The Persistent Effects of Short-Term Peer Groups in Higher Education
(2018) In Working Papers- Abstract
- This paper studies the persistent effects of short-term peer exposure in a college setting. I exploit the random assignment of undergraduates to peer groups during a mandatory orientation week and follow the students until graduation. High levels of peer ability in a group harm the students’ test scores and lead to increases in the probability of early dropout; this result is driven by the adverse effect of high-ability peers on low-ability students. I find suggestive evidence for discouragement effects: Peer ability is negatively correlated with the students’ confidence in their academic ability after the first week.
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/ce415b17-a05a-4551-9efd-20ff48e33fa6
- author
- Thiemann, Petra LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2018
- type
- Working paper/Preprint
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- peer effect, higher education, natural experiment, ability, educational attainment, dropout, major choice, I21, I23, J24
- in
- Working Papers
- issue
- 2018:32
- pages
- 48 pages
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- ce415b17-a05a-4551-9efd-20ff48e33fa6
- date added to LUP
- 2018-11-19 16:45:22
- date last changed
- 2024-09-15 00:27:01
@misc{ce415b17-a05a-4551-9efd-20ff48e33fa6, abstract = {{This paper studies the persistent effects of short-term peer exposure in a college setting. I exploit the random assignment of undergraduates to peer groups during a mandatory orientation week and follow the students until graduation. High levels of peer ability in a group harm the students’ test scores and lead to increases in the probability of early dropout; this result is driven by the adverse effect of high-ability peers on low-ability students. I find suggestive evidence for discouragement effects: Peer ability is negatively correlated with the students’ confidence in their academic ability after the first week.}}, author = {{Thiemann, Petra}}, keywords = {{peer effect; higher education; natural experiment; ability; educational attainment; dropout; major choice; I21; I23; J24}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Working Paper}}, number = {{2018:32}}, series = {{Working Papers}}, title = {{The Persistent Effects of Short-Term Peer Groups in Higher Education}}, url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/195177425/WP18_32.pdf}}, year = {{2018}}, }