Incentives from curriculum tracking

Curriculum tracking creates incentives in the years before its start, and we should therefore expect test scores to be higher during those years. I find robust evidence for incentive effects of tracking in the UK based on the UK comprehensive school reform. Results from the Swedish comprehensive school reform are inconclusive. Internationally, I find a large and widening test score gap between early and late tracking countries. Incentive effects of tracking show how early age scores can be endogenous with respect to later-age policies, and add to a growing literature on incentives in education.Peer reviewe

Incentives from Curriculum Tracking: Cross-national and UK Evidence

Curriculum tracking creates incentives before its start, and we should expect scores in tested subjects to be higher at that point. I find evidence from both UK and international data for sizable incentive effects. Incentive effects are important from a methodological perspective because they lead to downward bias in value-added estimates of the later age effect of tracking on achievement. They also invalidate placebo tests that work by regressing pre-tracking scores on tracking policies.incentives; curriculum tracking; ability streaming; high-stakes testing; student achievement

The Risk and Return of Human Capital Investments

Investing in human capital increases lifetime income, but these investments may involve substantial risk. In this paper we use a Finnish panel spanning 22 years to predict the mean, the variance and the skew of the present value of lifetime income, and to calculate certainty equivalent lifetime income at different levels of education. We find that university education is associated with about a half a million euro increase in discounted lifetime disposable income compared to vocational high school. Accounting for risk does little to change this picture. By contrast, vocational high school is associated with only moderately higher lifetime income compared to compulsory education, and the entire difference is due to differential nonemployment

The size of the core in school choice

JEL Classification: C78, D82, C71We study the determinants of the size of the core in the school choice problem using three years of data from a large higher education application clearinghouse. The clearinghouse uses a variation of the college-optimal stable mechanism (COSM) to assign applicants to slots in Finnish polytechnics. If the core is large, switching to a student-optimal stable mechanism (SOSM) could yield large improvements for applicants at a cost to schools. We however find that the core is either a singleton or very small each year. This suggests that the student/school trade-off is relatively unimportant within the set of stable matchings in Finnish polytechnic assignments. We show that the similarity of COSM and SOSM matchings is due to correlated school priorities, differing numbers of students and slots, and to students only applying to a small number of programs each. Because these properties are common to other higher education school choice problems, our conclusions are likely to generalize. In spite of the fact that Finnish polytechnics jointly only accept a third of applicants, accepted applicants' average matriculation exam grades are not much better than those of the median applicant. We attribute this to the low effective number of programs applied to, and suggest that details in the design of the application process affect the trade-off in match quality

3d augmented mirror: a multimodal interface for string instrument learning and teaching with gesture support

Multimodal interfaces can open up new possibilities for music education, where the traditional model of teaching is based predominantly on verbal feedback. This paper explores the development and use of multimodal interfaces in novel tools to support music practice training. The design of multimodal interfaces for music education presents a challenge in several respects. One is the integration of multimodal technology into the music learning process. The other is the technological development, where we present a solution that aims to support string practice training with visual and auditory feedback. Building on the traditional function of a physical mirror as a teaching aid, we describe the concept and development of an "augmented mirror" using 3D motion capture technology

Ensemble Concerts: Chamber Wind Ensemble, October 23, 1975

Capen AuditoriumThursday EveningOctober 23, 19758:15 p.m