Determinants and Consequences of Student Test Scores: Evidence from International, Big, and Text Data
ifo Institut, München, 2023
ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung / 102
![](https://www.ifo.de/DocImg/BeitrWiFo_102_Sancassani.jpg?c=1692251507)
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.