Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/207369 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 12543
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Prior research has shown that time spent in school does not close the achievement gap between students with low and high socioeconomic status (SES). We examine the effect of combining increased instruction time with information to teachers about their students' reading achievements by using a randomized controlled trial. We find that the teachers' baseline beliefs are more important for low-SES students' academic performance, that the intervention makes the teachers update these beliefs, and—not least—that the intervention improves the reading skills of low-SES students and thereby reduces the achievement gap between high- and low-SES students. The results are consistent with a model in which the teachers' beliefs about the students' reading skills are more important to low- than high-SES students, while at the same time, the teachers' beliefs are subject to information friction and Bayesian learning.
Subjects: 
information
learning
field experiment
JEL: 
I24
I28
D83
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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