Policy Seed Grant | 2004-2005
Grade Retention: A Solution for Turning Failure into Success?
by Jennifer Hill (International and Public Affairs) and Christopher Weiss (ISERP)
Recent developments in statistics and economics have provided new research tools that allow researchers to estimate causal effects from non-experimental data in certain situations. However, for the most part, these techniques have not been utilized in education research, where they could be of substantial benefit in evaluating the effects of programs and policies. We propose to develop and refine an innovative statistical approach to causal estimation in observational studies. We will then use it to investigate one of the more interesting policy questions in education-focused social science research, that of the effects of grade retention on students. Grade retention is a policy in which students who have not mastered the skills of a particular grade are required to repeat that grade. Despite increased recent attention given to the topic, we have little solid evidence about the causal effects of retention on student outcomes. Moreover, little work has examined retention's effects in conjunction with other compensatory policies such as tutoring or remedial classes. In this proposed research, we will shed new light on the effects of grade retention by applying innovative statistical methods to rich datasets not used before for this research question.
See Also
- Research grants undertaken by Jennifer Hill
- Featured publication: Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models
- Working paper: Reducing Bias in Treatment Effect Estimation in Observational Studies Suffering from Missing Data
