IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/8841.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Teacher Quality Affect Student Performance? Evidence from an Italian University

Author

Listed:
  • Maria, De Paola

Abstract

In this paper we analyse whether the characteristics of university teaching staff matter with regards students’ performance and interest in the discipline. We use data on about one thousand students enrolled on the first level degree course in Business and Economics at a medium sized Italian University. Thanks to the random assignment of students to different teaching sections during their first year, we are able to analyze the effect that teachers with different characteristics, in terms of experience and research productivity, produce both on students’ performance, measured in terms of the grades obtained at subsequent exams and courses chosen. Our results suggest that teacher quality has statistically significant effects on students’ grades on subsequent courses. These effects are also robust after controlling for unobserved individual characteristics. On the other hand, we find less clear evidence when relating teacher quality to student involvement with a subject. It emerges that more experienced teachers have a negative impact on the probability of a student’s undertaking additional courses in a subject, while research productivity does not produce a statistically significant effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Maria, De Paola, 2008. "Does Teacher Quality Affect Student Performance? Evidence from an Italian University," MPRA Paper 8841, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:8841
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/8841/1/MPRA_paper_8841.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brunello, Giorgio & Checchi, Daniele, 2005. "School quality and family background in Italy," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 563-577, October.
    2. Steven G. Rivkin & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain, 2005. "Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(2), pages 417-458, March.
    3. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1992. "Does School Quality Matter? Returns to Education and the Characteristics of Public Schools in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 1-40, February.
    4. Eric Bettinger & Bridget Terry Long, 2004. "Do College Instructors Matter? The Effects of Adjuncts and Graduate Assistants on Students' Interests and Success," NBER Working Papers 10370, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Caroline Minter Hoxby, 2003. "School Choice and School Productivity. Could School Choice Be a Tide that Lifts All Boats?," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of School Choice, pages 287-342, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. George J. Borjas, 2000. "Foreign-Born Teaching Assistants and the Academic Performance of Undergraduates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 355-359, May.
    7. David J. Zimmerman, 2003. "Peer Effects in Academic Outcomes: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(1), pages 9-23, February.
    8. Brian A. Jacob & Lars Lefgren, 2005. "Principals as Agents: Subjective Performance Measurement in Education," NBER Working Papers 11463, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Florian Hoffmann & Philip Oreopoulos, 2009. "Professor Qualities and Student Achievement," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(1), pages 83-92, February.
    10. Scott E. Carrell & James E. West, 2010. "Does Professor Quality Matter? Evidence from Random Assignment of Students to Professors," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(3), pages 409-432, June.
    11. Ronald G. Ehrenberg & Liang Zhang, 2005. "Do Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty Matter?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(3).
    12. Caroline M. Hoxby & Andrew Leigh, 2004. "Pulled Away or Pushed Out? Explaining the Decline of Teacher Aptitude in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 236-240, May.
    13. Jonah E. Rockoff, 2004. "The Impact of Individual Teachers on Student Achievement: Evidence from Panel Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 247-252, May.
    14. Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "Peer Effects with Random Assignment: Results for Dartmouth Roommates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 681-704.
    15. Moulton, Brent R, 1990. "An Illustration of a Pitfall in Estimating the Effects of Aggregate Variables on Micro Unit," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(2), pages 334-338, May.
    16. Jacob, Brian A. & Lefgren, Lars, 2005. "Principals as Agents: Subjective Performance Measures in Education," Working Paper Series rwp05-040, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brunello, Giorgio & De Paola, Maria, 2013. "The Costs of Early School Leaving in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 7791, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Dahmani, Mounir & Ragni, Ludovic, 2008. "L'impact des technologies de l'information et de la communication sur les performances des étudiants [The impacts of Information and Communication Technologies on the students’ performance]," MPRA Paper 112238, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2009.
    3. Eline Sneyers & Kristof De Witte, 2017. "The interaction between dropout, graduation rates and quality ratings in universities," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 68(4), pages 416-430, April.
    4. Balcázar, Carlos Felipe & Nopo, Hugo R., 2014. "Broken Gears: The Value Added of Higher Education on Teachers' Academic Achievement," IZA Discussion Papers 8477, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Jaydeep Mukherjee, 2018. "Using New Case Studies for Evaluation of Marketing Student’s Academic Performance," Vision, , vol. 22(1), pages 61-67, March.
    6. Peter Madzík & Pavol Budaj & Dalibor Mikuláš & Dominik Zimon, 2019. "Application of the Kano Model for a Better Understanding of Customer Requirements in Higher Education—A Pilot Study," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-18, January.
    7. Mohan Zhang & Jing Tian & Hao Ni & Guangbao Fang, 2021. "Exploring Teacher Leadership and the Factors Contributing to It: An Empirical Study on Chinese Private Higher Education Institutions," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440211, March.
    8. Michela Ponzo & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2012. "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly: Teaching Evaluations, Beauty And Abilities," Working Papers 201204, Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF.
    9. Danilowicz-Gösele, Kamila, 2016. ""A" is the aim?," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 291, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.

