The effect of central exit examinations on student achievement: Quasi-experimental evidence from TIMSS Germany

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jürges, H; Büchel, F; Schneider, K
• 署名单位: University of Mannheim; Max Planck Society; University of Wuppertal
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1542-4766
• DOI: 10.1162/1542476054729400
• 发表日期: 2005
• 页码: 1134-1155
• 关键词: standards

摘要

This paper makes use of the regional variation in schooling legislation within the German secondary education system to estimate the causal effect of central exit examinations on student performance. We propose a difference-in-differences framework that exploits the quasi-experimental nature of the German TIMSS middle school sample and discuss its identifying assumptions. The estimates show that students in federal states with central exit examinations clearly outperform students in federal states without such examinations. However, only part of this difference can be attributed to the existence of the central exit examinations themselves. Our results suggest that central examinations increase student achievement by the equivalent of about one-third of a school year.