Abstract
Previous research has found that children who are born later in the academic year have lower educational attainment, on average, than children who are born earlier in the year, especially at younger ages; much less is known about the mechanisms that drive this inequality. The paper uses two complementary identification strategies to estimate an upper bound of the effect of age at test by using rich data from two UK birth cohorts. We find that differences in the age at which cognitive skills are tested accounts for the vast majority of the difference in these outcomes between children who are born at different times of the year, whereas the combined effect of the other factors (age of starting school, length of schooling and relative age) is close to zero. This suggests that applying an age adjustment to national achievement test scores may be an appropriate policy response to overcome the penalty that is associated with being born later in the academic year. Age at test does not, however, explain all of the difference in children's view of their own scholastic competence. Age adjusting national achievement test scores may help to overcome differences in ability beliefs between children who are born at different times of the year, but our results suggest that additional policy responses may be required.
Highlights
Previous research has found that children who are born at the start of the academic year achieve better examination results, on average, than children who are born at the end of the academic year (e.g. Fredriksson and Ockert (2013), Bedard and Dhuey (2006), Datar (2006), Puhani and Weber (2007), Black et al (2011), McEwan and Shapiro (2008) and Smith (2009))
Non-cognitive skills The results that were presented above have shown that there is little difference in cognitive test scores between children who are born at the start and end of the academic year when they are assessed at the same age, suggesting that a policy of age normalizing test scores might
In contrast with the results for cognitive skills, these results suggest that a policy response of appropriately age adjusting tests may not completely resolve the issues that are associated with being born later in the academic year in terms of these wider measures of skills: it is plausible that the scholastic confidence of younger children may respond positively to feedback being provided by using appropriately age-adjusted test scores, the fact that there remains a significant difference in this outcome between children who are born at different times of the year even when it is asked at the same age suggests that other factors may be playing a role here
Summary
Previous research has found that children who are born at the start of the academic year achieve better examination results, on average, than children who are born at the end of the academic year (e.g. Fredriksson and Ockert (2013), Bedard and Dhuey (2006), Datar (2006), Puhani and Weber (2007), Black et al (2011), McEwan and Shapiro (2008) and Smith (2009)). Greaves the UK Department for Education, showed that August-born children in England score, on average, over half a standard deviation lower than their September-born counterparts in national achievement tests at age 7 years. This difference decreases over time but is still significant at age 16 years, when young people are making decisions about whether to stay on for post-compulsory education. By contrast, Robertson (2011) found that differences between those who are born earlier and later in the academic year are eliminated by the eighth grade (around ages 12–14 years) in a US sample, where ‘redshirting’ (or delaying a child’s entry to school) is more common
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