IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/chinae/v32y2024i3p67-97.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Spatial Structure of Peer Networks and Academic Achievement Based on a Random Control Trial Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Shilan Feng
  • Ya Tan
  • Zhi Wang
  • Qinghua Zhang

Abstract

This paper investigates whether changing the seating arrangement in a classroom can facilitate positive spillovers from top‐performing students to others, using a field experiment conducted in a Chinese high school. Among study groups with balanced abilities, the treatment altered the spatial distribution by assigning the two top students to seats in the spatial center of each group. In the reference groups where students were allowed to choose their own seating arrangements, the lowest performing were significantly less likely to sit next to a top student than they would be under a random assignment. The results suggest that, in the treated groups, there could be enhanced academic spillovers from the top students. The treatment especially benefited the two lowest performing students in science subjects. In contrast, the treatment exerted negative effects on the test scores of the two middle‐performing students, due to a disruption mechanism. The results suggest that the spatial layout of a peer network can have a significant impact on learning outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Shilan Feng & Ya Tan & Zhi Wang & Qinghua Zhang, 2024. "Spatial Structure of Peer Networks and Academic Achievement Based on a Random Control Trial Experiment," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 32(3), pages 67-97, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:chinae:v:32:y:2024:i:3:p:67-97
    DOI: 10.1111/cwe.12532
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/cwe.12532
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/cwe.12532?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jacob M. Markman & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain & Steven G. Rivkin, 2003. "Does peer ability affect student achievement?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 527-544.
    2. Mary A. Burke & Tim R. Sass, 2013. "Classroom Peer Effects and Student Achievement," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 51-82.
    3. Patrick Bayer & Stephen L. Ross & Giorgio Topa, 2008. "Place of Work and Place of Residence: Informal Hiring Networks and Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(6), pages 1150-1196, December.
    4. Stuart S. Rosenthal & William C. Strange, 2003. "Geography, Industrial Organization, and Agglomeration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 377-393, May.
    5. Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg & Rebecca Henderson, 1993. "Geographic Localization of Knowledge Spillovers as Evidenced by Patent Citations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 577-598.
    6. Fletcher, Jason M. & Ross, Stephen L. & Zhang, Yuxiu, 2020. "The consequences of friendships: Evidence on the effect of social relationships in school on academic achievement," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    7. Li, Tao & Han, Li & Zhang, Linxiu & Rozelle, Scott, 2014. "Encouraging classroom peer interactions: Evidence from Chinese migrant schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 29-45.
    8. Alexandre Belloni & Victor Chernozhukov & Christian Hansen, 2014. "High-Dimensional Methods and Inference on Structural and Treatment Effects," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 29-50, Spring.
    9. Jeffrey S. Zax & Daniel I. Rees, 2002. "IQ, Academic Performance, Environment, and Earnings," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(4), pages 600-616, November.
    10. Fangwen Lu & Michael L. Anderson, 2015. "Peer Effects in Microenvironments: The Benefits of Homogeneous Classroom Groups," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 91-122.
    11. Scott E. Carrell & Bruce I. Sacerdote & James E. West, 2013. "From Natural Variation to Optimal Policy? The Importance of Endogenous Peer Group Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(3), pages 855-882, May.
    12. Scott E. Carrell & Richard L. Fullerton & James E. West, 2009. "Does Your Cohort Matter? Measuring Peer Effects in College Achievement," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(3), pages 439-464, July.
    13. Youjin Hahn & Asadul Islam & Eleonora Patacchini & Yves Zenou, 2020. "Friendship and Female Education: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Bangladeshi Primary Schools," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(627), pages 740-764.
    14. Carman, Katherine Grace & Zhang, Lei, 2012. "Classroom peer effects and academic achievement: Evidence from a Chinese middle school," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 223-237.
    15. Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "Peer Effects with Random Assignment: Results for Dartmouth Roommates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 681-704.
