Does grade retention affect achievement?Some evidence from PISA

  1. Garcia-Pérez, J. Ignacio 1
  2. Hidalgo-Hidalgo, Marisa 1
  3. Robles-Zurita, José Antonio 1
  1. 1 Universidad Pablo de Olavide (España)
Revista:
Documentos de trabajo ( XREAP )

Año de publicación: 2011

Número: 18

Tipo: Documento de Trabajo

DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openDDD editor

Resumen

Grade retention practices are at the forefront of the educational debate. In this paper, we use PISA 2009 data for Spain to measure the effect of grade retention on students' achievement. One important problem when analyzing this question is that school outcomes and the propensity to repeat a grade are likely to be determined simultaneously. We address this problem by estimating a Switching Regression Model. We find that grade retention has a negative impact on educational outcomes, but we confirm the importance of endogenous selection, which makes observed differences between repeaters and non-repeaters appear 14. 6% lower than they actually are. The effect on PISA scores of repeating is much smaller (-10% of non-repeaters' average) than the counterfactual reduction that non-repeaters would suffer had they been retained as repeaters (-24% of their average). Furthermore, those who repeated a grade during primary education suffered more than those who repeated a grade of secondary school, although the effect of repeating at both times is, as expected, much larger.

Referencias bibliográficas

  • Angrist, J., and Lavy, V. (1999) ìUsing MaimonidesíRule to Estimate the E§ect of Class Size on Scholastic AchievementîQuarterly Journal of Economics, 114 (2): 533-575.
  • Bedard, K. and E. Dhuey (2006) ìThe Persistence of Early Childhood Maturity: International Evidence of Long-Run Age E§ectsî, Quarterly Journal of Economics 121(4): 1437-1472.
  • Belot, M. and Vandenberghe, V. (2011) ìEvaluating the ìThreatî E§ects of Grade Repetitionî Discussion Papers (IRES - Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales) 2011-026.
  • Carrasco, R. (2001) ìBinary Choice with Binary Endogenous Regressors in Panel Data: Estimating the E§ect of Fertility on Female Labor ParticipationîJournal of Business & Economic Statistics 19(4): 385-94.
  • Dearden, L., Emmerson, C., Frayne and Meghir, C. (2006), ìEducation Subsidies and School Drop-Out Ratesî, CEE Discussion Papers 0053, Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE.
  • GarcÌa-PÈrez, J. I., and Jimeno, J. J. (2007). ìPublic sector wage gaps in Spanish regionsîThe Manchester School, 75(4), 501ñ531.
  • Hanushek, E. (1998). ìThe Evidence on Class Sizeî Occasional Paper Number 98-1, W. Allen Wallis Institute of Political Economy, University of Rochester.
  • Heckman, J. (1979). "Sample selection bias as a speciÖcation error" Econometrica 47 (1), 153ñ61.
  • Instituto de EvaluaciÛn (2010), ìSistema Estatal de Indicadores de EducaciÛnî, Ministerio de EducaciÛn.
  • Jacob, B. A. and Lefgren, L. (2004). ìRemedial Education and Student Achievement: A Regression-Discontinuity Analysis.î Review of Economics and Statistics, LXXXVI (1): 226-244:
  • Jacob, B. A. and Lefgren, L. (2009) ìThe e§ect of grade retention on high school completionîAmerican Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1:3, 33-58.
  • Jimerson, S., Ferguson, P., Whipple, A., Anderson, G. and M. Dalton (2002). ìExploring the Association Between Grade Retention and Dropout: A Longitudinal Study Examining Socio-Emotional, Behavioral, and Achievement Characteristics of Retained StudentsîThe California School Psychologist, Vol. 7, 51-62.
  • Lazear, E.P. (2001) ìEducational ProductionîQuarterly Journal of Economics 116(3): 777-803.
  • Maddala, G. (1988). Introduction to econometrics. New York: Macmillan.
  • Manacorda, M. (2008), ìThe Cost of Grade Retentionî, CEP Discussion Papers 0878, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE, forthcoming Review of Economics and Statistics.
  • OECD, (2011), ìPISA 2009. Technical Reportî
  • OECD (2010), "PISA 2009 Results: What Students Know and Can Do ñ Student Performance in Reading, Mathematics and Science (Volume I)". http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264091450-en
  • OECD, (2009), ìEducation at a glance 2009. OECD indicatorsî
  • Prescott, D. and Wilton, D. (1992) ìThe Determinants of Wage Changes in Indexed and Nonindexed Contracts: A Switching ModelîJournal of Labor Economics 10(3): 331-55.
  • Roderick, M. (1994) ìGrade retention and school dropout: Investigating the associationîAmerican Educational Research Journal 31: 729-759.
  • Sanz de Galdeano, A. and D. Vuri (2007) ìParental Divorce and StudentsíPerformance: Evidence from Longitudinal DataîOxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 69(3): 321-338
Fuente de los datos: Dialnet