & Salvanes, K.G., 2016. "Education Research and Administrative Data," Handbook of the Economics of Education,, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aep:anales:4578. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Juan Manuel Quintero (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeppea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.