The Opportunity Monitor of ifo and "A Heart for Children"
How (un)equally are educational opportunities of children from different families distributed in Germany? This is what the Opportunity Monitor of ifo and the charity "A Heart for Children" is documenting. It measures the probability of attending an academic-track school (Gymnasium) depending on family background. The differences are enormous: For example, the probability of attending a Gymnasium is 21.5% if a child grows up with a single parent without a high-school diploma from the lowest income quartile and with a migrant background. In contrast, it is 80.3% if the child grows up with two parents with high-school diplomas from the top income quartile and without a migrant background. The Opportunity Monitor recommends six areas for policy to increase equality of educational opportunities. more...
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Expert Council of Education on professional sovereignty
Professional sovereignty refers to the ability to self-determine career choice, practice, and adaptation with an understanding of the societal and economic context. Professional orientation is a lifelong task that aims to match a person's interests and skills with the needs of the labor market and the requirements of occupational tasks. In its new report, the Expert Council of Education shows which personal and structural requirements are necessary for the lifelong process of successful career orientation and sets out, across educational phases, how professional sovereignty can be developed and promoted. more...
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Can internet surveys represent the entire population?
A concern with internet surveys is their representativeness due to excluding the "offline" population. In a paper just published in the European Journal of Political Economy, Katharina Werner and Ludger Woessmann from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education, Philipp Lergetporer from TU Munich, Lisa Simon from Revelio Labs, and Elisabeth Grewenig from KfW Frankfurt run a large-scale opinion survey. It includes online participants in internet-survey mode, offline participants in face-to-face mode, and internet users in face-to-face mode. They find marked response differences between onliners and offliners in different modes. Response differences between onliners and offliners in the same face-to-face mode disappear when controlling for background characteristics. In this setting, re-weighting online-survey observations appears a pragmatic solution to achieve representativeness for the entire population. more...
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Who heads the German ministries of education?
To address this question, Lukas Mergele, Larissa Zierow, and Natalie Irmert (formerly ifo Center for the Economics of Education), Kaja Mummert from the TU Dresden, and Rita Nikolai from the University of Augsburg develop a new comprehensive dataset. The dataset, which is described in an article recently published in the Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, covers the biographical characteristics of the education ministers from all German states from 1950 to 2020. For example, regardless of party affiliation, significantly more men than women were appointed as ministers of education. The majority of education ministers did not have previous professional experience as a teacher, but most already had previous political experience. The dataset is available to all interested researchers. more...
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Positive before negative feedback increases motivation
Does feedback order matter for motivation and performance? To answer this question in her new ifo Working Paper, Lavinia Kinne from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education designs a field experiment among university students at LMU Munich. In random order, the students get one positive and one negative feedback element on their performance in exam practice questions. Students who first receive positive feedback are more motivated to study for the exam compared to those receiving negative feedback first. This effect is driven by a drop in motivation after negative feedback when receiving it first. There is suggestive evidence for significant effects on exam performance only among subgroups. more...
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Feedback on relative performance improves study success
Providing university students with ongoing relative performance feedback accelerates graduation and improves grades. This is the result of a field experiment performed at a German university of applied sciences on which Raphael Brade from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education, Oliver Himmler from the University of Erfurt, and Robert Jäckle from the Nuremberg Institute of Technology report in their new CESifo Working Paper. The result is concentrated among students with medium pre-treatment graduation probabilities who learn that they perform above average. Learning about own ability is a plausible mechanism. more...
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Gender differences in adult skills
Using PIAAC data, in their new CESifo Working Paper Lavinia Kinne from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education, Michele Battisti from the University of Glasgow, and Alexandra Fedorets DIW Berlin present novel findings on gender gaps in cognitive skills among adults in 34 countries. Despite increasing educational equality, inequalities in numeracy skills in favor of men are pervasive. These skill differences account for a sizable part of the gender wage gap. Disadvantages are larger and returns to skills lower for women at the top of the wage distribution. more...
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IN THE INTERNATIONAL NEWS
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German children inherit parents' educational success
Euractiv.com writes about the Opportunity Monitor of ifo and "A Heart for Children."
