We study how the relationship between students’ cognitive ability and their school grades depend on institutional context. In a simple abstract model we show that unless competence standards are set at above-school level or variation of competence across schools is low, students’ competence valua- tion will be heterogeneous, with weaker schools inflating grades or flattening their dependence on competence, therefore reducing the information content and comparability of school grades. Using data from the OECD-PISA 2003 Survey the model is applied to a sam- ple of 4 countries, namely Australia, Germany, Italy and The Netherlands. We find that in Australia schools heterogeneity does not affect grading practices; in the other countries grades are inflated in weaker schools, uniformly in Germany and The Netherlands, to a larger extent for weaker students in Italy.
Dardanoni, V., Modica, S., Pennisi, A. (2011). School Grading and Institutional Contexts. EDUCATION ECONOMICS, 19(5), 475-486 [10.1080/09645292.2010.488482].
School Grading and Institutional Contexts
DARDANONI, Valentino;MODICA, Salvatore;
2011-01-01
Abstract
We study how the relationship between students’ cognitive ability and their school grades depend on institutional context. In a simple abstract model we show that unless competence standards are set at above-school level or variation of competence across schools is low, students’ competence valua- tion will be heterogeneous, with weaker schools inflating grades or flattening their dependence on competence, therefore reducing the information content and comparability of school grades. Using data from the OECD-PISA 2003 Survey the model is applied to a sam- ple of 4 countries, namely Australia, Germany, Italy and The Netherlands. We find that in Australia schools heterogeneity does not affect grading practices; in the other countries grades are inflated in weaker schools, uniformly in Germany and The Netherlands, to a larger extent for weaker students in Italy.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.