Can teachers’ rewards improve educational outcomes? The role of financial and non-financial rewards

Inspired by the theoretical power of rewards in the labor market, to improve educational outcomes, this paper tests if giving a non-financial reward along with a financial one can result in higher student ex-post outcomes than just a financial incentive. The underlying mechanism by which non-financial reward might work is explored as well. The argument is based on Benabou and Tirole (2002)’s model, that non-financial reward may affect teachers’ self-esteem and, with that, their effort, and thereby the student outcomes after the reward is given. This is accomplished by exploiting a discontinuity in the running variable used to assign the Teaching Excellence Award (AEP for its initials in Spanish). A Sharp Regression Discontinuity Design is used to identify the effect of AEP using data for more than 5,000 math and language teachers. The dataset includes the teaching evaluation score that AEP gives every year to their applicants, the corresponding standardized test score of more than 100,000 students, (SIMCE for its initials in Spanish), school characteristics, and information about motivation and self-perception that teachers self-report in a survey administrated by SIMCE along with the standardized test every year. The results show that rewarding teachers by giving a non-financial reward along with a financial one does not work in the intended way. I find a not statistically significant effect of giving a reward to teachers with outstanding teaching skills and pedagogical knowledge on student test scores, teaching practices, teacher’s self-confidence in a window of three years after the certification process. Lastly, there is no evidence of teacher-student or teacher-school sorting as an ex-post effect of obtaining the certification

Neutrino Interactions at Low and Medium Energies

We discuss the calculations for several neutrino induced reactions from low energies to the GeV region. Special attention is paid to nuclear corrections when the targets are medium or heavy nuclei. Finally, we present several ratios of neutral to charged current reactions whose values on isoscalar targets can be estimated accurately. The ratios are useful for investigating neutrino oscillations in Long Baseline experiments.Comment: Contributed to 1st Workshop on Neutrino - Nucleus Interactions in the Few GeV Region (NuInt01), Tsukuba, Japan, 13-16 Dec 2001. 9 pages, 15 figure

Test validation, method comparison and reference range for the measurement of β-hydroxybutyrate in peripheral blood samples

Introduction: The measurement of β-hydroxybutyrate (βOHB) concentrations is a corner stone of the diagnosis of diabetic ketoacidosis and other ketonic states. The aim of this study was to perform a validation of a peripheral blood βOHB assay (Randox) on a Roche cobas c502 analyser and to establish a βOHB reference range for the validated assay. Materials and methods: Precision, linearity and limit of detection and blank (LoD, LoB) were determined according to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) EP05-A3, EP 06-A and EP17-A2 guidelines, using commercial control material and residual patient sample pools. As method comparison, for 190 semi-quantitative measurements of urine ketones we determined the corresponding βOHB blood concentration. The reference range was based on the CLSI C28-A3 guideline, using 304 randomly selected serum samples from population based German National Cohort (GNC) study. Results: Coefficients of variation for the validated assay ranged from 1.5% for high concentrations (3.1 mmol/L) to 6.5% for low concentrations (0.1 mmol/L). Detection capacity was LoB = 0.011 mmol/L and LoD = 0.037 mmol/L. Linearity of the assay ranged from 0.10 to 3.95 mmol/L. The agreement between the semi-quantitative urine ketone test and the βOHB blood test was moderate (Kappa = 0.66). The obtained 95% serum reference range was estimated as 0.02 to 0.28 mmol/l βOHB. Conclusions: The Ranbut βOHB assay showed good precision and analytical performance. Our results confirm that βOHB measurement in peripheral blood is indeed a preferable alternative to the semi-quantitative measurement of urine ketones

The effect of home visits as an additional recruitment step on the composition of the final sample: a cross-sectional analysis in two study centers of the German National Cohort (NAKO)

Background: Participation in epidemiologic studies has been declining over the last decades. In addition to postal invitations and phone calls, home visits can be conducted to increase participation. The aim of this study was therefore to evaluate the effects of home visits in terms of response increase and composition of the additionally recruited and final sample. Methods: In the framework of the German National Cohort (NAKO) recruitment process, two of 18 study centers, Halle (Saale) and Berlin-Center, performed home visits as additional recruitment step after postal invitation and reminders. Response increase was calculated and differences between participants recruited via home visits and standard recruitment were examined. Proportions are presented as percentages with 95%-confidence intervals. Results: In the general population in Halle, 21.3-22.8% participated after postal invitation and two reminders in the five assessed recruitment waves. The increase of the overall response was 2.8 percentage points (95%confidence interval: 1.9-4.0) for home visits compared to 2.4 percentage points (95%CI: 1.7-3.3) for alternatively sent third postal reminder. Participants recruited via home visits had similar characteristics to those recruited via standard recruitment. Among persons of Turkish descent in Berlin-Center site of the NAKO, home visits conducted by native speakers increased the participation of women, persons living together with their partner, were born in Turkey, had lower German language skills, lower-income, lower education, were more often smokers and reported more often diabetes and depression to a degree which changed overall estimates for this subsample. Conclusions: As an additional recruitment measure in the general population, home visits increased response only marginally, and the through home visits recruited participants did not differ from those already recruited. Among persons with migration background, home visits by a native speaker increased participation of persons not reached by the standard recruitment, but the effects of using a native speaker approach could not be separated from the effect of home visits

Trends in National Nearly Zero-Energy Building Approaches

This paper presents some first approaches for the national application of the nearly zero-energy building definition according to the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive by summarising the current plans of Germany, Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands. As a contribution from a 5th country, the planned national energy performance requirements of Switzerland for the phase from 2018 onwards were included. It was also analysed whether any of the countries will set specific requirements to the air-tightness of NZEBs and if there are specific requirements for ventilation techniques