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Rational Students and Resit Exams

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  • Kooreman, Peter

    (Tilburg University)

Abstract

Resit exams – extra opportunities to do an exam in the same academic year – are widely prevalent in European higher education, but uncommon in the US. I present a simple theoretical model to compare rational student behavior in the case of only one exam opportunity versus the case of two exam opportunities. Numerical examples for a wide range of plausible parameter values show that a second exam opportunity increases the ultimate passing probability only slightly, but strongly reduces average total student effort.

Suggested Citation

  • Kooreman, Peter, 2012. "Rational Students and Resit Exams," IZA Discussion Papers 6832, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6832
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. De Paola, Maria & Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2011. "Frequency of examinations and student achievement in a randomized experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1416-1429.
    2. Edward P. Lazear, 2006. "Speeding, Terrorism, and Teaching to the Test," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(3), pages 1029-1061.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Resit exams are a bad idea
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2012-10-24 19:32:00

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    education production function; frequency of examinations; rationality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

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