Student achievement rises when grades matter more for admission
2021-06-28
This paper is part of the thesis Inputs and Incentives in Education
Author: Lucas Tilley
- Compulsory school students earn higher grades when their grades get more weight in the high school admission process
- Grades improve for students of all ability levels, with particularly large improvements in the middle of the grade distribution
- The increase in grades appears to be the result of students working harder in school rather than teachers relaxing their grading standards
In 1999, Stockholm municipality changed its high school admission rules, replacing residence-based school placement with strictly grades-based admissions. The new rules strengthened the incentives for students to perform better in school. The main research question is whether students’ grades increase as a result of the reform, and if so, whether the increase is due to relaxed grading practices or changes in student effort.
To answer this question, researcher Lucas Tilley analyzes how compulsory school grades evolved over time in Stockholm municipality compared to the rest of Stockholm County, where there was no change in admission rules.
– If student performance improves when grades matter more in the high school admission process, average grades in Stockholm municipality should rise relative to average grades in the rest of Stockholm County after the introduction of the reform, says Tilley.
The results show that compulsory school grades do increase significantly under the new high school admission rules. Students of all ability levels improve their performance, although the increases appear slightly stronger in the middle of the achievement distribution. Importantly, the improvement in grades does not seem to arise because teachers lower their grading standards or inflate grades to a larger extent after the reform. Rather, the most likely explanation is increased student effort.
For more information about the study, please contact Lucas Tilley: lucas.tilley@nek.uu.se
Download as interactive PDF
-
What do companies do when workers go on extended parental leave?
A lot of research investigates how parental leave affects parents' careers, women's and children's health, and how it is divided between the parents. However, less is known about how parental leave programs affect companies, which is an important question since increased parental leave can make it more expensive to hire women and affect companies' profits and competitiveness negatively. In a new study, researchers Arizo Karimi, Rita Ginja, and Pengpeng Xiao investigate how companies reacted after two Swedish parental leave reforms that extended the duration of paid leave.
-
Employers value social skills more than brains
The paper The Rising return to Noncognitive skills is published in American
Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2022
Authors: Per-Anders Edin, Peter Fredriksson, Martin Nybom and Björn Öckert -
Stronger neighbourhood ties can reduce crime
The article Bolstering community ties as a mean of reducing crime
is published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Authors: Magdalena Domínguez and Daniel Montolio -
Emigration sparked innovation
The article Mass Migration and Technological Change is soon to be published in The Journal of the European Economic Association
Authors: David Andersson, Mounir Karadja and Erik Prawitz -
What role does news media play in the economy?
The paper Sectoral Media Focus and Aggregate Fluctuations is
published in The American Economic Review
Authors: Ryan Chahrour, Kristoffer Nimark and Stefan Pitschner -
Living in larger cities is greener
The paper Green urbanization is published in Plos One
Authors: Jan Eeckhout and Christoph Hedtrich -
Global earnings inequality down, within-country inequality increasing
This article is published in The Economic Journal
Authors: Olle Hammar and Daniel Waldenström -
Student achievement rises when grades matter more for admission
This paper is part of the thesis Inputs and Incentives in Education
Author: Lucas Tilley