The effect of supplemental instruction on academic performance: An encouragement design experiment

Alfredo Paloyo, Sally Rogan and Peter Siminski

Economics of Education Review, 2016, vol. 55, issue C, 57-69

Abstract: Supplemental Instruction (SI) or PASS (Peer Assisted Study Sessions) has been widely offered to students at tertiary institutions in many countries with the aim of improving academic performance. The SI/PASS evaluation literature is extensive, but it has not adequately addressed potential selection bias. We evaluate an SI/PASS program at an Australian university through a randomized-encouragement-design experiment. A randomly selected subgroup of students from first-year courses (N=6954) was offered large incentives (worth AUD 55,000) to attend PASS which increased attendance by an estimated 0.47 hours each. This first-stage (inducement) effect did not vary with the size of the incentive and was larger (0.89) for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Instrumental-variable estimates suggest that 1 hour of PASS improved grades by 0.065 standard deviations, which is consistent with the non-experimental literature. However, this estimate is not statistically significant, reflecting limited statistical power. The estimated effect is largest for students in their first semester at university.

Keywords: Australia; Randomized-encouragement design; Student outcomes; Peer-assisted study session; Supplemental instruction; Selection bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 I21 I23 I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Working Paper: The Effect of Supplemental Instruction on Academic Performance: An Encouragement Design Experiment (2016)
Working Paper: The effect of supplemental instruction on academic performance: An encouragement design experiment (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:55:y:2016:i:c:p:57-69

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2016.08.005

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