The effect of multigrade classes on cognitive and non- cognitive skills. Causal evidence exploiting minimum class size rules in Italy✰

Daniele Checchi and Maria De Paola ()

Economics of Education Review, 2018, vol. 67, issue C, 235-253

Abstract: We analyse how schooling in multigrade classes affects the formation of student cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Our identification strategy is based on some institutional features of the Italian educational system establishing a minimum number of students per class. Classes that do not reach the minimum number of pupils are organized in multigrade classes. In addition, the Italian law also establishes a maximum number of students for multigrade classes, which implies that class size in multigrade classes is very similar to class size in small single grade classes with a number of students just above the minimum size. Using census data on 5th grade Italian students, we find that pupils in multigrade classrooms obtain worse test scores both in literacy and numeracy standardised tests compared to comparable pupils in single grade classroom. While the effect is small and not always statistically significant for the literacy score, we find a large and highly statistically significant effect on the numeracy score. We also find that pupils placed in multigrade classes tend to have a more external centred locus of control. Our results are robust to different specifications including controls for class size and a number of student and school characteristics.

Keywords: Multigrade classes; Mixed-age classes; Cognitive skills; Non-cognitive skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C36 I21 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775718300943
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:ecoedu:v:67:y:2018:i:c:p:235-253

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2018.10.003

Access Statistics for this article

Economics of Education Review is currently edited by E. Cohn

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