Increased Instruction Hours and the Widening Gap in Student Performance

Mathias Huebener, Susanne Kuger and Jan Marcus

No 1561, Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin from DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research

Abstract: Do increased instruction hours improve the performance of all students? Using PISA scores of students in ninth grade, we analyse the effect of a German education reform that increased weekly instruction hours by two hours (6.5 percent) overalmost five years. In the additional time, students are taught new learning content. On average, the reform improves student performance. However, treatment effects are small and differ across the student performance distribution. While low-performing students do not benefit, high-performing students benefit the most. The findings suggest that increases in instruction hours can widen the gap between low- and high-performing students.

Keywords: Instruction time; student achievement; PISA; G8-high school reform; quantile regressions; curriculum; difference-in-differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D04 I21 I24 I28 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 p.
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hrm, nep-lma and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Increased instruction hours and the widening gap in student performance (2017)
Journal Article: Increased instruction hours and the widening gap in student performance (2017)
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