Does grade retention affect achievement? Some evidence from PISA

J. Ignacio García-Pérez (), Marisa Hidalgo-Hidalgo and J. Antonio Robles Zurita ()
Additional contact information
J. Ignacio García-Pérez: University Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain.
J. Antonio Robles Zurita: University Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain.
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: J. Ignacio García Pérez ()

No XREAP2011-18, Working Papers from Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP)

Abstract: Grade retention practices are at the forefront of the educational debate. In this paper, we use PISA 2009 data for Spain to measure the effect of grade retention on students achievement. One important problem when analyzing this question is that school outcomes and the propensity to repeat a grade are likely to be determined simultaneously. We address this problem by estimating a Switching Regression Model. We find that grade retention has a negative impact on educational outcomes, but we confi rm the importance of endogenous selection, which makes observed differences between repeaters and non-repeaters appear 14.6% lower than they actually are. The effect on PISA scores of repeating is much smaller (-10% of non-repeaters average) than the counterfactual reduction that non-repeaters would suffer had they been retained as repeaters (-24% of their average). Furthermore, those who repeated a grade during primary education suffered more than those who repeated a grade of secondary school, although the effect of repeating at both times is, as expected, much larger.

Keywords: Grade retention; educational scores; PISA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 I28 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2011-11, Revised 2011-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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http://www.xreap.cat/RePEc/xrp/pdf/XREAP2011-18.pdf First version, 2011 (application/pdf)
http://www.xreap.cat/RePEc/xrp/pdf/XREAP2011-18.pdf Revised version, 2011 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Does grade retention affect achievement? Some evidence from Pisa (2011)
Working Paper: Does grade retention affect achievement? Some evidence from PISA (2011)
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