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Educational opportunities: "Unfairly distributed"
Florian Schoner talks at ZDF-Morgenmagazin about the results of the Opportunity Monitor of ifo and "A Heart for Children."
Family background determines educational opportunities
Ludger Woessmann discusses the results of the Opportunity Monitor of ifo and "A Heart for Children" in Report from Berlin (from min. 21:30). He is also interviewed on Bild TV.
When children hardly have a chance
Numerous other media also report on the Opportunity Monitor of ifo and "A Heart for Children", including Tagesthemen (from min. 22:40), Deutschlandfunk, spiegel.de, faz.de, tagesspiegel.de, tagesspiegel.de, zeit.de, welt.de, handelsblatt.de, bild.de, bild.de, bild.de, table.media, and dpa.
Education does not have to be expensive
An article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung discusses the results of the Opportunity Monitor of ifo and "A Heart for Children" and the evaluation of the mentoring program "Rock Your Life!" by the ifo Center for the Economics of Education.
"Anything that would hurt does not get addressed"
Ludger Woessmann gives an interview on spiegel.de on the significance of declining student achievement and how to combat it. An op ed in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung also quotes Ludger Woessmann on declining student achievement in Germany and its effects.
"It's disastrous that Germany is so slow"
Interview with Ludger Woessmann on the education summit on wiwo.de.
"A new PISA shock must go through the country"
Guest article by Ludger Woessmann in the "Voice of the Economists" in Münchner Merkur, on fr.de, and other regional newspapers.
"The university entrance qualification is worth less and less"
In Bild am Sonntag, Ludger Woessmann warns of a devaluation of university entrance qualification grades as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. These statements are also part of articles on spiegel.de, sueddeutsche.de, welt.de, rtl.de, and others.
Faulty self-assessment
Katharina Werner in an interview with Deutschlandfunk about student performance in the German states and how it is assessed by the population and members of parliament. The Nürnberger Nachrichten also reports on the study.
The price of the lockdown
Sueddeutsche.de quotes Vera Freundl on the effects of the Covid-19-related school closures.
More than 2.5 million without vocational qualification
Bild.de quotes Ludger Woessmann on the importance of vocational qualification.
Preparing for working life?
Welt.de writes about the report of the Expert Council of Education on professional sovereignty in which Ludger Woessmann participated.
ifo economist advocates more internships for students
Ludger Woessmann argues on merkur.de that companies should proactively recruit student interns.
How should funds for schools in difficulties be distributed?
Ludger Woessmann argues on faz.net for a clear monitoring of a new federal budget for starting opportunities.
A quarter of all elementary school students cannot read properly
Frankfurter Rundschau picks up the study by the ifo Center for the Economics of Education on Corona-related school closures.
The middle class does not even want educational justice
An article on zeit.de includes results of the ifo Education Survey 2019 on the distribution of financial resources to schools.
Compulsory education also applies to the state
Bild.de mentions the study on global universal basic skills by the ifo Center for the Economics of Education.
How career changers are to save early childcare from the crisis
Welt.de reports on the survey results from the ifo Education Survey on compulsory early childcare.
Four lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic
Focus.de writes about the results of the ifo Education Survey 2021, in particular about the assessment of schools by the German population.
How to solve the skilled labor shortage
The Abendzeitung reports on the effectiveness of the mentoring program "Rock Your Life!" which was evaluated by the ifo Center for the Economics of Education.
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SELECTED EVENTS AND PRESENTATIONS
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Release of the Opportunity Monitor of ifo and "A Heart for Children"
The Opportunity Monitor of ifo and "A Heart for Children" was released on April 18, 2023, in Berlin together with Federal Education Minister Stark-Watzinger. A video of the event is available online. The press release of the ifo Institute can be read here and the statement of the Leibniz Association here.
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CESifo/ifo Junior Workshop on Economics of Education
On April 26 and 27, 2023, the first CESifo/ifo Junior Workshop on Economics of Education took place with many exciting presentations by young scholars in the economics of education. Barbara Biasi of Yale University gave the keynote lecture.
