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Italian school principals’ managerial behaviors and students’ test scores: an empirical analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Tommaso Agasisti

    (Politecnico di Milano)

  • Patrizia Falzetti

    (INVALSI)

  • Mara Soncin

    (Politecnico di Milano)

Abstract

This research investigates the impact of managerial practices implemented by Italian school principals on students’ outcomes. We use micro-data provided by the National Evaluation Committee for Education (INVALSI) for 2013/14 school year. Employing an educational production function, we regress a set of student and school’s characteristics, enriched by information from a questionnaire filled by school principals to estimate student’s score at grade 8 (last year of junior secondary school), also taking into account student’s prior achievement (at grade 6 – first year of junior secondary school). We find that the model well fits for student’s characteristics, while managerial practices tend to have positive effects, but low statistical significance. Stronger associations between management variables and test scores are detected for low-SES schools.

Suggested Citation

  • Tommaso Agasisti & Patrizia Falzetti & Mara Soncin, 2016. "Italian school principals’ managerial behaviors and students’ test scores: an empirical analysis," Working papers 43, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
  • Handle: RePEc:ipu:wpaper:43
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    Cited by:

    1. Tommaso Agasisti & Veronica Minaya, 2018. "Evaluating the Stability of School Performance Estimates for School Choice: Evidence for Italian Primary Schools," Working papers 67, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    2. Camanho, Ana S. & Varriale, Luisa & Barbosa, Flávia & Sobral, Thiago, 2021. "Performance assessment of upper secondary schools in Italian regions using a circular pseudo-Malmquist index," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 289(3), pages 1188-1208.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    policy analysis; school principals; school managerial practices; Value Added Model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

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