The Variability in the Effect of Education on Different Mathematical Skills: A Regression Discontinuity Approach

• In Event: Roundtable Session 27
  In Roundtable Session: Roundtable: Predictors of Mathematics Learning and Achievement

Abstract

This paper explores the variability in the effect of an additional year of education on different basic mathematical skills, which are taught and repeated explicitly at different points in time during elementary school. Using a regression discontinuity approach, we estimate the local education effect for a range of successive grade cohorts, while including child specific characteristics and school fixed effects. A significant education effect is observed the year after children learned a mathematical skill and in the last year of primary school when additional focus is being put on the assessed mathematics skills. Furthermore, the outcomes suggest that children’s multiplication skills are significantly lower if their school emphasizes natural learning and multigrade teaching instead of more traditional classroom learning.

Authors

• Dimona Bartelet, Maastricht University

• Carla Haelermans, Maastricht University

• Wim Groot

• Henriette Maassen van den Brink