More class time, better achievement?

Spanish press has widely criticized the fact that students spend almost their whole day at school, a practice rooted in the common belief that higher instruction time enhances students’ learning. However, in spite of this high amount of instruction time that Spanish students are receiving, their results do not seem to outstand in comparison with other countries with similar or lower instruction time. In this context, this research intends to accomplish two main objectives: the first one is to check if the amount of instruction time received by 15 year-old Spanish students actually affects their academic achievement. The second one intends to analyse if this potential influence of instruction time may be affecting Spanish Autonomous Communities in different ways, as each one is responsible for setting instruction time in its own region. In order to accomplish these objectives, the methodology employed let us isolate the effect of instruction time from other covariates by using students’ fixed effects by subject, using PISA 2009 and 2012 data. Results have shown that there is not any effect of instruction time on academic achievement, being this conclusion extended to every Autonomous Community in Spain. Further checks have corroborated the robustness of these results and have also highlighted that the effect of instruction time is a question of quality more than quantity, as students’ engagement and the classroom climate during lessons may be causing differences in academic achievement, rather than the amount of instruction time per se.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Are early writers and readers more successful than their counterparts?

There exists an increasing number of scientific contributions focused on the influence of the attendance to early childhood and/or preprimary education on the future academic track of the students, which employ the quarter of birth of the student as a proxy for infants’ maturity. The present work goes a step further by employing information on the precise time when children begin to exhibit the basic competences (reading and writing), controlling by the effect of the quarter of birth, for andalusian students aged 10-11 and 14-15. This study uses descriptive analysis as starting point to specify multivariate estimates for the age at which the student began to read and write, together with students’ quarter of birth. Moreover, the effect of these variables on the likelihood of repeating a course has also been analyzed. Results show that the quarter of birth and the age when the student began to read and write affect students’ early academic achievement –primary education– and the likelihood of repeating, but this effect is weakened once non-repeaters reach age 14-15. In addition, students from households where parents have a low level of education present a late start in beginning to read and write and, thus, lower achievement than their older counterparts. This highlights the need to increase the investments in public early education for students living in this kind of families –by increasing the supply of public early education places and scholarships–, so they can develop these competences as soon as possible. This kind of interventions could have a relevant role in fostering higher social mobility.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech; Andalusian Regional Ministry of Innovation, Science and Employment [PAI group SEJ-532 and Excellence Project SEJ-2727]; the Research Plan of the University of Malaga (Capacity Building Programme I+D+i of Universities 2014-2015) and by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain [Research Project ECO2014-56397-P]

Students’ Homework: Useful for their Learning

The debate on the effect of students’ homework time on their academic achievement has been extensively discussed; nevertheless, international research does not seem to have reach to any definitive result. This homework time subject is studied in this research for primary education students of 24 countries, using student fixed effects within-students between-subjects. For the countries under analysis our results show that homework time does not seem to affect the academic achievement of primary education students, and these results hold after many robustness checks. The policy implications derived from this analysis show that the current particularities of homework have to be improved for the countries under analysis to help students make a better use of their time.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Studying at home: worth it?

Homework time and its effect on students’ academic achievement is a relevant subject with worldwide repercussion. Nevertheless, although transcendental, this issue has been studied for primary education mostly by correlational studies and their results are somewhat mixed. The current research aims at contributing to this literature by using a student fixed-effects approach to study the relationship between homework time and students’ academic achievement across 24 countries. We argue that this procedure let us get closer to causal estimates – compared to much of the existing literature – by capturing differences in homework time amongst the same student across different school subjects. Our main results show that the amount of time that primary school children devote to homework is not related to their academic achievement in that subject. This result is held across all the analysed countries and robustness checks. Hence, this may indicate that the quality of the homework assigned to primary school pupils may not be enough, so it should be improved to help students’ make a better use of their time.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Parents' and Children's Gender: the effect of parental expectations in children's performance

Parental expectations have been found in the literature to explain their children’s academic achievement. Nevertheless, most of the evidence on this issue is the result of the endogeneity of parental expectations when explaining students’ performance. In this context, we propose to solve this issue by using longitudinal data for the education period of the transition between primary and secondary education, employing time fixed effects to analyse the effect of parental expectations on students’ progression – being the latter measured by students’ academic achievement and their likelihood of grade repetition. We go more into depth on this issue by the study of gender differences of this effect, using all possible combinations between parents’ and children’s genders. Our results have shown that higher fathers’ and mothers’ expectations improve students’ progression, but parents seem to be more demanding with girls in terms of levels of education.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Is grade retention the solution for failing?

