The Effect of Advisory Teacher on Student Achievement

• In Event: Explaining Student Outcomes: The Role of School Structures and Context

Abstract

In this study, I present empirical evidence on whether advisory has meaningful impact on students’ learning. The unique educational setting in China, where advisory teachers also teach subject classes, allows me to isolate the variations in student scores that are associated with advisory and use them to estimate advisory teacher effects. Importantly, the random assignment of teachers to students in the nationally representative data I draw sample from allows me to purge the estimates from confounding effects. I found that students being taught by advisory teachers score 0.159 standard deviation higher on English relative to their school peers not being taught by advisory teachers. No effect was found on student math and Chinese outcomes.

Author

• Congli Zhang, University of Oregon