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Students Educating Students: The Emerging Role of Peer Effects in Higher Education

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  • Goethals, G.
  • Winston, G.
  • Zimmerman, D.

Abstract

The quality of the education a student gets at a college or university depends both on the school's resources - faculty, facilities, libraries - and importantly on the quality of his or her fellow students. He or she simply learns more - better, faster, more deeply - in the company of able students than with weak ones. Put that way, the proposition seems reasonable, persuasive, and appealing - we can usually get by simply by asserting it. But as we've looked more closely at those "peer effects," we have encountered an increasingly complicated, subtle, and often slippery set of issues: at base, not much is known about peer effects in higher education, despite their potential importance. The purpose of this paper is, in a sense, to describe the structure of our ignorance - what it looks like, why it matters, and what might be done to overcome it - a research agenda.

Suggested Citation

  • Goethals, G. & Winston, G. & Zimmerman, D., 1999. "Students Educating Students: The Emerging Role of Peer Effects in Higher Education," Williams Project on the Economics of Higher Education DP-50, Department of Economics, Williams College.
  • Handle: RePEc:wil:wilehe:50
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    File URL: http://sites.williams.edu/wpehe/files/2011/06/DP-50.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Rothschild, Michael & White, Lawrence J, 1995. "The Analytics of the Pricing of Higher Education and Other Services in Which the Customers Are Inputs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 573-586, June.
    2. Henderson, Vernon & Mieszkowski, Peter & Sauvageau, Yvon, 1978. "Peer group effects and educational production functions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 97-106, August.
    3. Hanushek, Eric A, 1986. "The Economics of Schooling: Production and Efficiency in Public Schools," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 1141-1177, September.
    4. Winston, Gordon C., 1987. "Activity choice : A new approach to economic behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 567-585, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Ehrenberg, R.G.Ronald G., 2004. "Econometric studies of higher education," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1-2), pages 19-37.
    2. Mause Karsten, 2008. "Ist Bildung eine Ware? Ein Klärungsversuch / Is Education a Market Good? An Attempt to Clarify," ORDO. Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 59(1), pages 363-380, January.
    3. Lehmann, Erik & Warning, Susanne, 2002. "Teaching or research? What affects the efficiency of universities," Discussion Papers, Series I 322, University of Konstanz, Department of Economics.
    4. David J. Zimmerman, 2003. "Peer Effects in Academic Outcomes: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(1), pages 9-23, February.
    5. Walton, Nina, 2010. "The price of admission: Who gets into private school, and how much do they pay?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 738-750, October.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    EDUCATION ; BEHAVIOUR ; LEARNING;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General

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