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Papay JP, Murnane RJ, Willett JB. High-School Exit Examinations and the Schooling Decisions of Teenagers: Evidence From Regression-Discontinuity Approaches. J Res Educ Eff. 2014;7(1):1-27doi: 10.1080/19345747.2013.819398.
Papay, J. P., Murnane, R. J., & Willett, J. B. (2014). High-School Exit Examinations and the Schooling Decisions of Teenagers: Evidence From Regression-Discontinuity Approaches. Journal of research on educational effectiveness, 7(1), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1080/19345747.2013.819398
Papay, John P, et al. "High-School Exit Examinations and the Schooling Decisions of Teenagers: Evidence From Regression-Discontinuity Approaches." Journal of research on educational effectiveness vol. 7,1 (2014): 1-27. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/19345747.2013.819398
Papay JP, Murnane RJ, Willett JB. High-School Exit Examinations and the Schooling Decisions of Teenagers: Evidence From Regression-Discontinuity Approaches. J Res Educ Eff. 2014;7(1):1-27. doi: 10.1080/19345747.2013.819398. PMID: 25606065; PMCID: PMC4297655.
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J Res Educ Eff. 2014;7(1):1-27. doi: 10.1080/19345747.2013.819398.

High-School Exit Examinations and the Schooling Decisions of Teenagers: Evidence From Regression-Discontinuity Approaches.

Journal of research on educational effectiveness

John P Papay, Richard J Murnane, John B Willett

Affiliations

  1. Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
  2. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
  3. Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

PMID: 25606065 PMCID: PMC4297655 DOI: 10.1080/19345747.2013.819398

Abstract

We examine whether barely failing one or more state-mandated high school exit examinations in Massachusetts affects the probability that students enroll in college. We extend the exit examination literature in two ways. First, we explore longer term effects of failing these tests. We find that barely failing an exit examination, for students on the margin of passing, reduces the probability of college attendance several years after the test. Second, we explore potential interactions that arise because students must pass exit examinations in both mathematics and English language arts in order to graduate from high school. We adopt a variety of regression-discontinuity approaches to address situations where multiple variables assign individuals to a range of treatments; some of these approaches enable us to examine whether the effect of barely failing one examination depends on student performance on the other. We document the range of causal effects estimated by each approach. We argue that each approach presents opportunities and limitations for making causal inferences in such situations and that the choice of approach should match the question of interest.

Keywords: Exit examinations; high-stakes tests; regression-discontinuity

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