IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bejeap/v20y2020i2p36n10.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Marathon, Hurdling, or Sprint? The Effects of Exam Scheduling on Academic Performance

Author

Listed:
  • Goulas Sofoklis

    (Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 434 Galvez Street, Stanford, CA, USA)

  • Megalokonomou Rigissa

    (Department of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia)

Abstract

Would you prefer a tighter or a more prolonged exam schedule? Would you prefer to take an important exam first or last? We exploit quasi-random variation in exam schedules across cohorts, grades and subjects from a lottery to identify distinct effects of the number of days between exams, the number of days since the first exam, and the exam order on performance. Scheduling effects are more pronounced for STEM exams. We find a positive and a negative relationship between STEM scores and exam order (warm-up) and number of days since the first exam (fatigue), respectively. In STEM, warm-up is estimated to outweigh fatigue. Marginal exam productivity in STEM increases faster for boys than for girls. Higher-performing students exhibit higher warm-up and lower fatigue effects in STEM than lower-performing students. Optimizing the exam schedule can improve overall performance by as much as 0.02 standard deviations.

Suggested Citation

  • Goulas Sofoklis & Megalokonomou Rigissa, 2020. "Marathon, Hurdling, or Sprint? The Effects of Exam Scheduling on Academic Performance," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(2), pages 1-36, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:20:y:2020:i:2:p:36:n:10
    DOI: 10.1515/bejeap-2019-0177
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/bejeap-2019-0177
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/bejeap-2019-0177?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jesse Rothstein, 2010. "Teacher Quality in Educational Production: Tracking, Decay, and Student Achievement," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 175-214.
    2. Decio Coviello & Andrea Ichino & Nicola Persico, 2014. "Time Allocation and Task Juggling," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(2), pages 609-623, February.
    3. 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.
    4. Roland G. Fryer & Steven D. Levitt, 2010. "An Empirical Analysis of the Gender Gap in Mathematics," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 210-240, April.
    5. Nolan G. Pope, 2016. "How the Time of Day Affects Productivity: Evidence from School Schedules," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(1), pages 1-11, March.
    6. Thomas Buser & Noemi Peter, 2012. "Multitasking," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(4), pages 641-655, December.
    7. Victor Lavy, 2015. "Do Differences in Schools' Instruction Time Explain International Achievement Gaps? Evidence from Developed and Developing Countries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(588), pages 397-424, November.
    8. Goulas, Sofoklis & Megalokonomou, Rigissa, 2015. "Knowing who you are: The Effect of Feedback Information on Short and Long Term Outcomes," Economic Research Papers 270019, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    9. Dills, Angela K. & Hernández-Julián, Rey, 2008. "Course scheduling and academic performance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 646-654, December.
    10. Daniel Aaronson & Lisa Barrow & William Sander, 2007. "Teachers and Student Achievement in the Chicago Public High Schools," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 95-135.
    11. Pope, Devin G. & Fillmore, Ian, 2015. "The impact of time between cognitive tasks on performance: Evidence from advanced placement exams," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 30-40.
    12. Giorgio Di Pietro, 2013. "Exam Scheduling And Student Performance," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(1), pages 65-81, January.
    13. Edwards, Finley, 2012. "Early to rise? The effect of daily start times on academic performance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 970-983.
    14. Kane, Thomas J. & Rockoff, Jonah E. & Staiger, Douglas O., 2008. "What does certification tell us about teacher effectiveness? Evidence from New York City," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 615-631, December.
    15. Thomas S. Dee, 2007. "Teachers and the Gender Gaps in Student Achievement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(3).
    16. 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.
    17. Goulas, Sofoklis & Megalokonomou, Rigissa & Zhang, Yi, 2018. "Does the Girl Next Door Affect Your Academic Outcomes and Career Choices?," IZA Discussion Papers 11910, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    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. Stefano Cabras & Marco Delogu & J.D. Tena, 2023. "Forced to play too many matches? A deep-learning assessment of crowded schedule," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(52), pages 6187-6204, November.
    2. Glaser, Darrell J. & Insler, Michael A., 2022. "The deleterious effects of fatigue on final exam performance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).

