Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/263537 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 15321
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Grade-based performance measures are often relied on when considering the efficacy of education-related policy interventions. Yet, it is common for measures of student performance to be subjected to curves and discretized through letter-grade transformations. We show how transformed grades systematically challenge causal identification. Even without explicit curving, transformations to letter grade are particularly problematic and yield treatment estimates that are weighted combinations of inflated responsiveness around letter thresholds and "zeros" away from these thresholds. Curving practices can also introduce false patterns of treatment heterogeneity, attenuating measured responses to treatment among high-performing students, for example, or inflating measured responses among low-performing students.
Subjects: 
program evaluation
grades
curves
gpa
education
JEL: 
I21
I26
C21
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
11.05 MB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.