    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. Tian, Zhilei & Wei, Yi & Li, Fang, 2019. "Who are better teachers? The effects of tenure-track and part-time faculty on student achievement," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 140-151.
    2. Brodaty, Thibault & Gurgand, Marc, 2016. "Good peers or good teachers? Evidence from a French University," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 62-78.
    3. Lusher, Lester & Campbell, Doug & Carrell, Scott, 2018. "TAs like me: Racial interactions between graduate teaching assistants and undergraduates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 203-224.
    4. Scott E. Carrell & James E. West, 2010. "Does Professor Quality Matter? Evidence from Random Assignment of Students to Professors," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(3), pages 409-432, June.
    5. Naven, Matthew, 2019. "Human-Capital Formation During Childhood and Adolescence: Evidence from School Quality and Postsecondary Success in California," MPRA Paper 97716, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Florian Hoffmann & Philip Oreopoulos, 2009. "Professor Qualities and Student Achievement," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(1), pages 83-92, February.
    7. Oriana Bandiera & Valentino Larcinese & Imran Rasul, 2010. "Heterogeneous Class Size Effects: New Evidence from a Panel of University Students," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(549), pages 1365-1398, December.
    8. Vincenzo Andrietti & Xuejuan Su, 2019. "Education curriculum and student achievement: theory and evidence," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 4-19, January.
    9. Rodríguez, Rosa & Rubio, Gonzalo, 2016. "Teaching quality and academic research," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 10-27.
    10. Kugler Franziska & Schwerdt Guido & Wößmann Ludger, 2014. "Ökonometrische Methoden zur Evaluierung kausaler Effekte der Wirtschaftspolitik," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 15(2), pages 105-132, June.
    11. Hanushek, Eric A. & Kain, John F. & Rivkin, Steven G. & Branch, Gregory F., 2007. "Charter school quality and parental decision making with school choice," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(5-6), pages 823-848, June.
    12. Maarten Goos & Anna Salomons, 2017. "Measuring teaching quality in higher education: assessing selection bias in course evaluations," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 58(4), pages 341-364, June.
    13. Braga, Michela & Paccagnella, Marco & Pellizzari, Michele, 2014. "Evaluating students’ evaluations of professors," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 71-88.
    14. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1jgbspo1909q48svne93o55rca is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Nathaniel Hilger & Emmanuel Saez & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach & Danny Yagan, 2011. "How Does Your Kindergarten Classroom Affect Your Earnings? Evidence from Project Star," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1593-1660.
    16. Alexis Le Chapelain, 2014. "Market for education and student achievement [Marché de l’éducation et réussite scolaire]," SciencePo Working papers tel-03510563, HAL.
    17. Limor Hatsor, 2014. "Allocation of Resources in Educational Production: The Budget Puzzle," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 16(6), pages 854-883, December.
    18. Kang, Changhui, 2007. "Classroom peer effects and academic achievement: Quasi-randomization evidence from South Korea," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 458-495, May.
    19. Leigh, Andrew, 2012. "Teacher pay and teacher aptitude," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 41-53.
    20. Jesse Rothstein, 2007. "Do Value-Added Models Add Value? Tracking, Fixed Effects, and Causal Inference," Working Papers 1036, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    21. Alexis Le Chapelain, 2014. "Market for Education and Student Achievement," Sciences Po publications info:hdl:2441/1jgbspo1909, Sciences Po.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    teaching quality; student performance;

    JEL classification:

    • A2 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics

    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:pra:mprapa:8841. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.