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Grading Student Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Florian Schoner
  • Lukas Mergele
  • Larissa Zierow

Abstract

Numerous countries mandate comportment grades rating students’ social and work behavior in the classroom from teachers, yet their impact on student outcomes remains unclear. We exploit the staggered introduction of comportment grading across German federal states to estimate its causal effect on students’ school-to-work transitions, non-cognitive skills, and reading skills. Analyzing two different household surveys and student assessment data, point estimates of causal effects are close to zero for all outcomes. However, while confidence intervals for school-to-work transitions and non-cognitive skills allow us to reject meaningful effect sizes, those for reading skills are wider and need to be interpreted more cautiously. We use additional data sources to investigate potential explanations.

Suggested Citation

  • Florian Schoner & Lukas Mergele & Larissa Zierow, 2021. "Grading Student Behavior," CESifo Working Paper Series 9275, CESifo.
  • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9275
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    school reforms; report cards; school-to-work transition; student achievement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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