IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mos/moswps/2015-31.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can Testing Improve Student Learning? An Evaluation of the Mathematics Diagnostic Testing Project

Author

Listed:
  • Julian R. Betts
  • Youjin Hahn
  • Andrew C. Zau

Abstract

Unlike state-mandated achievement tests, tests from the Mathematics Diagnostic Testing Project (MDTP) offer teachers timely and detailed feedback on their students’ achievement. We identify the effects of providing feedback on student outcomes by using data from the San Diego Unified School District, a large urban school district where mandatory diagnostic tests in mathematics were implemented to some grades between 6 and 9 during 1999 and 2006. These diagnostic tests offer teachers timely and detailed feedback on their students’ achievement. We find that providing diagnostic feedback improves math test scores by 0.1 to 0.2 standard deviations. All students gain from this mandated testing, but those with higher initial achievement gain the most. The gains arise in part from students being more accurately tracked into appropriate math classes. The gains decay unless students are tested repeatedly.

Suggested Citation

  • Julian R. Betts & Youjin Hahn & Andrew C. Zau, 2015. "Can Testing Improve Student Learning? An Evaluation of the Mathematics Diagnostic Testing Project," Monash Economics Working Papers 31-15, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:mos:moswps:2015-31
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/eco/research/papers/2015/3115mdtpbettshahnzau.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jacob M. Markman & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain & Steven G. Rivkin, 2003. "Does peer ability affect student achievement?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 527-544.
    2. Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of the Economics of Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4, June.
    3. Sacerdote, Bruce, 2011. "Peer Effects in Education: How Might They Work, How Big Are They and How Much Do We Know Thus Far?," 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 4, pages 249-277, Elsevier.
    4. Ashenfelter, Orley C, 1978. "Estimating the Effect of Training Programs on Earnings," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(1), pages 47-57, February.
    5. Brian A. Jacob & Lars Lefgren, 2004. "Remedial Education and Student Achievement: A Regression-Discontinuity Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 226-244, February.
    6. Esther Duflo & Pascaline Dupas & Michael Kremer, 2011. "Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1739-1774, August.
    7. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    8. Lefgren, Lars, 2004. "Educational peer effects and the Chicago public schools," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 169-191, September.
    9. Karthik Muralidharan & Venkatesh Sundararaman, 2010. "The Impact of Diagnostic Feedback to Teachers on Student Learning: Experimental Evidence from India," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(546), pages 187-203, August.
    10. Koedel, Cory & Mihaly, Kata & Rockoff, Jonah E., 2015. "Value-added modeling: A review," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 180-195.
    11. Betts, Julian R., 2011. "The Economics of Tracking in Education," 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 7, pages 341-381, Elsevier.
    12. De Fraja, Gianni & Martínez-Mora, Francisco, 2014. "The desegregating effect of school tracking," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 164-177.
    13. Thomas S. Dee & Brian Jacob, 2011. "The impact of no Child Left Behind on student achievement," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(3), pages 418-446, June.
    14. Craig, Steven G. & Imberman, Scott A. & Perdue, Adam, 2013. "Does it pay to get an A? School resource allocations in response to accountability ratings," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 30-42.
    15. 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.
    16. Matsudaira, Jordan D., 2008. "Mandatory summer school and student achievement," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 829-850, February.
    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. Kiss, David, 2013. "The impact of peer achievement and peer heterogeneity on own achievement growth: Evidence from school transitions," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 58-65.
    2. Marchionni, Mariana & Pinto, Florencia & Vazquez, Emmanuel, 2013. "Determinantes de la desigualdad en el desempeño educativo en la Argentina [Determinants of the inequality in PISA test scores in Argentina]," MPRA Paper 56421, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Zhang, Hongliang, 2016. "The role of testing noise in the estimation of achievement-based peer effects," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 113-123.
    4. Marchionni, Mariana & Vazquez, Emmanuel & Pinto, Florencia, 2012. "Desigualdad educativa en la Argentina. Análisis en base a los datos PISA 2009 [Education Inequality in Argentina. An analysis based on PISA 2009 data]," MPRA Paper 56420, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. McVicar, Duncan & Moschion, Julie & Ryan, Chris, 2018. "Achievement effects from new peers: Who matters to whom?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 154-166.
    6. Ingo E. Isphording & Ulf Zölitz, 2020. "The value of a peer," ECON - Working Papers 342, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    7. Silvia Mendolia & Alfredo R Paloyo & Ian Walker, 2018. "Heterogeneous effects of high school peers on educational outcomes," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(3), pages 613-634.
    8. Karthik Muralidharan & Abhijeet Singh & Alejandro J. Ganimian, 2019. "Disrupting Education? Experimental Evidence on Technology-Aided Instruction in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1426-1460, April.
    9. Burgess, Simon, 2016. "Human Capital and Education: The State of the Art in the Economics of Education," IZA Discussion Papers 9885, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Esteban M. Aucejo & Patrick Coate & Jane Cooley Fruehwirth & Sean Kelly & Zachary Mozenter, 2018. "Teacher effectiveness and classroom composition," CEP Discussion Papers dp1574, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Angrist, Joshua D., 2014. "The perils of peer effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 98-108.
    12. Elizabeth U. Cascio & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, 2016. "First in the Class? Age and the Education Production Function," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 11(3), pages 225-250, Summer.
    13. Wennberg, Karl & Norgren, Axel, 2021. "Models of Peer Effects in Education," Working Papers 21/3, Stockholm School of Economics, Center for Educational Leadership and Excellence.
    14. Thomas Cornelissen & Christian Dustmann & Uta Schönberg, 2017. "Peer Effects in the Workplace," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(2), pages 425-456, February.
    15. 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.
    16. John P. Papay & Eric S. Taylor & John H. Tyler & Mary Laski, 2016. "Learning Job Skills from Colleagues at Work: Evidence from a Field Experiment Using Teacher Performance Data," NBER Working Papers 21986, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Heather Antecol & Ozkan Eren & Serkan Ozbeklik, 2016. "Peer Effects in Disadvantaged Primary Schools: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(1), pages 95-132.
    18. David Card & Laura Giuliano, 2016. "Can Tracking Raise the Test Scores of High-Ability Minority Students?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(10), pages 2783-2816, October.
    19. Min, Shi & Yuan, Zhouhang & Wang, Xiaobing & Hou, Lingling, 2019. "Do peer effects influence the academic performance of rural students at private migrant schools in China?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 418-433.
    20. Berlinski, Samuel & Busso, Matias & Giannola, Michele, 2023. "Helping struggling students and benefiting all: Peer effects in primary education," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Diagnostic testing; student learning; education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

    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:mos:moswps:2015-31. 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: Simon Angus (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dxmonau.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.