What is the impact of a pupil's perceptions of how their teachers will treat them on their motivation, efforts and educational achievements? To explore this question, Amine Ouazad and Lionel Page have conducted an experiment in which school children could use pocket money to place small bets on their performance in an exam.education, UK,

Amine Ouazad

Lionel Page

English

Research Papers in Economics

CentrePiece Winter 2011/12 
14
The impact of discrimination against particular social
groups has been widely analysed for its effects on people’s
access to jobs, housing and education. Yet perceptions of
discrimination also matter. For example, given that job
search takes time and effort, applicants who believe that
potential employers are likely to discriminate against them
may not apply for those jobs. Similarly, pupils who believe
that their efforts will not be rewarded may disengage and
thereby reduce their chances of making progress.
How can we measure perceptions of discrimination?
Asking individuals directly can provide some information,
but it is difficult to infer strong conclusions from such
questionnaires. Stated perceptions may differ from what
actual behaviour reveals.
Our research brought experimental economics to 1,200
pupils in 29 schools across England. Pupils were given an
endowment – equivalent to the average weekly pocket
money in England – and could either keep this
endowment or ‘invest’ it in an exam that would be
marked by either their teacher or an anonymous external
examiner. If the exam answers were right, pupils could
double their weekly pocket money.
The crux of the experiment is that pupils invested their
money in the exam only if they believed that their chances
of doubling their investment were large. We asked pupils
a number of questions about the school and their
teachers that allowed us to single out money as the main
driver of their decisions. For example, pupils who believed
Pupils’ progress:
how children’s perceptions 
influence their efforts
What is the impact of a pupil’s perceptions of how their teachers
will treat them on their motivation, efforts and educational
achievements? To explore this question, Amine Ouazad and
Lionel Page have conducted an experiment in which school
children could use pocket money to place small bets on their
performance in an exam.
in brief...
Experimental research
suggests that boys tend
to lower their effort
when a female teacher
marks their examsthat a good relationship with the teacher matters were no
more likely to invest more.
The results of the experiment show that male pupils
tended to lower their investment when a female teacher
marked their exams. Further analysis confirmed that
female teachers in the experiment did tend to award
lower marks to male pupils than external examiners. So
male pupils’ perceptions seem to be roughly in line with
female teachers’ marking practices. Our results suggest
that male pupils believe that their chances of getting an
answer right are three percentage points lower when
marked by a female teacher than when marked by an
external examiner.
Female pupils tended to increase their investment when a
male teacher marked their exams. Further analysis,
however, showed that male teachers tended to reward
female pupils no better than external examiners. Our
results suggest that female pupils believe that their
chances of getting an answer right are six percentage
points higher when marked by a male teacher than when
marked by an external examiner. Overall, female pupils’
perceptions were not in line with teachers’ marking
practices: in fact, male teachers tended to reward male
pupils more than external examiners.
We also find that ethnicity and socio-economic status 
(as indicated by eligibility for free school meals) did not
play a role in pupil or teacher behaviour. Gender was 
the most important driving force behind the results. 
This is somewhat surprising given the large body of
research devoted to teacher biases along ethnic or socio-
economic lines.
We also wanted to confront our analytical method with
the traditional method, which directly asks pupils about
their perceptions. In our experiments, many pupils said
they believed that ‘ethnic minorities have equal
opportunities at school’ – and pupils who stated it
strongly invested more.
What should we make of these striking results? Our exam
mainly involved verbal skills, for which there is a
substantial gender gap in favour of girls.
Underachievement and dropping out of school are a
specifically male problem, and this experiment sheds new
light on the determinants of this gender gap. Boys often
disengage in the educational process, and this is likely to
be due in part to their perceptions of their teachers.
In this context, it is notable that, in our experiments, male
teachers induced more investment by boys. There is an
under-representation of male teachers in both primary and
secondary education in England. In primary schools, only
15% of teachers are male.
More generally, the experiments reveal that there is no
specific reason why individuals’ perceptions should be in
line with actual discriminatory practices. Individuals may
hold the wrong beliefs about the nature of discrimination.
And even if they get it roughly right, they may
overestimate or underestimate the extent of biases.
Furthermore, it is not clear that the discriminatory
behaviour of some individuals – here, male teachers
favouring male pupils – has a direct consequence for the
population discriminated against – here, female pupils
exert more effort when assessed by a male teacher. 
This could be true in other contexts. The experimental
design can be applied to job applications, dating, property
searches and many other situations. Just by providing
monetary incentives, a researcher can observe perceptions
of discrimination directly from individuals’ behaviour
rather than from their stated perceptions. When money is
at stake, people start calculating the costs and benefits of
their actions and reveal what they truly believe rather than
what they say they believe.
CentrePiece Winter 2011/12 
15
This article summarises ‘Students’
Perceptions of Teacher Biases:
Experimental Economics in Schools’ 
by Amine Ouazad and Lionel Page,
Centre for the Economics of 
Education Discussion Paper No. 133
(http://cee.lse.ac.uk/ceedps/ceedp133.pdf).
Amine Ouazad, an assistant professor at
INSEAD, is a research associate in CEP’s
education and skills programme.
Lionel Page is a research fellow at the
Queensland Institute of Technology.
Girls have better perceptions of
male teachers – but male
teachers do not reward them
more than female teachers

Pupils' progress: how children's perceptions influence their efforts

http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cp359.pdf

Pupils' progress: how children's perceptions influence their efforts

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