Tougher Educational Exam Leading to Worse Selection

Eduardo de Carvalho Andrade; Luciano I. de Castro

doi:10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2011-17

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Tougher Educational Exam Leading to Worse Selection

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Tougher Educational Exam Leading to Worse Selection

Eduardo de Carvalho Andrade and Luciano I. de Castro

Economics. The open-access, open-assessment e-journal, Vol.5(1), pp.1-24

01/01/2011

DOI: 10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2011-17

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Abstract

A parallel of education with transformative processes in standard markets suggest that a more severe control of the quality of the output will improve the overall quality of the education. This paper shows a somehow counterintuitive result: an increase in the exam diffculty may reduce the average quality (productivity) of selected individuals. Since the exam does not verify all skills, when its standard rises, candidates with relatively low skills emphasized in the test and high skills demanded in the job may no longer qualify. Hence, an increase in the testing standard may be counterproductive. One implication is that policies should emphasize alignment between the skills tested and those required in the actual jobs, rather than increase exams’ diffculty.

cognitive skill

J24

noncognitive skill

School standard

signaling model

Details

Title: Subtitle: Tougher Educational Exam Leading to Worse Selection
Creators: Eduardo de Carvalho Andrade - Insper
Luciano I. de Castro - Northwestern University
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Economics. The open-access, open-assessment e-journal, Vol.5(1), pp.1-24
DOI: 10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2011-17
ISSN: 1864-6042
eISSN: 1864-6042
Publisher: Sciendo
Number of pages: 26
Language: English
Date published: 01/01/2011
Academic Unit: Economics
Record Identifier: 9984380616202771

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