Determinants and Consequences of Student Test Scores: Evidence from International, Big, and Text Data

Pietro Sancassani prepared this study while he was working at the Center for Economics of Education at the ifo Institut. The study was completed in March 2023 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the LMU Munich. It consists of four distinct empirical essays and addresses various determinants and the consequences of student test scores. Chapter 2 investigates the impact of four teacher characteristics – whether teachers hold a Master' s degree, a subject-specific qualification, a major in education, or their level of experience – on student science test scores in ten different countries. Chapter 3 shows that teacher subject-specific qualifications positively affect student science test scores in thirty countries around the world. Chapter 4 shows the association between a measure of patience derived from social media data and student test scores at the regional level. Finally, Chapter 5 shows that the salience of the education topic induced by the "PISA-shock" in Germany led to an increase in the polarization of parliamentary debates about education.