Often it is infeasible or unethical to use random assignment in educational settings to study important constructs and questions. Hence, educational research often uses observational data, such as large-scale secondary data sets and state and school district data, and quasi-experimental designs. One method of reducing selection bias in estimations of treatment effects is propensity score analys...

This chapter discusses the theoretical and empirical issues relevant to the study. The chapter consists of 8 parts. Section 3.1 provides the theoretical background for educational investments. Section 3.2 discusses the benefits of education. Section 3.3 discusses the costs of education. Section 3.4 discusses the concepts of net present value and internal rate of return. Section 3.5 outlines the...

This study proposes and illustrates a two-stage strategy to analyze differential item functioning in comparative educational studies. At the first stage, within each country, item difficulties are estimated. At the second stage, results are combined across countries using a meta-analytic framework to investigate (a) whether the items function consistently at the country level, and (b) what coun...

Relying on private tutoring expenditures in South Korea, this paper examines whether large family size has a strong negative impact on educational investments in children. In the face of difficulties in finding an exogenous IV for family size, the paper employs a nonparametric bounding method. Our primary finding is that quantity-quality trade-offs in educational investments function in a way t...

Numerous research studies support the claim that affect plays a critical role in decision-making and performance as it influences cognitive processes [1] [2] [3]. Despite this body of research there is insufficient theory within educational pedagogy to recognize and address the role and function of affect. The innovative models and theories that have been proposed to facilitate advancement in t...

This study explicitly considers that education is a multi-input multi-output production process subject to inefficient behaviors that can be identified at student level. Therefore a distance function allows us to calculate different aspects of educational technology. The paper presents an empirical application of this model using Spanish data from the Programme for International Student Assessm...

Often it is infeasible or unethical to use random assignment in educational settings to study important constructs and questions. Hence, educational research often uses observational data, such as large-scale secondary data sets and state and school district data, and quasi-experimental designs. One method of reducing selection bias in estimations of treatment effects is propensity score analys...