IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp16198.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

First Generation College Students and Peer Effects

Author

Listed:
  • Kofoed, Michael S.

    (University of Tennessee)

  • Jones, Todd R.

    (Mississippi State University)

Abstract

Higher education policymakers are concerned about the success of first-generation college students. In this study, we investigate one potential factor that may influence outcomes: first-generation students' peers. To mitigate common biases that may arise when estimating peer effects, we leverage the assignment of roommates at The United States Military Academy (West Point). We do not find evidence that being exposed to a roommate(s) with a one standard deviation higher English SAT score impacts first-semester English grades for first-generation students. Our findings for math are inconclusive, with at best suggestive evidence of a small, positive effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Kofoed, Michael S. & Jones, Todd R., 2023. "First Generation College Students and Peer Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 16198, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16198
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp16198.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David S. Lyle, 2009. "The Effects of Peer Group Heterogeneity on the Production of Human Capital at West Point," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 69-84, October.
    2. Ben Ost & Weixiang Pan & Douglas Webber, 2018. "The Returns to College Persistence for Marginal Students: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from University Dismissal Policies," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(3), pages 779-805.
    3. Jonathan Guryan & Kory Kroft & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2009. "Peer Effects in the Workplace: Evidence from Random Groupings in Professional Golf Tournaments," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 34-68, October.
    4. 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).
    5. Azzam, Tarek & Bates, Michael D. & Fairris, David, 2022. "Do learning communities increase first year college retention? Evidence from a randomized control trial," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    6. Robert Garlick, 2018. "Academic Peer Effects with Different Group Assignment Policies: Residential Tracking versus Random Assignment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 345-369, July.
    7. Bobby W. Chung & Jian Zou, 2023. "Understanding spillover of peer parental education: Randomization evidence and mechanisms," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(3), pages 496-522, July.
    8. Michael S. Kofoed & Elizabeth mcGovney, 2019. "The Effect of Same-Gender or Same-Race Role Models on Occupation Choice: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Mentors at West Point," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 54(2), pages 430-467.
    9. David S. Lyle, 2007. "Estimating and Interpreting Peer and Role Model Effects from Randomly Assigned Social Groups at West Point," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(2), pages 289-299, May.
    10. Modena, Francesca & Rettore, Enrico & Tanzi, Giulia Martina, 2022. "Asymmetries in the gender effect of high-performing peers: Evidence from tertiary education," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Jones, Todd R. & Kofoed, Michael S., 2020. "Do peers influence occupational preferences? Evidence from randomly-assigned peer groups at West Point," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    2. Michael Babington & Sebastian J. Goerg & Carl Kitchens, 2020. "Do Tournaments With Superstars Encourage or Discourage Competition?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(1), pages 44-63, January.
    3. Dinarte Diaz,Lelys Ileana, 2020. "Peer Effects on Violence : Experimental Evidence from El Salvador," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9187, The World Bank.
    4. Camila F. S. Campos & Shaun Hargreaves Heap & Fernanda Leite Lopez de Leon, 2017. "The political influence of peer groups: experimental evidence in the classroom," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(4), pages 963-985.
    5. Coveney, Max & Oosterveen, Matthijs, 2021. "What drives ability peer effects?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    6. Kamei, Kenju & Ashworth, John, 2023. "Peer learning in teams and work performance: Evidence from a randomized field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 413-432.
    7. Brady, Ryan R. & Insler, Michael A. & Rahman, Ahmed S., 2017. "Bad Company: Understanding negative peer effects in college achievement," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 144-168.
    8. Marcel Fafchamps & Di Mo, 2018. "Peer effects in computer assisted learning: evidence from a randomized experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(2), pages 355-382, June.
    9. Brady, Ryan & Insler, Michael & Rahman, Ahmed, 2015. "Bad Company: Reconciling Negative Peer Effects in College Achievement," MPRA Paper 68354, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. de Gendre, Alexandra & Salamanca, Nicolás, 2020. "On the Mechanisms of Ability Peer Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 13938, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Camila Campos & Sean Hargreaves Heap & Fernanda L L de Leon, 2013. "The Political Influence of Peer Groups: Experimental Evidence from the Classroom," University of East Anglia Applied and Financial Economics Working Paper Series 053, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    12. Petra Thiemann, 2022. "The Persistent Effects of Short-Term Peer Groups on Performance: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Higher Education," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 1131-1148, February.
    13. repec:oxf:wpaper:wps/2014-05 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Bet Caeyers, 2014. "Exclusion bias in empirical social interaction models: causes, consequences and solutions," CSAE Working Paper Series 2014-05, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    15. Lépine, Andrea & Estevan, Fernanda, 2021. "Do ability peer effects matter for academic and labor market outcomes?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    16. Liwen Chen & Bobby Chung & Guanghua Wang, 2022. "Stay-at-Home Peer Mothers and Gender Norms: Short-run Effects on Educational Outcomes," Working Papers 2022-039, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    17. David S. Lyle, 2009. "The Effects of Peer Group Heterogeneity on the Production of Human Capital at West Point," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 69-84, October.
    18. Frijters, Paul & Islam, Asad & Pakrashi, Debayan, 2019. "Heterogeneity in peer effects in random dormitory assignment in a developing country," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 117-134.
    19. Stephen Gibbons & Shqiponja Telhaj, 2016. "Peer Effects: Evidence from Secondary School Transition in England," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(4), pages 548-575, August.
    20. Oleg Poldin & Diliara Valeeva & Maria Yudkevich, 2016. "Which Peers Matter: How Social Ties Affect Peer-group Effects," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 57(4), pages 448-468, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    peer effects; roommates; first generation college students;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

    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:dp16198. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.