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Erich Schneider Memorial Lecture 2023
Ludger Woessmann held the Erich Schneider Memorial Lecture at Kiel University on April 18, 2023.
Teacher qualifications and student achievement: An economics of education impulse
Ludger Woessmann's economics of education impulse at the Teacher Education Day of the Bavarian Philologists' Association on March 21, 2023, can be viewed online.
Congress "Germany has a future"
The report "Education and Professional Sovereignty" of the Expert Council of Education was presented on May 3, 2023 at a congress in the hbw Conference Center in Munich. Ludger Woessmann participated in the panel discussion.
Africa Economics Series of the World Bank
Ludger Woessmann presented his work on universal basic skills in the Africa Economics Series of the World Bank. A video is available online.
Presentation at the University College London
In the Seminar of QSS, CLS, and CEPEO at the University College London (UCL), Ludger Woessmann presented research results on a mentoring program. The video is available online.
Presentation at the London School of Economics
Alexander Bertermann presented his research findings on education and life satisfaction at the LSE Wellbeing Seminar at the London School of Economics on May 11, 2023. The presentation is available online.
Conferences and workshops
Researchers of the ifo Center for the Economics of Education presented their work at numerous professional conferences and workshops, including the Society of Labor Economics 2023, the Annual Conference of the Royal Economic Society/Scottish Economic Society, and the LEER Conference on Education Economics.
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Articles in refereed journals
Elisabeth Grewenig, Philipp Lergetporer, Lisa Simon, Katharina Werner, and Ludger Woessmann, "Can Internet Surveys Represent the Entire Population? A Practitioners' Analysis", European Journal of Political Economy 78: 102382, 2023.
Natalie Irmert, Kaja Mummert, Rita Nikolai, Lukas Mergele, and Larissa Zierow, "Wer leitet die deutschen Bildungsministerien? Ein neuer Datensatz zur Analyse von biografischen Merkmalen von Bildungsminister:innen der Bundesländer, 1950-2020", Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, 2023.
Monographs
Aktionsrat Bildung, "Bildung und berufliche Souveränität", Münster: Waxmann, 2023.
Working Papers
Michele Battisti, Alexandra Fedorets, and Lavinia Kinne, "Cognitive Skills among Adults: An Impeding Factor for Gender Convergence?", CESifo Working Paper No. 10428, 2023.
Raphael Brade, Oliver Himmler, and Robert Jäckle, "Relative Performance Feedback and Long-Term Tasks - Experimental Evidence from Higher Education", CESifo Working Paper No. 10346, 2023.
Lavinia Kinne, "Good or Bad News First? The Effect of Feedback Order on Motivation and Performance", ifo Working Paper No. 396, 2023.
Further articles
Sebastian Blesse, Vera Freundl, Philipp Lergetporer, Justus Nover, and Katharina Werner, "Was verhindert einen leistungssteigernden Wettbewerb im Bildungsföderalismus?", ifo Schnelldienst 76 (4): 48-52, 2023.
Vera Freundl and Pietro Sancassani, "The Effect of Subject-Specific Teacher Qualifications on Student Science Achievement", EconPol Policy Brief 51, 2023.
Vera Freundl and Pietro Sancassani, "Wie wirken sich fachspezifische Lehrkraftqualifikationen auf Schülerleistungen in den Naturwissenschaften aus?", ifo Schnelldienst 76 (5): 23-28, 2023.
Ludger Woessmann, Vera Freundl, Franziska Pfaehler, and Florian Schoner, "Der ifo-"Ein Herz für Kinder"-Chancenmonitor: Wie (un-)gerecht sind die Bildungschancen von Kindern aus verschiedenen Familien in Deutschland verteilt?", ifo Schnelldienst 76 (4): 29-47, 2023.
Ludger Woessmann, Vera Freundl, Franziska Pfaehler, and Florian Schoner, "Sinkendes Leistungsniveau, hohe Chancenungleichheit - Stand und Handlungsoptionen für die deutsche Schulbildung", Wirtschaftsdienst 103 (4): 233-237, 2023.
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