IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp12338.html

Math Scores in High Stakes Grades

Author

Listed:
  • Brunello, Giorgio

    (University of Padova)

  • Kiss, David

    (Leibniz University of Hannover)

Abstract

We investigate whether tests taken during a high stakes grade by German primary and secondary students produce higher math scores than in lower stakes grades. We identify a high stakes grade with the final grade of primary or secondary school, because good performance in that grade can affect future opportunities. Our difference-in-differences estimates show that high stakes increase math scores on average by 0.17 to 0.23 standard deviations, a sizeable effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Brunello, Giorgio & Kiss, David, 2019. "Math Scores in High Stakes Grades," IZA Discussion Papers 12338, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12338
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp12338.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roland G. Fryer, 2011. "Financial Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from Randomized Trials," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1755-1798.
    2. Giorgio Brunello & Margherita Fort & Guglielmo Weber, 2009. "Changes in Compulsory Schooling, Education and the Distribution of Wages in Europe," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(536), pages 516-539, March.
    3. Stepan Jurajda & Daniel Munich, 2011. "Gender Gap in Performance under Competitive Pressure: Admissions to Czech Universities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 514-518, May.
    4. Lorraine Dearden & Carl Emmerson & Costas Meghir, 2009. "Conditional Cash Transfers and School Dropout Rates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(4).
    5. Thomas S. Dee & James Wyckoff, 2015. "Incentives, Selection, and Teacher Performance: Evidence from IMPACT," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(2), pages 267-297, March.
    6. Esther Duflo & Rema Hanna & Stephen P. Ryan, 2012. "Incentives Work: Getting Teachers to Come to School," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1241-1278, June.
    7. Joshua Angrist & Victor Lavy, 2009. "The Effects of High Stakes High School Achievement Awards: Evidence from a Randomized Trial," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1384-1414, September.
    8. Cecilia Elena Rouse, 1998. "Private School Vouchers and Student Achievement: An Evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(2), pages 553-602.
    9. Hendrik Jürges & Kerstin Schneider & Felix Büchel, 2005. "The Effect Of Central Exit Examinations On Student Achievement: Quasi-Experimental Evidence From TIMSS Germany," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(5), pages 1134-1155, September.
    10. Leonardo Bursztyn & Robert Jensen, 2015. "How Does Peer Pressure Affect Educational Investments?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(3), pages 1329-1367.
    11. Lex Borghans & Angela Lee Duckworth & James J. Heckman & Bas ter Weel, 2008. "The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).
    12. Evren Ors & Frédéric Palomino & Eloïc Peyrache, 2013. "Performance Gender Gap: Does Competition Matter?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(3), pages 443-499.
    13. Jere R. Behrman & Michela M. Tincani & Petra E. Todd & Kenneth I. Wolpin, 2016. "Teacher Quality in Public and Private Schools under a Voucher System: The Case of Chile," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(2), pages 319-362.
    14. Uri Gneezy & John A. List & Jeffrey A. Livingston & Xiangdong Qin & Sally Sadoff & Yang Xu, 2019. "Measuring Success in Education: The Role of Effort on the Test Itself," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 1(3), pages 291-308, December.
    15. Nagore Iriberri & Pedro Rey-Biel, 2019. "Competitive Pressure Widens the Gender Gap in Performance: Evidence from a Two-stage Competition in Mathematics," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(620), pages 1863-1893.
    16. Miroslava Federičová & Daniel Münich, 2017. "The impact of high-stakes school admission exams on study achievements: quasi-experimental evidence from Slovakia," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(4), pages 1069-1092, October.
    17. Gema Zamarro & Collin Hitt & Ildefonso Mendez, 2019. "When Students Don’t Care: Reexamining International Differences in Achievement and Student Effort," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(4), pages 519-552.
    18. John H. Bishop, 1998. "The Effect of Curriculum-Based External Exit Exam Systems on Student Achievement," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 171-182, June.
    19. Carmit Segal, 2012. "Working When No One Is Watching: Motivation, Test Scores, and Economic Success," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(8), pages 1438-1457, August.
    20. Pelin Akyol & Kala Krishna & Jinwen Wang, 2021. "Taking PISA Seriously: How Accurate are Low-Stakes Exams?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 184-243, June.
    21. Ghazala Azmat & Caterina Calsamiglia & Nagore Iriberri, 2016. "Gender Differences In Response To Big Stakes," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(6), pages 1372-1400, December.
    22. Figlio, David & Loeb, Susanna, 2011. "School Accountability," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 8, pages 383-421, Elsevier.
    23. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List & Susanne Neckermann & Sally Sadoff, 2016. "The Behavioralist Goes to School: Leveraging Behavioral Economics to Improve Educational Performance," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 183-219, November.
    24. Jacob, Brian A., 2005. "Accountability, incentives and behavior: the impact of high-stakes testing in the Chicago Public Schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 761-796, June.
    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. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Posso, Christian & Saravia, Estefanía & Uribe, Pablo, 2023. "Acing the test: Educational effects of the SaberEs test preparation program in Colombia," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    3. DI PIETRO Giorgio & KARPINSKI Zbigniew, 2024. "Teaching mathematics for success: A data-driven review and analysis of best practices," JRC Research Reports JRC140539, Joint Research Centre.

