Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya

Michael Kremer, Esther Duflo and Pascaline Dupas

No 7043, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: To the extent that students benefit from high-achieving peers, tracking will help strong students and hurt weak ones. However, all students may benefit if tracking allows teachers to present material at a more appropriate level. Lower-achieving pupils are particularly likely to benefit from tracking if teachers would otherwise have incentives to teach to the top of the distribution. We propose a simple model nesting these effects. We compare 61 Kenyan schools in which students were randomly assigned to a first grade class with 60 in which students were assigned based on initial achievement. In non-tracking schools, students randomly assigned to academically stronger peers scored higher, consistent with a positive direct effect of academically strong peers. However, compared to their counterparts in non-tracking schools, students in tracking schools scored 0.14 standard deviations higher after 18 months, and this effect persisted one year after the program ended. Furthermore, students at all levels of the distribution benefited from tracking. Students near the median of the pre-test distribution benefited similarly whether assigned to the lower or upper section. A natural interpretation is that the direct effect of high achieving peers is positive, but that tracking benefited lower-achieving pupils indirectly by allowing teachers to teach at a level more appropriate to them.

Keywords: Development economics; Education economics; Primary school tracking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-lab and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (51)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7043 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya (2011)
Working Paper: Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7043

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7043

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().