The use (and misuse) of statistics in understanding social mobility: regression to the mean and the cognitive development of high ability children from disadvantaged homes

Social mobility has emerged as one of the key academic and political topics in Britain over the last decade. Although economists and sociologists disagree on whether mobility has increased or decreased, and if this is a bigger issue in the UK than other developed countries, both groups recognise that education and skill plays a key role in explaining intergenerational persistence. This has led academics from various disciplines to investigate how rates of cognitive development may vary between children from rich and poor backgrounds. A number of key studies have definitively shown that a gap in cognitive skill between richer and poorer children is evident from a very early age. Some have also suggested that highly able children from disadvantaged homes are overtaken by their rich (but less able) peers before the age of 10 in terms of their cognitive skill. It is this last conclusion that we focus on in this paper, as it has become a widely cited “fact†within the academic literature on social mobility and child development, and has had a major influence on public policy and political debate. We investigate whether this latter finding is due to a spurious statistical artefact known as regression to the mean (RTM). Our analysis suggests that there are serious methodological problems plaguing the existing literature and that, after applying some simple adjustments for RTM, we obtain dramatically different results.Educational mobility, socio-economic gap, disadvantaged children, regression to the mean

The Link between Family Background and Later Lifetime Income: How Does the UK Compare with Other Countries?

The link between family background and labour market outcomes is an issue of great academic, social and political concern. It is frequently claimed that such intergenerational associations are stronger in Britain than in other countries. But is this really true? I investigate this issue by estimating the link between parental education and later lifetime income, using three cross-nationally comparable data sets covering more than 30 countries. My results suggest that the UK is broadly in the middle of the cross-country rankings, with intergenerational associations notably stronger than in Scandinavia but weaker than in eastern Europe. Overall, I find limited support for claims that family background is a greater barrier to economic success in Britain than in other parts of the developed world

Test anxiety: Is it associated with performance in high-stakes examinations?

A long-established literature has found that anxiety about testing is negatively related to academic achievement. Yet there remains some debate as to whether this is simply due to less academically able pupils being more likely to develop education-related anxiety issues. This paper presents new evidence on this matter, focusing upon how test anxiety – as measured by five questions included in the PISA 2015 survey – is related to the grades 15/16-year-olds achieve in England’s high-stakes GCSE examinations. I find little evidence that teenagers with low or high levels of test anxiety achieve lower GCSE grades than pupils with average levels of test anxiety. Thus, in contrast to much of the existing literature, no clear relationship between test anxiety and examination performance is found

The Benefits of Meeting Key Grade Thresholds in High-stakes Examinations. New Evidence From England

In England, failing to achieve a ‘good pass’ (C/4 grade) in key subjects is thought to have serious negative implications. Yet evidence on this issue remains relatively sparse. This paper therefore presents new evidence on the link between meeting a key threshold on high-stakes examination and a wide array of future outcomes. Using Next Steps survey data collected from around 4,000 young people in England, we explore the short-to-medium term benefits of achieving a ‘good pass’ (grade C/4) in English Language, double science and mathematics. Results from our regression analyses point towards a sizable association with future educational attainment; those who achieve a good pass in GCSE mathematics are around 5 percentage points more likely to hold a university degree by age 26 than observationally similar individuals who fail to meet this threshold. No link is found with future wellbeing and mental health, while results for labour market outcomes are somewhat mixed. The findings potentially motivate the need for GCSEs to move away from awarding a set of discrete grades and towards a continuous measurement scale. Alternatively, if discrete grades are to be retained, computer adaptive testing should be introduced for GCSEs to increase measurement precision around high-stakes grade boundaries

Measuring parental income using administrative data. What is the best proxy available?

Administrative data are increasingly being used to study inequalities in education. Yet a well-known difficulty with such resources is the limited information they hold. A commonly used proxy for children coming from a low-income background is their eligibility for free school meals, yet this is likely to be of little use in measuring academic achievement amongst middle and high-income groups. This study adds to the literature by showing how eligibility for free school meals – averaged over the time a child has spent at school – is the best available proxy for low income during childhood. In contrast, creating a continuous index combining free school meal eligibility with information on the neighbourhood in which they live represents the best way of comparing educational outcomes across children from low, average and high-income backgrounds

WHO RESPONDS TO PHISHING EMAILS? AN INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION OF 15-YEAR-OLDS USING PISA DATA

oung people are facing an ever-increasing array of online dangers. One of the most common is receipt of a phishing email. This paper presents new evidence on the characteristics of young people most likely to respond to such emails. I find approximately one-in-seven 15-year-olds are at risk of responding to a phishing email, rising to one-in-five amongst those from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. Such risks are particularly high amongst young people with low levels of cognitive skill. Unfortunately, students who are taught about the dangers posed by phishing emails at school are just as likely to take inappropriate actions following their receipt as their peers who have not. I thus conclude that greater emphasis and higher quality instruction needs to be provided to young people about the online risks they face, particularly to those from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds and low academic achievers

The power of positive emotions? The link between young people’s positive and negative affect and performance in high-stakes examinations

A substantial body of research suggests that young people’s emotions – both positive and negative – are linked to a wide range of future outcomes. This paper contributes to this literature by investigating the link between young people’s positive and negative emotions and their performance in high-stakes examinations. Using Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data from England linked to the National Pupil Database (NPD), I investigate how 15-year-olds positive affect, negative affect and fear of failure is associated with the grades they achieve in high-stakes examinations. I find that low levels of positive affect – i.e. pupils rarely feeling happy, lively and cheerful – is associated with a 0.10–0.15 standard deviation reduction in young people’s examination grades. On the other hand, little evidence is found of a substantive link between negative affect or fear of failure and examination performance