The Effects of School-to-School Collaboration on Student Cognitive Skills: Evidence from Propensity Score Analysis

Abstract

School-to-school collaboration has been widely applied in many countries to improve schools’ academic outcomes. This study contributes to the understanding of the cognitive benefits of school-to-school collaboration. This study analyses the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS, 2013–2014) data by using propensity score matching to reveal the causal relations. The CEPS is a national survey that seeks feedback on the educational experience of students in grade 7 and grade 9 (age 13 and 15), their teachers and parents by using a stratified, multistage, sampling technique. The findings suggest that school-to-school collaboration can significantly promote students’ cognitive skills, given a series of covariates. Moreover, the heterogeneous treatment effect across family-related and individual-related covariates has been estimated. Students with higher social-economic status and better family support benefit less from the cognitive returns of school-to-school collaboration than those who have lower social-economic status and limited family support. The findings of this study suggest that the cognitive benefits of school-to-school collaboration have no difference in relation to students’ health conditions, learning time, or their experiences in school. Finally, the study’s limitations and future research directions are discussed.