    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. Burgess, Simon & Metcalfe, Robert & Sadoff, Sally, 2021. "Understanding the response to financial and non-financial incentives in education: Field experimental evidence using high-stakes assessments," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    2. Koch, Alexander & Nafziger, Julia & Nielsen, Helena Skyt, 2015. "Behavioral economics of education," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 3-17.
    3. Damon Clark & David Gill & Victoria Prowse & Mark Rush, 2020. "Using Goals to Motivate College Students: Theory and Evidence From Field Experiments," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 648-663, October.
    4. Adam M. Lavecchia & Heidi Liu & Philip Oreopoulos, 2014. "Behavioral Economics of Education: Progress and Possibilities," NBER Working Papers 20609, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. List, John A. & Livingston, Jeffrey A. & Neckermann, Susanne, 2018. "Do financial incentives crowd out intrinsic motivation to perform on standardized tests?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 125-136.
    6. Griselda, Silvia, 2024. "Gender gap in standardized tests: What are we measuring?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 191-229.
    7. Roland G. Fryer, Jr, 2016. "The Production of Human Capital in Developed Countries: Evidence from 196 Randomized Field Experiments," NBER Working Papers 22130, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Xiqian Cai & Yi Lu & Jessica Pan & Songfa Zhong, 2019. "Gender Gap under Pressure: Evidence from China's National College Entrance Examination," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(2), pages 249-263, May.
    9. Giorgio Brunello & Angela Crema & Lorenzo Rocco, 2021. "Some Unpleasant Consequences of Testing at Length," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(4), pages 1002-1023, August.
    10. Czibor, Eszter & Onderstal, Sander & Sloof, Randolph & van Praag, C. Mirjam, 2020. "Does relative grading help male students? Evidence from a field experiment in the classroom," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    11. Bach, Maximilian & Fischer, Mira, 2020. "Understanding the Response to High-Stakes Incentives in Primary Education," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 261, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    12. Apascaritei, Paula & Radl, Jonas & Swarr, Madeline, 2024. "Material incentives moderate gender differences in cognitive effort among children," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 114, pages 1-20.
    13. Arora, Puneet & Musaddiq, Tareena, 2023. "Can rank-based non-monetary rewards improve student attendance? Experimental evidence from India," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    14. Uri Gneezy & John A. List & Jeffrey A. Livingston & Xiangdong Qin & Sally Sadoff & Yang Xu, 2019. "Measuring Success in Education: The Role of Effort on the Test Itself," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 1(3), pages 291-308, December.
    15. Campos-Mercade, Pol & Thiemann, Petra & Wengström, Erik, 2025. "Performance Incentives in Education: The Role of Goal Mismatch," Working Papers 2025:5, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    16. Borghans, Lex & Diris, Ron & Tavares, Mariana, 2025. "Time Well Spent? The Role of Test Effort in Explaining Achievement Gaps," IZA Discussion Papers 17734, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Wagner, Valentin & Riener, Gerhard, 2015. "Peers or parents? On non-monetary incentives in schools," DICE Discussion Papers 203, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    18. Claire Duquennois, 2022. "Fictional Money, Real Costs: Impacts of Financial Salience on Disadvantaged Students," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(3), pages 798-826, March.
    19. Riener, Gerhard & Wagner, Valentin, 2017. "Shying away from demanding tasks? Experimental evidence on gender differences in answering multiple-choice questions," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 43-62.
    20. Palacios-Abad, Alberto, 2021. "Strive to Succeed? The Role of Persistence in the Process of Educational Attainment," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 65(11), pages 1555-1576.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    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:iza:izadps:dp12338. 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: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.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.