The High Stakes of Bad Exams

Jack Rossiter, Might Kojo Abreh, Aisha Ali and Justin Sandefur

Journal of Human Resources, 2025, vol. 60, issue 6, 2008-2037

Abstract: Each year two million secondary school students across West Africa sit coordinated exams. Pass rates fluctuate enormously, fueling speculation about cheating and short-term policy changes. To investigate these hypotheses, we construct hybrid exams containing items spanning 2011–2019 and administer these to 4,380 students. Exam difficulty alone explains 80 percent of pass rate fluctuations in Ghana, while additional factors remain influential in Nigeria and elsewhere. Half of the candidates who failed mathematics in 2015 would have passed in 2019. Model-based estimates imply that improving exam comparability would increase the Mincerian return to skills among secondary school graduates by six percentage points.

JEL-codes: I25 I26 J24 O15 O55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
Note: DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.0621-11739R1
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://jhr.uwpress.org/cgi/reprint/60/6/2008
A subscription is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.

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:uwp:jhriss:v:60:y:2025:i:6:p:2008-2037

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Human Resources from University of Wisconsin Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().