    16. Lu, Fangwen & Anderson, Michael L, 2015. "Peer Effects in Microenvironments: The Benefits of Homogeneous Classroom Groups," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt0872n398, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    17. Jie Gong & Yi Lu & Hong Song, 2018. "The Effect of Teacher Gender on Students’ Academic and Noncognitive Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(3), pages 743-778.
    18. Alwyn Young, 2019. "Channeling Fisher: Randomization Tests and the Statistical Insignificance of Seemingly Significant Experimental Results," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(2), pages 557-598.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alexandra de Gendre & Nicolás Salamanca, 2020. "On the Mechanisms of Ability Peer Effects," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2020n19, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    2. Min, Shi & Yuan, Zhouhang & Wang, Xiaobing & Hou, Lingling, 2019. "Do peer effects influence the academic performance of rural students at private migrant schools in China?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 418-433.
    3. Ozkan Eren, 2017. "Differential Peer Effects, Student Achievement, and Student Absenteeism: Evidence From a Large-Scale Randomized Experiment," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(2), pages 745-773, April.
    4. Zhao, Liqiu & Zhao, Zhong, 2021. "Disruptive Peers in the Classroom and Students’ Academic Outcomes: Evidence and Mechanisms," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    5. Wang Tianheng, 2021. "Classroom Composition and Student Academic Achievement: The Impact of Peers’ Parental Education," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 21(1), pages 273-305, January.
    6. Heather Antecol & Ozkan Eren & Serkan Ozbeklik, 2016. "Peer Effects in Disadvantaged Primary Schools: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(1), pages 95-132.
    7. Feng, Shuaizhang & Kim, Jun Hyung & Yang, Zhe, 2021. "Effects of Childhood Peers on Personality Skills," IZA Discussion Papers 14952, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Guo, Juncong & Qu, Xi, 2022. "Competition in household human capital investments: Strength, motivations and consequences," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    9. Yu, Han, 2020. "Am I the big fish? The effect of ordinal rank on student academic performance in middle school," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 18-41.
    10. Dewan, Prerna & Ray, Tridip & Roy Chaudhuri, Arka & Tater, Kirti, 2024. "Gender peer effects in high schools: Evidence from India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 470-494.
    11. Modena, Francesca & Rettore, Enrico & Tanzi, Giulia Martina, 2022. "Asymmetries in the gender effect of high-performing peers: Evidence from tertiary education," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    12. Modena, Francesca & Rettore, Enrico & Tanzi, Giulia, 2021. "Does Gender Matter? The Effect of High Performing Peers on Academic Performances," IZA Discussion Papers 14806, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Bin Huang & Rong Zhu, 2020. "Peer effects of low-ability students in the classroom: evidence from China’s middle schools," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 1343-1380, October.
    14. Wang, Muwen, 2023. "Opposite-gender friendships and learning performance of students: Evidence from China," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    15. Ozkan Eren, 2016. "Differential Peer Effects, Student Achievement, and Student Absenteeism: Evidence from a Large Scale Randomized Experiment," Departmental Working Papers 2016-01, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    16. Wang, Haining & Cheng, Zhiming & Smyth, Russell, 2018. "Do migrant students affect local students’ academic achievements in urban China?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 64-77.
    17. Hikaru Kawarazaki & Minhaj Mahmud & Yasuyuki Sawada & Mai Seki, 2023. "Haste Makes No Waste: Positive Peer Effects of Classroom Speed Competition on Learning," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(4), pages 755-772, August.
    18. Kamei, Kenju & Ashworth, John, 2023. "Peer learning in teams and work performance: Evidence from a randomized field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 413-432.
    19. Berlinski, Samuel & Busso, Matias & Giannola, Michele, 2023. "Helping struggling students and benefiting all: Peer effects in primary education," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    20. Mingzhi Mao & Lijun Zang & Haifeng Zhang, 2020. "The Effects of Parental Absence on Children Development: Evidence from Left-Behind Children in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(18), pages 1-17, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:chinae:v:32:y:2024:i:3:p:67-97. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwepacn.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.