The convenience of grade retention for students’ adequate progression in the education system has been the focus of great debate. However, the characteristics that the grade retention variable presents when explaining students’ academic achievement has prevented most of the research works to delve into the effect of this policy. Because of that, in the present research work we intend to get as close as possible to endogeneity free estimate by the use of rich census and longitudinal data, together with a student fixed-effects within students between-academic years strategy. We find that grade retention affects students’ academic performance. Autores: Luis Alejandro Lopez-Agudo, Claudia Prieto Latorre, Oscar David Marcenaro-Gutierrez Palabras clave: grade retention, repetion, academic performance.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

El efecto del capital cultural sobre el rendimiento educativo diferencial por género

Uno de los aspectos menos tratados respecto a las funciones de producción educativa, en España, es el de la influencia de los estilos de vida, como medio para caracterizar la influencia del contexto familiar en lo que respecta al denominado “capital cultural”. Este capital favorece la adquisición en la familia de valores y normas necesarios para potenciar un alto rendimiento académico. Este trabajo evalúa si las variables de capital cultural afectan de forma diferencial al rendimiento de niñas y niños en educación primaria y secundaria en Andalucía, empleando datos del curso 2009/10. En particular se pretende determinar hasta qué punto se pueden diseñar intervenciones que permitan corregir las diferencias de género tanto en rendimiento como en elección de campo de estudio, por cuanto ambas cuestiones no solo afectan a la desigualdad actual sino a potenciales diferencias en las carreras educativo-formativas futuras de mujeres y hombres, y a sus oportunidades laborales. Cuando se analizan las variables relativas al "capital cultural" los resultados mostrados en la literatura previa se ven matizados de forma significativa y se observan impactos diferenciales por razón de género que merecen ser puestos en valor y que dan robustez complementaria a algunos de los argumentos esgrimidos por la economía feminista.One of the less discussed issues in the literature on educational production functions, in Spain, is the influence of lifestyles as a way of characterizing more precisely the impact of gender and family background on educational outcomes, regarding the so-called "cultural capital." This capital potentially favors the acquisition of family values and norms necessary to boost educational outcomes. We intend to check whether this is supported by empirical evidence based on Spanish microdata (for the academic year 2009/10) and, additionally, whether these measures of cultural capital have any relationship with pupil’s subsequent educational choices at the end of compulsory education (age 16), both in terms of formal education and labor market opportunities. Once we control for "cultural capital" related variables significant nuances arise regarding to previous results dealing with gender differences, giving empirical additional support to many theories coming from the feminist economics

International evidence on the influence of kindergarten on students’ later competences.

Parents have the option to enrol their children in kindergarten education (from 0 to 3 years) in many countries, although not all parents decide to do it, so their children are enrolled when they are between 3 to 5, or even when they reach the age of 6 and have to attend compulsory. The present research study analyses the influence of students’ attendance to kindergarten on their 4th grade reading scores. In order to carry out this research, data from PIRLS 2011 and 2016 for 34 countries and an instrumental variable approach – to go beyond simple correlation – have been employed. Our results show that kindergarten attendance has a positive influence on students’ reading scores in 18 of the countries under analysis, whereas it presents a null influence in 16 countries.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

The influence of weekly instruction and homework time on students' academic performance

Objective Students’ use of time and its effective use are of high relevance for their learning and, because of that, this is an issue which has been placed at the core of the education debate. In the present study we intend to check whether both instruction and homework time are contributing to improve students’ competences or not. Data and methodology In order to approach this issue, we have employed Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2019 data, focusing on 4th grade students in 58 countries. Our intention is to go beyond correlation and approach causality as much as possible so, for this purpose, we employ student fixed-effects within-students between-subjects. Results Our main findings show that weekly instruction and homework time present a null influence on students’ competences in most of the countries under analysis, while they also present a low positive one in some of them. Conclusions The most likely explanation for these results may be that TIMSS measures students’ competences, which are related to the abilities that students use in their daily life, and not to content-based knowledge, which is more related to memorisation or to mechanical tasks. Therefore, this instruction and homework time may not be helping students to improve their competences.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Financial illiteracy in Spain: a structural problem

Financial education in Spain has been traditionally a forgotten subject. Nevertheless, recent economic problems, as the economic crisis, have put into focus the lack of financial literacy that Spanish population presents. In this context, the current research intends to analyse this issue and, using the rich financial education data provided by PISA 2015 for secondary education students, study whether or not the financial education that students are receiving in Spain would be useful for their development of this competence. Our results show that financial education in Spain is in its seminal stage and that this education is not homogenously accessible by all the Spanish population. In this sense, due to its optative nature, students with low socioeconomic status and low academic achievement would auto-select into taking this education. In addition, in Spain, some modalities of financial education implementation have a negative effect, while others are not significant.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. MINECO (ECO2017-88883-P