Identifying the Incidence of "Grading on a Curve": A Within-Student Across-Subject Approach

Arbeitspapier

Theoretical work shows that grading on a curve, i.e., teachers assessing students relativeto their classmates, can negatively affect students’ learning effort. However, little isknown about its empirical incidence. To overcome bias from non-random sorting andomitted variables like teachers’ grading standards, we exploit within-student acrosssubjectvariation observing both teacher-assigned grades and test scores of German4th-graders in reading and math. We find that having classmates with one standarddeviation higher test scores lowers a student’s grade by about 10 percent of a standarddeviation. Importantly, only female teachers grade on a curve and there is no associationbetween students’ learning effort and relative grading.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: ifo Working Paper ; No. 121

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Education and Research Institutions: General
• Thema: Teacher grading ; grading on a curve ; learning incentives ; Lehrkräfte ; Personalbeurteilung ; Schüler ; Soziale Gruppe ; Schätzung ; Deutschland

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Piopiunik, Marc ; Schlotter, Martin
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich
• (wo): Munich
• (wann): 2012

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/73836
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