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The Impact of High-Stakes School-Admission Exams on Study Effort and Achievements: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Slovakia

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  • Miroslava Federicova

Abstract

High-stakes admission exams to selective schools create incentives for more intensive study effort possibly increasing study achievements of students. Exploiting the exogenous change of a schooling system and using two waves of TIMSS survey data we find that high-stakes exams increase math test scores of ten-year-old students by 0.2 standard deviations. This effect additionally accrues by around 0.05 standard deviations for students in the top decile, i.e. students who apply for selective schools with the highest probability. Although the effects are similar for both genders, there are indications that girls exert higher study efforts than boys in a more competitive environment. The most perceptive to incentives are test items referring to the cognitive domain of reasoning requiring a deeper understanding of math problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Miroslava Federicova, 2014. "The Impact of High-Stakes School-Admission Exams on Study Effort and Achievements: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Slovakia," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp517, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    • Handle: RePEc:cer:papers:wp517
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    Cited by:

    1. Maciej Jakubowski, 2015. "Opening up opportunities: education reforms in Poland," IBS Policy Papers 01/2015, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    high-stakes exams; students’motivation; achievement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality

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