The Behavioral Determinants of School Achievement: A Lab in the Field Experiment in Middle School

Etienne Dagorn, David Masclet and Thierry Pénard
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David Masclet: Univ Rennes, France CNRS, CREM—UMR 6211, F-35000 Rennes and Cirano, Canada

Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) from Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate how soft skills are related to educational achievement. We run a lab in the field experiment with pupils in Middle Schools to ask whether altruism, cooperation, willingness to compete and intrinsic motivation influence educational attainment. We find that willingness to compete is a strong predictor of individual educational achievement, while altruism is on the contrary negatively correlated with pupils’ success. Family background is a strong predictor of educational attainment. After controlling for individual and social preferences, we find that girls outperform boys.

Keywords: lab-in-the-field experiment; education; soft skills; preferences; cooperation; competition; teenagers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 C70 C92 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tut:cremwp:2022-05

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