The role of testing noise in the estimation of achievement-based peer effects

Hongliang Zhang

Economics of Education Review, 2016, vol. 54, issue C, 113-123

Abstract: I demonstrate that in the value-added estimation of peer effects using lagged peer achievement, testing noise may generate another bias in addition to the well-known attenuation bias. Such a bias, which I refer to as the “reversion bias,” may arise when some of a student’s current peers happen to be his/her former peers whose performances in the baseline test were subject to the same common testing noise as the student's own. I propose a solution to overcome this problem by exploiting only the variation in the new peers’ portion of the overall peer quality. Using real-world data, I illustrate the existence of this bias and demonstrate the proposed solution.

Keywords: Peer effects; Student achievement; Measurement error; Mean reversion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C13 I20 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:54:y:2016:i:c:p:113-123

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2016.04.008

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