Sarah Flèche

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job market seminar

Sarah Flèche

London School of Economics
Teacher quality, test scores and non-cognitive skills: Evidence from primary school teachers in the UK
Venue

VC Salle A

Centre de la Vieille-Charité - Salle A

Centre de la Vieille Charité
2 rue de la Charité
13002 Marseille

Date(s)
Thursday, January 26 2017| 12:30pm to 2:00pm
Contact(s)

Cecilia Garcia-Peñalosa: cecilia.garcia-penalosa[at]univ-amu.fr

Abstract

Schooling can produce both cognitive and non-cognitive skills, both of which are important determinants of adult outcomes. Using very rich data from a UK birth cohort study, I estimate teacher value added (VA) models for both pupils' test scores and non-cognitive skills. I show that teachers have large effects on pupils' non-cognitive skills - above and beyond their e ects on test scores. This finding extends the economics literature on teacher effects, which has primarily focused on pupils' test scores and may fail to capture teachers' overall effects. In addition, the large estimates reveal an interesting trade-o : teacher VA on pupils' test scores are weak predictors of teacher VA on non-cognitive skills, which suggests that teachers recourse to di erent techniques to improve pupils' cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Finally, I nd that teachers' effects on pupils' non-cognitive skills have long-run impacts on adult outcomes such as higher education attendance, employment and earnings, conditional on their effects on test scores. This result indicates that long-run outcomes are improved by a combination of teachers increasing pupils' test scores and non-cognitive skills and has large policy implications.