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What Factors Determine Student Performance in East Asia? New Evidence from the 2007 Trends in I nternational M athematics and S cience S tudy
Author(s) -
Hojo Masakazu,
Oshio Takashi
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
asian economic journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.345
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 1467-8381
pISSN - 1351-3958
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8381.2012.02087.x
Subject(s) - endogeneity , maturity (psychological) , class (philosophy) , sorting , economics , east asia , econometrics , computer science , psychology , geography , china , archaeology , programming language , developmental psychology , artificial intelligence
This study investigates what factors determine students’ academic performance in 5 major E astern A sian economies. It does so using data gathered through the 2007 Trends in I nternational M athematics and S cience S tudy. In a regression analysis, we explicitly consider initial maturity differences, endogeneity of class size and peer effects. We find that a student's individual and family backgrounds are key determinants of educational performance, while institutional and resource variables have a more limited effect. Peer effects are significant in general, but ability‐sorting at the school and/or class levels makes it difficult to interpret these effects in H ong K ong and S ingapore.