Identifying the Incidence of "Grading on a Curve": A Within-Student Across-Subject Approach

Marc Piopiunik () and Martin Schlotter

No 121, ifo Working Paper Series from ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich

Abstract: Theoretical work shows that grading on a curve, i.e., teachers assessing students relative to their classmates, can negatively affect students’ learning effort. However, little is known about its empirical incidence. To overcome bias from non-random sorting and omitted variables like teachers’ grading standards, we exploit within-student acrosssubject variation observing both teacher-assigned grades and test scores of German 4th-graders in reading and math. We find that having classmates with one standard deviation higher test scores lowers a student’s grade by about 10 percent of a standard deviation. Importantly, only female teachers grade on a curve and there is no association between students’ learning effort and relative grading.

JEL-codes: I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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