Does Secondary School Tracking Affect Performance? Evidence from IALS

Kenn Ariga () and Giorgio Brunello
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Kenn Ariga: Kyoto University

No 2643, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: There is substantial cross-country variation in secondary school design, with some countries tracking students into different ability schools very early, and other countries with little or no tracking at all. Does tracking length affects school performance, as measured by standardized test scores? We use the international data from the International Adult Literacy Survey to estimate the relationship between the experienced tracking length and the performance in standardized cognitive test scores of young adults, aged between 16 and the mid-twenties. Our IV estimates suggest that the contribution of tracking to performance is positive and statistically significant: conditional on total years of schooling, one additional year spent in a track raises average performance by 3.3 to 3.4 percentage points, depending on the estimates.

Keywords: tracking; secondary schools; efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2007-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eff, nep-hrm, nep-lab and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (100)

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Working Paper: Does Secondary School Tracking Affect Performance? Evidence from IALS (2007)
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