Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Kaitlin Anderson, Elise Swanson & Gema Zamarro

It is well known that countries differ significantly in their performance on large scale international assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). More importantly, these differences in cognitive skills have considerable economic consequences (Hanushek and Woessmann 2012). As a result, researchers have focused on studying potential sources of country differences in student performance and concluded that teacher and school quality are key drivers of such differences (Woessman 2016).

Recent research has also highlighted the role of non-cognitive skills, such as motivation and perseverance, in explaining observed international differences in achievement. Borghans and Schils (2012) used the random distribution of PISA test booklets to students to quantify the rate of decline in performance on the test, independent of question difficulty. The authors found that cross-country differences in motivation explained 19 percent of the variance in PISA 2006 scores. Zamarro, Hitt & Mendez (2016) combined measures of decline in performance on the PISA test with measures of student effort on the PISA survey (item non-response and careless answering) and found that 32 to 38 percent of the observed cross-country variation in test scores on PISA 2009 was attributable to these measures. Finally, Balart, Oosterveen and Webbink (2015) found that non-cognitive skills were important for explaining the observed relationship between achievement tests and economic growth found by Hanushek and Woessmann (2012).  

However, there is no research studying the potential sources of differential student non-cognitive skill levels across countries, and little is known about the origin and development of these skills. In this paper we address this gap in the literature. We use data from PISA 2009 and follow Zamarro, Hitt and Mendez (2016) to build measures of student non-cognitive skills related to conscientiousness and perseverance based on the effort they display on the PISA test and survey. Then, we study the potential sources of differential levels of students’ non-cognitive skills across PISA participating countries. In particular, we study the role of individual student demographics, school characteristics and quality, differential culture, availability of external high school graduation exams, as well as access to early childhood and tertiary education.  Our results would help the design of more effective policies to promote student performance and subsequently help promote economic growth.

References

Balart, P., Oosterveen, M., and Webbink, D. (2015). Test Scores, Noncognitive Skills and Economic Growth. IZA DP No. 9559. http://ftp.iza.org/dp9559.pdf

Borghans, L. and Schils, T. (2012). The Leaning Tower of Pisa: Disentangling ability and motivation. Paper presented at the 2012 Allied Social Sciences Association Annual Meeting.

Hanushek, E. and Woessman, L. (2012). Do better schools lead to more growth? Cognitive skills, economic outcomes, and causation. Journal of Economic Growth, 17(4), 267-321.

Woessman, L. (2016). The Importance of School Systems: Evidence from International Differences in Student Achievement. IZA DP No. 10001. http://ftp.iza.org/dp10001.pdf

Zamarro, G., Hitt, C., and Mendez, I. (2016). When Students Don’t Care: Reexamining International Differences in Achievement and Non-cognitive Skills. EDRE Working Paper 2016-18. http://www.uaedreform.org/downloads/2016/10/when-students-dont-care-reexamining-international-differences-in-achievement-and-non-cognitive-skills.pdf