Helping struggling students and benefiting all: Peer effects in primary education

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Berlinski, Samuel; Busso, Matias; Giannola, Michele
• 署名单位: Inter-American Development Bank; University of Naples Federico II
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104925
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: Peer effects; Remedial education

摘要

We exploit the randomized evaluation of a remedial education intervention that improved the reading skills of low-performing third grade students in Colombia, to study whether providing educational support to low-achieving students affects the academic performance of their higher-achieving classmates. We find that the test scores of non-treated children in treatment schools increased by 0.108 of a standard deviation compared to similar children in control schools. We interpret the reduced-form effect on higher-achieving students as a spillover effect within treated schools. We then estimate a linear-in means model of peer effects, finding that a one-standard-deviation increase in peers' contemporaneous achievement increases individual test scores by 0.679 of a standard deviation. Our findings show that policies aimed at improving the bottom of the achievement distribution have the potential to generate social-multiplier effects that benefit all.& COPY; 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).