    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. Metzler, Johannes & Woessmann, Ludger, 2012. "The impact of teacher subject knowledge on student achievement: Evidence from within-teacher within-student variation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 486-496.
    2. Megalokonomou, Rigissa & Goulas, Sofoklis, 2015. "Knowing who you are - The Effect of Feedback Information on Short and Long Term Outcomes," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1075, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    3. Johan Coenen & Ilja Cornelisz & Wim Groot & Henriette Maassen van den Brink & Chris Van Klaveren, 2018. "Teacher Characteristics And Their Effects On Student Test Scores: A Systematic Review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 848-877, July.
    4. Daniel Santín & Gabriela Sicilia, 2018. "Using DEA for measuring teachers’ performance and the impact on students’ outcomes: evidence for Spain," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 1-15, February.
    5. Bold, Tessa & Molina, Ezequiel & Filmer, Deon & Svensson, Jakob, 2018. "The Lost Human Capital: Teacher Knowledge and Student Learning in Africa," CEPR Discussion Papers 12956, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Tanaka, Ryuichi & Bessho, Shun-ichiro & Kawamura, Akira & Noguchi, Haruko & Ushijima, Koichi, 2020. "Determinants of Teacher Value-Added in Public Primary Schools: Evidence from Administrative Panel Data," IZA Discussion Papers 13146, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Hanushek, Eric A. & Rivkin, Steven G. & Schiman, Jeffrey C., 2016. "Dynamic effects of teacher turnover on the quality of instruction," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 132-148.
    8. Hinrichs, Peter, 2021. "What kind of teachers are schools looking for? Evidence from a randomized field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 395-411.
    9. Koedel Cory & Leatherman Rebecca & Parsons Eric, 2012. "Test Measurement Error and Inference from Value-Added Models," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-37, November.
    10. Cordero, Jose M. & Gil-Izquierdo, María, 2018. "The effect of teaching strategies on student achievement: An analysis using TALIS-PISA-link," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1313-1331.
    11. Allison Atteberry & Susanna Loeb & James Wyckoff, 2013. "Do First Impressions Matter? Improvement in Early Career Teacher Effectiveness," NBER Working Papers 19096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Canales, Andrea & Maldonado, Luis, 2018. "Teacher quality and student achievement in Chile: Linking teachers' contribution and observable characteristics," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 33-50.
    13. Marta De Philippis, 2021. "Multi-Task Agents and Incentives: The Case of Teaching and Research for University Professors," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(636), pages 1643-1681.
    14. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Jonah E. Rockoff, 2014. "Measuring the Impacts of Teachers II: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2633-2679, September.
    15. Richard K. Mansfield, 2015. "Teacher Quality and Student Inequality," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(3), pages 751-788.
    16. Charles T. Clotfelter & Helen F. Ladd & Jacob L. Vigdor, 2010. "Teacher Credentials and Student Achievement in High School: A Cross-Subject Analysis with Student Fixed Effects," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(3).
    17. Dhushyanth Raju, 2017. "Public School Teacher Management in Sri Lanka," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 18(1), pages 39-63, March.
    18. 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.
    19. Haggag, Kareem & Patterson, Richard W. & Pope, Nolan G. & Feudo, Aaron, 2021. "Attribution bias in major decisions: Evidence from the United States Military Academy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    20. Thomas J. Kane & Douglas O. Staiger, 2008. "Estimating Teacher Impacts on Student Achievement: An Experimental Evaluation," NBER Working Papers 14607, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    exam schedule; cognitive fatigue; exam warm-up; practice; scaffolding; gender gap; STEM; student performance; lottery;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality

    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:bpj:bejeap:v:20:y:2020:i:2:p:36:n:10. 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: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    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.