You are here:

Mean and distributional impact of single-sex high schools on students’ cognitive achievement, major choice, and test-taking behavior: Evidence from a random assignment policy in Seoul, Korea
ARTICLE

Economics of Education Review Volume 52, Number 1, ISSN 0272-7757 Publisher: Elsevier Ltd

Abstract

Single-sex schooling has been considered in many countries as a way to promote student achievement. This paper estimates the mean and distributional impact of single-sex high schools on students’ cognitive achievement, major choice, and test-taking behavior—by exploiting the random assignment policy adopted in Seoul, Korea. Based on administrative data for a period of seven years, I find that, on average, the positive effects of single-sex schooling on test scores are small, especially when the parental and teacher sorting are accounted for. Although the magnitude of the estimated effects is small, I find that the effect is relatively larger for students in quantiles 0.5–0.8 of the distribution of test scores. The impact is trivial, on the other hand, for students located at the very bottom and the very top quantiles. Moreover, I do not find any differences, both practically and statistically, in major choice and test-taking behavior.

Citation

Sohn, H. (2016). Mean and distributional impact of single-sex high schools on students’ cognitive achievement, major choice, and test-taking behavior: Evidence from a random assignment policy in Seoul, Korea. Economics of Education Review, 52(1), 155-175. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved March 21, 2023 from .

This record was imported from Economics of Education Review on March 1, 2019. Economics of Education Review is a publication of Elsevier.

Full text is availabe on Science Direct: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2016.02.007

Keywords

References

View References & Citations Map
  1. Bitler, M.P., Gelbach, J.B., & Hoynes, H.W. (2006). What mean impacts miss: Distributional effects of welfare reform experiments. American Economic Review, 96(4), pp. 988-1012.
  2. Dee, T.S. (2007). Teachers and the gender gaps in student achievement. Journal of Human Resources, 42(3), pp. 528-554.
  3. Firpo, S. (2007). Efficient semiparametric estimation of quantile treatment effects. Econometrica, 75(1), pp. 259-276.
  4. Firpo, S., Fortin, N.M., & Lemieux, T. (2009). Unconditional quantile regressions. Econometrica, 77(3), pp. 953-973.
  5. Halpern, D.F., Eliot, L., Bigler, R.S., Fabes, R.A., Hanish, L.D., Hyde, J., (2011). The pseudoscience of single-sex schooling. Science, 333(6050), pp. 1706-1707.
  6. Holland, P.W. (1986). Statistics and causal inference. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 81(396), pp. 945-960.
  7. Howell, W.G., Wolf, P.J., Campbell, D.E., & Peterson, P.E. (2002). School vouchers and academic performance: Results from three randomized field trials. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 21(2), pp. 191-217.
  8. Hoxby, C. (2000). Peer effects in the classroom: Learning from gender and race variation. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series, No. 7867.
  9. Imai, K., & Ratkovic, M. (2013). Estimating treatment effect heterogeneity in randomized program evaluation. Annals of Applied Statistics, 7(1), pp. 443-470.
  10. Inzlicht, M., & Ben-Zeev, T. (2000). A threatening intellectual environment: Why females are susceptible to experiencing problem-solving deficits in the presence of males. Psychological Science, 11(5), pp. 365-371.
  11. Jackson, C.K. (2009). Student demographics, teacher sorting, and teacher quality: Evidence from the end of school desegregation. Journal of Labor Economics, 27(2), pp. 213-256.
  12. Jackson, C.K. (2012). Single-sex schools, student achievement, and course selection: Evidence from rule-based student assignments in Trinidad and Tobago. Journal of Public Economics, 96(1–2), pp. 173-187.
  13. Kessels, U., & Hannover, B. (2008). When being a girl matters less: Accessibility of gender-related self-knowledge in single-sex and coeducational classes and its impact on students’ physics-related self-concept of ability. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 78(2), pp. 273-289.
  14. Koenker, R., & Bassett, G.Jr. (1978). Regression quantiles. Econometrica, 46(1), pp. 33-50.
  15. Krueger, A.B. (1999). Experimental estimates of education production functions. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 114(2), pp. 497-532.
  16. Krueger, A.B., & Zhu, P. (2004). Another look at the New York City school voucher experiment. American Behavioral Scientists, 47(5), pp. 658-698.
  17. Lavy, V., & Schlosser, A. (2011). Mechanisms and impacts of gender peer effects at school. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 3(2), pp. 1-33.
  18. Lee, S., Turner, L.J., Woo, S., & Kim, K. (2014). All or nothing? The impact of school and classroom gender composition on effort and academic achievement. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series, No. 20722.
  19. Leslie, S.J., Cimpian, A., Meyer, M., & Freeland, E. (2015). Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines. Science, 347(6219), pp. 262-265.
  20. Link, S. (2012). Single-sex schooling and student performance: Quasi-experimental evidence from South Korea. IFO Working paper No. 146.
  21. Lu, F., & Anderson, M.L. (2015). Peer effects in microenvironments: The benefits of homogeneous classroom groups. Journal of Labor Economics, 33(1), pp. 91-122.
  22. Mael, F., Smith, M., Alonso, A., Rogers, K., & Gibson, D. (2004). Theoretical arguments for and against single-sex schools: A critical analysis of the explanations.. Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research.
  23. Manski, C.F. (1993). Identification of endogenous social effects: The reflection problem. Review of Economic Studies, 60(3), pp. 531-542.
  24. National Science Foundation (1996). Women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in science and engineering.. Arlington, VA: Author.
  25. Nosek, B.A., Banaji, M.R., & Greenwald, A.G. (2002). Math = male, me = female, therefore math ≠ me. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(1), pp. 44-59.
  26. Oosterbeek, H., & Van Ewijk, R. (2014). Gender peer effects in university: Evidence from a randomized experiment. Economics of Education Review, 38(February 2014), pp. 51-63.
  27. Pahlke, E., Hyde, J.S., & Mertz, J.E. (2013). The effects of single-sex compared with coeducational schooling on mathematics and science achievement: Data from Korea. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105(2), pp. 444-452.
  28. Pahlke, E., Hyde, J.S., & Allison, C.M. (2014). The effects of single-sex compared with coeducational schooling on students’ performance and attitudes: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 140(4), pp. 1042-1072.
  29. Park, H., Behrman, J.R., & Choi, J. (2013). Causal effects of single-sex schools on college entrance exams and college attendance: Random assignment in Seoul high schools. Demography, 50(2), pp. 447-469.
  30. Rubin, D.B. (1974). Estimating causal effects of treatments in randomized and nonrandomized studies. Journal of Educational Psychology, 66(5), pp. 688-701.
  31. Spencer, S.J., Steele, C.M., & Quinn, D.M. (1999). Stereotype threat and women's math performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35(1), pp. 4-28.
  32. Whitmore, D. (2005). Resource and peer impacts on girls’ academic achievement: Evidence from a randomized experiment. American Economic Review, 95(2), pp. 199-203.

These references have been extracted automatically and may have some errors. Signed in users can suggest corrections to these mistakes.

Suggest Corrections to References