IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wil/wilehe/50.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Students Educating Students: The Emerging Role of Peer Effects in Higher Education

Author

Listed:
  • Goethals, G.
  • Winston, G.
  • Zimmerman, D.

Abstract

The quality of the education a student gets at a college or university depends both on the school's resources - faculty, facilities, libraries - and importantly on the quality of his or her fellow students. He or she simply learns more - better, faster, more deeply - in the company of able students than with weak ones. Put that way, the proposition seems reasonable, persuasive, and appealing - we can usually get by simply by asserting it. But as we've looked more closely at those "peer effects," we have encountered an increasingly complicated, subtle, and often slippery set of issues: at base, not much is known about peer effects in higher education, despite their potential importance. The purpose of this paper is, in a sense, to describe the structure of our ignorance - what it looks like, why it matters, and what might be done to overcome it - a research agenda.

Suggested Citation

  • Goethals, G. & Winston, G. & Zimmerman, D., 1999. "Students Educating Students: The Emerging Role of Peer Effects in Higher Education," Williams Project on the Economics of Higher Education DP-50, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    • Handle: RePEc:wil:wilehe:50
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://sites.williams.edu/wpehe/files/2011/06/DP-50.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rothschild, Michael & White, Lawrence J, 1995. "The Analytics of the Pricing of Higher Education and Other Services in Which the Customers Are Inputs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 573-586, June.
    2. Henderson, Vernon & Mieszkowski, Peter & Sauvageau, Yvon, 1978. "Peer group effects and educational production functions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 97-106, August.
    3. Hanushek, Eric A, 1986. "The Economics of Schooling: Production and Efficiency in Public Schools," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 1141-1177, September.
    4. Winston, Gordon C., 1987. "Activity choice : A new approach to economic behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 567-585, December.
    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. Mause Karsten, 2008. "Ist Bildung eine Ware? Ein Klärungsversuch / Is Education a Market Good? An Attempt to Clarify," ORDO. Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 59(1), pages 363-380, January.
    2. Lehmann, Erik & Warning, Susanne, 2002. "Teaching or research? What affects the efficiency of universities," Discussion Papers, Series I 322, University of Konstanz, Department of Economics.
    3. Walton, Nina, 2010. "The price of admission: Who gets into private school, and how much do they pay?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 738-750, October.
    4. Ehrenberg, R.G.Ronald G., 2004. "Econometric studies of higher education," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1-2), pages 19-37.
    5. 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.

    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. De Fraja, Gianni & Landeras, Pedro, 2006. "Could do better: The effectiveness of incentives and competition in schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 189-213, January.
    2. Dennis N. Epple & Richard Romano, 2003. "Neighborhood Schools, Choice, and the Distribution of Educational Benefits," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of School Choice, pages 227-286, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. 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.
    4. Vandenberghe, Vincent, 1999. "Cost Efficiency and Feasibility of Education Policy in the Presence of Local Social Externalities," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 1999021, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    5. David Brasington & Don Haurin, 2005. "Capitalization of Parent, School, and Peer Group Components of School Quality into House Price," Departmental Working Papers 2005-04, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    6. Gordon Winston & David Zimmerman, 2004. "Peer Effects in Higher Education," NBER Chapters, in: College Choices: The Economics of Where to Go, When to Go, and How to Pay For It, pages 395-424, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. L Feinstein & James Symons, 1997. "Attainment in Secondary School," CEP Discussion Papers dp0341, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    8. Epple, Dennis & Figlio, David & Romano, Richard, 2004. "Competition between private and public schools: testing stratification and pricing predictions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1215-1245, July.
    9. Fertig, Michael, 2003. "Educational Production, Endogenous Peer Group Formation and Class Composition - Evidence From the PISA 2000 Study," RWI Discussion Papers 2, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung.
    10. Walton, Nina, 2010. "The price of admission: Who gets into private school, and how much do they pay?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 738-750, October.
    11. Jean-Michel Plassard & Nhu Tran Thi Thanh, 2009. "Liberté de choix des élèves et concurrence des établissements : un survey de l'analyse du pilotage des systèmes éducatifs par les quasi-marchés," Revue d'économie industrielle, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(2), pages 99-130.
    12. Brasington, David M. & Haurin, Donald R., 2009. "Parents, peers, or school inputs: Which components of school outcomes are capitalized into house value?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 523-529, September.
    13. Selod, Harris & Zenou, Yves, 2003. "Private versus public schools in post-Apartheid South African cities: theory and policy implications," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 351-394, August.
    14. Dennis Epple & Richard Romano & Holger Sieg, 2003. "The Practice and Proscription of Affirmative Action in Higher Education:An Equilibrium Analysis," NBER Working Papers 9799, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Selod, Harris & Zenou, Yves, 2001. "Location and Education in South African Cities under and after Apartheid," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 168-198, January.
    16. Fernández, Raquel, 2001. "Sorting, Education and Inequality," CEPR Discussion Papers 3020, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Waltenberg, Fabio D. & Vandenberghe, Vincent, 2007. "What does it take to achieve equality of opportunity in education?: An empirical investigation based on Brazilian data," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 709-723, December.
    18. Lefgren, Lars, 2004. "Educational peer effects and the Chicago public schools," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 169-191, September.
    19. Vandenberghe Vincent & Robin Stéphane, 2003. "Private, Private Government-Dependent and Public schools. An International Efficiency Analysis using Propensity Score Matching," Public Economics 0308002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Romero, Laura & Rey, Elena del, 2004. "Competition between public and private universities: quality, prices and exams," UC3M Working papers. Economics we046423, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    EDUCATION ; BEHAVIOUR ; LEARNING;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General

    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:wil:wilehe:50. 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: Stephen Sheppard (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdwilus.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.