Academic Peer Effects with Different Group Assignment Policies: Residential Tracking versus Random Assignment

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Garlick, Robert
• 署名单位: Duke University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20160626
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 345-369
• 关键词: student-achievement; schools; identification; inference; CHOICE; boston

摘要

I study the relative academic performance of students tracked or randomly assigned to South African university dormitories. Tracking reduces low-scoring students' GPAs and has little effect on high-scoring students, leading to lower and more dispersed GPAs. I also directly estimate peer effects using random variation in peer groups across dormitories. Living with higher-scoring peers raises students' GPAs, particularly for low-scoring students, and peer effects are stronger between socially proximate students. This shows that much of the treatment effect of tracking is attributable to peer effects. These results present a cautionary note about sorting students into academically homogeneous classrooms or neighborhoods.