Performance Gaps in Education: An Experimental Investigation of Public Perception and Policy Support

I utilize a Germany-wide representative survey (Freundl et al., 2022) to conduct an information provision experiment following the approach proposed by Haaland et al. (2023). Within the survey, I employ a random assignment strategy to provide participants with information regarding performance gaps in standardized tests. Specifically, I present information on the disparities observed between genders, children with and without a migrant background, and children from parents with different socioeconomic statuses. Subsequently, I examine the impact of this information on participants' perception of the problematic nature of these gaps and their support for measures aimed at addressing performance differences between girls and boys. Additionally, I explore the treatment effects on participants' perception of public spending in the field of education through an obfuscated follow-up.
References:
Vera Freundl, Elisabeth Grewenig, Franziska Kugler, Philipp Lergetporer, Ruth Schüler, Katharina Werner, Katharina Wedel, Olivia Wirth, Ludger Wößmann, „The ifo Education Survey 2014–2021: A New Dataset on Public Preferences for Education Policy in Germany“, Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, 2022.
Haaland, I., Roth, C., & Wohlfart, J. (2023). Designing information provision experiments. Journal of Economic Literature, 61(1), 3-40.

2019-05-06

2019-05-24

Policy preference; Problem perception; Perception of public spending

Policy Preference
First, I assess preferences for introducing gender-specific support to compensate for differences in. I measure preferences on a five point Likert scale from "1 – strongly favor" to "5 – strongly oppose".

Problem Perception
Second, I ask participants if they perceive unequal opportunities for children [from good or difficult social backgrounds/ with different genders/ with and without migration background] in the German education system as a problem. I measure this perception on a four point Likert scale from “1 - not a problem at all", to “4 - a very serious problem"

Follow-up Survey
Third, in a follow-up survey I measure the perception of governmental spending. I ask participants how much is spent on average each year per student on public general schools in Germany via an open entry field. Then I ask participants whether public spending on education should increase, decrease, or stay the same on a five point Likert scale from “1 - greatly increase", to "5 - greatly decrease".

Heterogeneity analysis

I will conduct heterogeneity analyses by respondents’ stated priors about the relative performance of the groups, by their certainty in their responses, and by demographics, such as e.g. migration background, parent status, and education background.

I randomize participants in four groups. The groups are two uninformed control groups and two treatment groups that receive information on performance gaps between girls and boys in a standardized test. Participants then have to answer a question whether they are in favor or oppose introducing gender-specific support to compensate for differences in mathematics/reading performance between girls and boys on a five point Likert scale. I then only randomize participants of the uninformed control group into two additional groups. One uninformed control group and one group that receives information on average performance gaps between girls and boys, of children with and without migration background, and for children from parents with higher or lower socioeconomic status. Participants then state whether they perceive the disparity to be a problem on a four point Likert scale. In an obfuscated follow-up, I also investigate treatment effects on the perception of public spending in education.

Not available

Randomization by survey software

Participant level

No

-

4000 participants

1000

With a sample of 4’000 respondents, four treatment arms and 80% power at the 5% significance level, the minimum detectable effect size is at around 0.052 of a difference in the mean scale points between two treatment conditions.