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Own Motivation, Peer Motivation, and Educational Success

Bietenbeck, Jan LU (2020) In DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES p.1-53
Abstract
I study how motivation shapes own and peers’ educational success. Using data from Project STAR, I find that academic motivation in early elementary school, as measured by a standardized psychological test, predicts contemporaneous and future test scores, high school GPA, and college-test taking over and above cognitive skills. Exploiting random assignment of students to classes, I find that exposure to motivated classmates causally affects contemporaneous reading achievement, a peer effect that operates over and above spillovers from classmates’ past achievement and socio-demographic composition. However, peer motivation does not affect longer-term educational success, likely because it does not change own motivation.
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
I21, J13, J24, motivation, personality, peer effects, Project STAR
in
DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES
issue
13872
pages
1 - 53
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
483f783c-2c1c-4d1a-a130-6904443c67bd
alternative location
https://docs.iza.org/dp13872.pdf
date added to LUP
2022-08-31 13:57:47
date last changed
2025-04-04 14:20:30
@misc{483f783c-2c1c-4d1a-a130-6904443c67bd,
  abstract     = {{I study how motivation shapes own and peers’ educational success. Using data from Project STAR, I find that academic motivation in early elementary school, as measured by a standardized psychological test, predicts contemporaneous and future test scores, high school GPA, and college-test taking over and above cognitive skills. Exploiting random assignment of students to classes, I find that exposure to motivated classmates causally affects contemporaneous reading achievement, a peer effect that operates over and above spillovers from classmates’ past achievement and socio-demographic composition. However, peer motivation does not affect longer-term educational success, likely because it does not change own motivation.}},
  author       = {{Bietenbeck, Jan}},
  keywords     = {{I21; J13; J24; motivation; personality; peer effects; Project STAR}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  number       = {{13872}},
  pages        = {{1--53}},
  series       = {{DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES}},
  title        = {{Own Motivation, Peer Motivation, and Educational Success}},
  url          = {{https://docs.iza.org/dp13872.pdf}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}