Travail des élèves et performance scolaire

The academic productivity of schoolwork, measured as the ratio between academic achievement and global time devoted to schoolwork, varies heavily from country to country. Countries whose students declare the highest working time, also those where religiosity is the highest, have the lowest scores. However, part of these observations may be due to a desirability bias in students? declarations, of which the exact importance is hard to determine. Among students of a same country, working time vary more or less according to the country, and more or less in relation with their performance and their social background. In some, working time is about the same for all students, in others, more work is requested from high performing students or from high SES students. Generally speaking, the effect of working time on the effectiveness of school system seems to be at best nil, while the effect of its distribution among students seems to affect, albeit weakly, their equity.