Assessing knowledge or classroom behavior? Evidence of teachers’ grading bias

Bruno Ferman and Luiz Felipe Fontes

Journal of Public Economics, 2022, vol. 216, issue C

Abstract: This paper tests whether teachers unequally evaluate students based on their classroom behavior, rather than their scholastic competence. Evidence is drawn from a unique dataset on students from Brazil, which allows us to contrast teacher- and blindly-assigned scores on achievement tests that are high-stakes and cover the same material. We find that teachers inflate test scores of better-behaved students, and deduct points from worse-behaved ones. We also find that teachers’ decision to promote students is influenced by how they behave in class. Our results (i) document a potentially inefficient way of assessing students’ knowledge, (ii) explain a large part of grading discrimination against boys, and (iii) reveal a causal effect of noncognitive skills on educational outcomes that is unrelated to student proficiency.

Keywords: Classroom behavior; Noncognitive skills; Grading bias; Test scores (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 I21 I24 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004727272200175X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:eee:pubeco:v:216:y:2022:i:c:s004727272200175x

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2022.104773

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba

More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().