Peer effects in academic outcomes Evidence from a natural experiment

I use data from Williams College to implement a quasi-experimental empirical strategy aimed at measuring peer effects in academic outcomes. In particular, I use data on individual students' grades, their SAT scores, and the SAT scores of their roommates. I argue that first-year roommates are as...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe review of economics and statistics Vol. 85; no. 1; pp. 9 - 23
Main Author Zimmerman, David J
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 238 Main St., Suite 500, Cambridge, MA 02142-1046, USA MIT Press 01.02.2003
MIT Press Journals, The
Subjects
Academic achievement
Bildungsniveau
Bildungsverhalten
Economic models
Education
Grade point average
High school students
Hispanics
Housing
Mathematical variables
Mathematics
Mathematics education
Natural experiments
Rooms
SAT assessment
Soziale Beziehung
Standardized tests
Statistical analysis
Student
Studies
Testing
USA
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Summary:I use data from Williams College to implement a quasi-experimental empirical strategy aimed at measuring peer effects in academic outcomes. In particular, I use data on individual students' grades, their SAT scores, and the SAT scores of their roommates. I argue that first-year roommates are assigned randomly with respect to academic ability. This allows me to measure differences in grades of high-, medium-or low-SAT students living with high-, medium-, or low-SAT roommates. With random assignment these estimates would provide compelling estimates of the effect of roommates' academic characteristics on an individual's grades. I also consider the effect of peers at somewhat more aggregated levels. In particular, I consider the effects associated with different academic environments in clusters of rooms that define distinct social units. The results suggest that peer effects are almost always linked more strongly with verbal SAT scores than with math SAT scores. Students in the middle of the SAT distribution may have somewhat worse grades if they share a room with a student who is in the bottom 15% of the verbal SAT distribution. The effects are not large, but are statistically significant in many models.
Bibliography:February, 2003
ISSN:0034-6535
1530-9142
DOI:10.1162/003465303762687677